Focus - Leo Babauta [49]
Unplug. Take a Digital Sabbatical.
When you return to the Web you'll do so with complete presence. To be present online, we have to be fully ourselves offline.
Gwen Bell is a social media entrepreneur who owns a yoga studio in Japan and blogs at GwenBell.com.
4: life lessons from tea rituals
By Jesse Jacobs
There has been a lot of press lately about the overflow of information and the addictive pull of "new" data that enters our lives. Some of it is work related, but most of it isn't. Email, text, news, tweets, blogs, snail mail, TV, movies, newspapers, books, "Friends," and family and on and on. It's amazing we have time for eating and sleeping.
Without question, the technology, information, and tools that exist today have the opportunity to make our lives rich, deeply connected, and rewarding. But this stuff also has the opportunity to pull us way down into a frenzied pace of constantly checking and updating and "consuming."
Being an entrepreneur, and having the fortune to work in the tea industry, I have had the rare chance to both be immersed in the demands of information overflow and yet to build my business around creating islands of escape from that constant stream of data and responsibility. As a society, we are slowly becoming aware of the desperate need for tools that allow us to survive, and thrive, amidst the whirlpool of stuff that comes at us at an ever increasing pace. The tea leaves have taught me much, and I would like to share my lessons with you.
why rituals
I have found that rituals are sorely lacking from modern life. Traditionally, society was rich with rituals: naming ceremonies, weddings, religious holidays, etc. Today, as organized religion has less appeal to the modernized masses, and people lack time to create the space for rituals, they are virtually gone. Work has become the new ritual. Checking who's updated our Wall before bed has become a ritual. And yet rituals are so valuable because they create markers in life - of big events and little, of the basic flow and rhythm of our time here on earth. I have looked to re-incorporating rituals into my life as a way to slow down, get present, and connect deeper with myself and with others.
ok - so why tea?
I've found one of my favorite rituals is drinking tea. Here's why...
As ancient and obvious as tea is, I have found that it provides one of the richest rituals around. Tea gives me...
Connection to the farmer. I believe that life is about connecting deeply with myself, the world, and other people. A better life occurs as those connections deepen and broaden. Drinking artisan tea connects me so directly to so many sources. The artist of the leaf who hand selected the very leaves I have in my cup, just a few months ago and yet thousands of miles away, is present, right now as I sip the leaves she chose. Without words and without sight I am directly connected to this farmer so far away in body and so close in spirit.
Connection to nature. This very little leaf is truly a miracle. Possible only because of a rare combination of soil, sun, and rain, this leaf is of the earth, fleetingly a part of me, and then will return to the earth. So temporary and yet so deeply connected to the same ground and sun I am part of. I am as dependent on the sun, earth, and rain as this leaf, and drinking it's nectar connects me deeper to it.
Connection to myself. The ritual of making and drinking tea connects me to the simple actions that require its brewing, and that I do in my own unique way. My brew is 100% unique to me, and this time I enjoy making and drinking it is my own special art. Somedays bitter, somedays sweet, somedays dark, and somedays light. My brew is a reflection of me.
Connection to others. When I make tea for another person I am offering to them my time, my space, my brew. Enjoying this moment together, in silence or talking, allows me to share a moment of my life with another person. This time allows us both to feel the richness of the connection to each