Ask for blessings

Here's something I do when I go to beaches. It doesn't really matter which beach, and there's no difference between when I live near a beach and when I don't, I do it the same way:

Look out to the water with your feet in the waves
Open your arms and your heart
As the ocean to send you a blessing, or a message
Wait until something washes up--or washes out 

More often than not, something washes up onto my feet or against my leg. When it's a shell or a bit of wood or whatever, I pick it up, tank the sea, and keep it. I have a rock collection and a shell collection anyway, what's a few more meaningful bits of stuff? I'm like a bower-bird, I naturally sort of build shrines, just piles of stuff that catches my eye.

I decide what it means, based on where I am, what I'm doing, how I feel, what I need to hear, the whole context of my life.

Once in a while, the sea steals a toe ring or an earring, and that's a message, too.

And sometimes nothing happens except that I stand in the sea, breathing the air that hasn't come across cityscapes and thousands of other people, and that's a gift or a message, too.

It's strange, asking for blessings, but it's also sort of wild and free, so long as you don't have any preconceived notions about what counts as a message, a gift, a blessing. It makes me pause and notice the world and those old rhythms that don't care about when shops close and when people want to hit the road. It makes me feel special--and also puts me in my place. It reminds me that I actually can ask for things, if I can remember how, because usually, I'm so self-contained that it doesn't occur to me to ask for something outside myself or from something not-me.

I think any sort of ritual like this is a connecting with the higher organizations of the universe that we sometimes forget are there. Whether you see that as a spiritual detail or not--sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, you're allowed to be changeable--there are patterns we don't need to look at in the day-to-day, but that put things into perspective when you take a minute.

That's something I need to remember when I'm not at the beach, too.

today's tea...

Kousmichoff Bouquet of Flowers--  looseleaf black Russian tea
It doesn't actually have any flowers in it, but is flavored with lemon, lime, bergamot, orange and mandarin, and somehow comes out really subtle. I mean, it's definitely citrusy, but none of that overwhelms the fact that it's pretty good-tasting black tea. I'm drinking it straight (I hardly ever add anything to my tea anymore unless I'm specifically drinking sweet iced tea, and I'm picky about that), but this one would go well sweetened and even milked the way Earl Grey does.

I have a tea ritual. Probably most people who drink tea as often as I do have one. Here's mine:
The water goes on to boil. Mostly I use the electric kettle, but I have a cute little copper kettle with a pretty ceramic handle that I got from England that I like to use, too, and a big old enameled avocado-green thing from the 50s I use when I'm making tea for more than myself.*

While that's boiling, I stare at my tea shelf and compare the various teas I have. There's probably forty or more different flavors and varieties these days, since I get new ones periodically and people send me new ones as gifts. The ones I drink the most** are in the front, and then there are the specialty ones I drink when I'm feeling special and the daily ones that don't require decision-making and so on. I usually choose a special one and a plain one because it's too expensive a habit if I drink all the special ones, since my lovely teapot holds enough to require at least two teabags / servings.

I rinse out the teapot*** with warm water to prep it. I don't use soap because it leaves soapiness behind. I compost yesterday's tea. I drop in the new teabags or scoop in the new looseleaf. Today is looseleaf. Sometimes I use this gold-plated tea strainer to keep the leaves from getting everywhere, but H brought me back a cute little pouring-strainer that sits on a stand shaped like a hand, so I'm using that today.

I add the water. I wait. It's very zen.

Then, when it's been sitting a while, I mix the tea by pouring three glasses and adding them back to the pot. Usually, I say to myself, "one for the goddess, one for the god, one for the girls and one for me." I start drinking on the fourth cup. I picked up the pour-mixing from my old roomie J, who made all my tea (as well as most of my food and all my bread) for the two and a half years we lived together, and the semi-prayer just sort of came to me over time. The girls in question are the Lobby Girls, who are inseparable from tea in my mind.

Then I drink all the tea. Usually at least a pot a day when I'm drinking it this way****, and usually over the course of a few hours with the tea sitting in the water the whole time. If you can't stand very strong, room-temp tea, don't drink tea with me!



*Note: The electric kettle and the copper one both boil up, like, eight cups of water. That's, what, two pints? This is typically what I will drink on my own. I'm not a one-cup sort of girl.
**I'm very fond of my super-rosy Chinese Rose Tea from the Asian Market, the oolong and green teas that also come from there, the Genmai Cha that I've gotten from friends in Japan, the Revolution Lavender Earl Grey, the Panfired Green I literally buy in bulk, the Dragonwell my mom got me, the Lapsang Suchon from Stash...
***My fav teapot out of the five or so I have is a heavy all ceramic one, also from England, that's glazed white and densely decorated with blue paisleys. My favorite pattern in my second-favorite color for my favorite beverage. ::love::
****When I have to open, or when I'm lazy and make tea a cup at a time, I'll easily drink three or four from the same teabag. Sometimes I'll be drinking one cup while simultaneously brewing another cup, but that's kind of wasteful of cups and work isn't so happy about that anymore.