Learn from a genuine ceremony

At the tea ceremony I attended on the last weekend, what I was most looking forward to was the tea room.  It is an authentic small room.  I crawled into the space from the small doorway.  The room was filled with bright but soft light from the paper screen windows.  Even though, the six guests sat closely with each other on a small space, the comfortable brightness brought a sense of release.  I found the room quite cozy.  Some of the guests looked nervous, some looked calm, and I assume that I looked excited, haha.  The host was friendly and skillful handling the ceremony.  In a feeling of tense but with delightful atmospheres, the ceremony went on and I shared a bowl of koicha, thick tea with the guest next to me. 

View from the nijiriguchi, the crawl in door way

The actual ceremony doesn’t sometimes go as the same way as how I learned in my tea school.  You have to behave flexibly.  In this ceremony, I actually missed the timing to bow to the next guest before taking my sweets.  I also had some other wonders that I didn’t know how I should have acted.  They are my assignment to bring back and ask my teacher.  It is good to attend a genuine ceremony.  There is always something to learn.

After the ceremony when the sun was about setting down