Zen Spice

Last night, or in the small hours of this morning, I dreamed I was watching the Spice Girls perform the Japanese tea ceremony.  Some interest in how the Spices became skilled in the way of tea, particularly as they were brewing a particularly thick tea, was my only remembered response to the ceremony.  I learned the ceremony in a sixth-grade class in Japanese culture in the mid-1960s, but I have forgot it all, consciously anyway, although the dream--and its seemingly accurate details--would suggest that some of that knowledge still clings to my unconscious.

I've taken the dream to be a self-admonition to be more mindful in my daily life.  Good luck on that, I say to myself, having descended to a kind of willful slovenliness in the past several years.  Still, I made my bed smartly before leaving for school this morning, and tried to be there while washing some bowls and serving ware in my sink this morning.  I may not get to the point of ritualizing dusting and sweeping, as I really should, but who knows?

Baby steps.  Baby steps on the flat stones towards the irregularly clicking water wheel.  Wannabe-zen.