this golden evening, new silence greets the smells of tea and incense
~|~
I’m sitting at home drinking last year’s kabuse, my favourite among the Japanese green teas; a little old perhaps, but still pleasant. I’ve set out a blend of Chinese and Japanese utensils, and there’s a light smell of incense in the air. Haydn’s Cello Concerto #2 is playing, with Jacqueline du Pré as the soloist; beyond the window light is fading to an ever deeper blue. And I think to myself that this is what spirituality means: a deeper awareness of the world in all its form and beauty, a kind of meditative clarity. Not the stillness of an absolute silence, but the stillness of movement, of falling leaves stirred by the wind. The sound of a bell echoing in a meditation chamber. I sit and listen, cross-legged.