The server gets served: Tea ceremony in Norway
I got to share the gift of Tea with the clan here and, as always, it was very sweet...I received more than I thought I would. Each ceremony truly is a lesson
One of the things we do as a part of this month of living wild is share our gifts. We all have them, whether we own up to it or not…and here, we celebrate and receive all that someone else has to offer. Yesterday a woman led us through the meridians in our body & then showed us how to do a shiatsu treatment, after which we paired up to give & receive massages. Next week a man is going to teach us to see the landscape through the eyes of a mapper (that’s his work–to walk through the lands of northern Norway and map what he finds). For me, it was of course…
TEA CEREMONY!!!
When I was here in January I served Lynx Tea the first night I arrived. She was super eager…with a big smile on her face, “When can we drink tea?? Can we do it tonight? Is right now too soon?!” Her childlike enthusiasm, likely the result of a lifetime spent playing in Nature, is something I cherish.
I didn’t do a whole ceremony, but rather a few bowls in silence so we could also drop in with each other since I’d just arrived. I’m so grateful to be able to have my tea practice here. It’s one of the blessings of the original yearlong program I was going to do getting canceled–in that one I would’ve had to say goodbye to tea for an entire yet. I was preparing, but know it would’ve been hard.
During my first conversation with Lynx I told her about my practice and asked if Tea was something I could bring with me. She was an emphatic yes, and I loved that deepening my connection to the Earth would not ask me to leave any part of me behind. Between the Arctic journey & Norway, I’ve drank Tea in a few different ways…maybe I’ll share a post on that later and give you the inside scoop of my Tea practice.
Just like in January, Lynx was eager for another ceremony & I was prepared to serve. We decided to do the ceremony the morning before a hike to a lake about an hour and a half into the forest. The hike was to be a silent one, so dropping in with Tea first felt like a wonderful way to cultivate a mood of contemplation for our ascent through the mountains.
I woke up early and took an empty water container and a sled down the hill, past the horses and to the creek where we gather water for everything we use. I cracked the frozen layer on top and used a bucket to haul the water bubbling beneath the ice. With each bucket I prayed for the healing that was sure to come in our ceremony. It’s not always that I gather the water I’m about to use for ceremony, but when it lines up that way it’s very special. I feel like I have an opportunity to bring deeper presence and intention to every aspect of the journey ahead.