As we head into winter and connect to the energy of the Oolong tea, I wanted to introduce the focus blend, as it seems to tie in well with this newsletter...
Welcome to Samhain and the veil between the worlds certainly felt fairly thin last night! I happened to be at a friend’s house in Devon, high up on a hill overlooking the sea, the windows battered all night by the force of the storm. It got me to thinking about what that would have felt like back when we lived on the land, unsheltered, before we built our concrete walls. How we would have known the storm was coming long before it arrived, from the smell of the wind, the colour of the sky and the behaviour of the other species, plants and animals, that shared our space. I imagine it was terrifying, yet also a deeply humbling restoration of our place in the larger scheme of things.
This might seem tangential, but bear with me! So why do we sell tea? For us, that isn’t what we are really selling. We are actually offering an opportunity to reengage with your true humanity, which sounds mighty grand, but is actually a soft and imperceptible shift in the way you feel and see the world, a way to reconnect to the person you would have been out there in that storm all those millennia ago, full of awe and presence and authentically human.
In many spiritual traditions, it is believed there are hidden ‘alarm clocks’ built into the fabric of our reality, things to wake us up to knowledge we have forgotten, at the time in our history when we most need it. The reemergence of these teas in the west in their pure, original sacred form turns out to provide real value in our world right now.
Historically used as a tool to aid the enlightenment journey, we now understand scientifically why this was so. The unique nutrient mix found in high quality Chinese tea leaves have a very subtle but profound effect of our brain chemistry, replicating the positive effects of a meditation practice by synching the action of both brain hemispheres so we come to the world with a healthier, more balanced perspective. In fact, the perspective that our human brains were designed to engage in the world with, both hemispheres firing in synergy.
Without this balanced way of seeing, we engage with everything through the distorted, cultural lens our now dominant left brain has created, which let’s face it, is clearly not working that well for us! This is true not only for us as humans but also with regards to the impact on mother earth and all the other millions of species we share the planet with. And how can we ever have the opportunity to make wise choices when our information is so biased, human centric and inaccurate? On top of all that, we are trying to navigate these decisions within a world so stressful and distracting that we can no longer think or feel anything for ourselves.
So a daily tea drinking practice may seem like such a little act that it will barely touch the surface, but it will help centre you and help your brain function more healthily and offers the space to stop and reflect inwards about things that might be bothering you or just breath and calm and start your day from a sweeter place. And who knows where that might lead!