I recently read a quote around how healing practices shouldn’t be designed to teach us how to be at peace in the chaos, but to keep us sane so that we might fight to change this wonky human existence and it reminded me of something one of my teachers, Paul, often shared ‘find something you love and fight for it’.
I imagine you are thinking ‘oh, so you are fighting to save the tea’ but the reality is I don’t need to fight for the tea, for it has existed over 100 times longer than humanity, so no, the Tea is fighting to save me… and you.... and humanity.
There is no mistaking the profound effect on our brain chemistry these ‘closest to source’ Teas have on the human brain and there is no coincidence that Tea offers the main bridge between humans and Mother Earth, having been our most significant daily tonic for millennia. By imbuing the tea, it gently shifts the lens we experience our environments through, both inner and outer, and returns us temporarily to that sense of wholeness when our left and right brain hemispheres are aligned. Namely, back to being a true human.
But I mention the temporary nature of the tea’s ability to shift our lens, for there is equal work to be done on our part. This may well begin with confronting the wounds we carry, the conditions that mould us and the values of success and superiority that keep us too busy to change or make better choices.
We need spaces to allow these things to show up, be acknowledged and heard, be explored and their grip gradually lessened through conscious release. This takes time. There is a collective calling for these spaces, I see it with the rise in people going to therapy, the rise in plant medicine ceremonies, the rise in breath work and healthier rituals. Because we are lost and often don’t know where to start, we need these ‘markers in the forest’ to guide us towards a more fulfilling life experience.
One thing I notice is how achievement is often experienced through outcome, yet joy is often experienced through slow, gentle, ongoing unexpected moments, often involving connection of some kind, where we feel the flow rather than the outcome.
So on reflection, that is what I fight for, our ability to regain that lens so we can live more fully, harmoniously and in the sacred alignment of the gift of life and all the choices it brings and our relationship to death and the cyclical nature of being. It feels auspicious to be sharing this over Equinox, where light and dark hold equal claim and demand equal space. The perfect balance of descent and ascent, significance and insignificance, life and death. To find this balance we must move from a purely human-centric existence and perspective and seek right-relationship with the other than human, sentient world.
I don’t need to fight to save the Tea, for it is fighting to save me.
Wishing you a delicious Autumn, a season I love with all its bluster, colour and surprising beams of sunshine. Have a lovely month and look forward to talking to you again in November.
Anne and Ric x