La Bahia to Tatagata Tea Ceremony

It's been a nice day. I got a lot done. I even got a nice walk in at lunchtime. It was hot outside too. I picked up the Dust and Illusions tickets today for a Burningman documentary that I'm helping promote for a local screening. I printed up a few posters too. I was hoping to go see Star Trek with Lover Who Is My Lover this evening but that doesn't look to be happening so I guess I'll be staying home and hopefully will motivate myself to get some much needed work done. I'll have a house full of guests this weekend and a big birthday party on Saturday. We'll also be seeing Michael Franti in concert on Saturday night!

My trip to Santa Cruz this weekend was relaxing. The perfect weekend get away. We left in the morning and arrived on Friday with plenty of time to settle into our motel room before taking a nice leisurely stroll through the boardwalk, along the beach, river and train tracks. We also stopped by La Bahia where some friends of ours live but I had left their phone number on the computer so we weren't able to connect with them at that point. I had hopes that maybe they would spot us in their courtyard where I was taking pictures but that was a long shot that didn't happen. I did get some great pictures and our friends said that was a good thing because La Bahia will probably only survive another couple of years.

We eat dinner at the Greek Festival in downtown Santa Cruz and afterwards we, well, lets see, humm...Friday night was lot of fun. We perused downtown Santa Cruz and then made our way out to the Wharf. We stayed out walking until quite late, enjoying the sights and sounds and the cool ocean breeze. When we finally made it back to our hotel room we continued enjoying the night.

Saturday morning we walked along the ocean again and J. connected with some street/beach front musicians for a little drumming. We finally caught up with our friends (yea for facebook reconnects!) before heading to Ben Lomond, which is situated in the Redwoods about 10 miles north of Santa Cruz, for the annual Tagataga Tea Ceremony. It was a small gathering with only nine of us this year. Very sweet and intimate. We arrived at our friend's, Forest and Elaine's house around 1:00 p.m. Elaine served us snacks while Forest delighted us with different wines. Elaine is a chef extraordinaire and she prepared us a lovely early dinner. After eating we settled into the living room for tea ceremony. Tatagata Tea Ceremony is based on traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony except that no training is needed. Japanese Tea Ceremony is very rules oriented whereas Tagataga tea ceremony is very heart based, the goal being to make a cup of tea while being in the moment and connecting intimately with others. That we did!

Forest and Elaine and many of their friends are old hippies from way back when. Forest traveled to Japan with Alan Watts back in 1962 which is where he originally learned Japanese Tea Ceremony. He and Elaine live in the same place they did back then, when it was a commune. They raised their children there, remodeled, moved around a bit and then settled back in to make quite the beautiful live for themselves. Forest was one of the first computer geeks from back in the day and at age 72, he is still doing computer programming from home.

Sunday morning I went for a lovely walk through the Redwoods and we shared a lovely breakfast together before heading back to our respective homes. Late Sunday afternoon I did some grocery shopping and then had a nice visit with my mother. I read her The Song Of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

...Toward the sun his hands were lifted,
Both the palms spread out against it,
And between the parted fingers
Fell the sunshine on his features,
Flecked with light his naked shoulders,
As it falls and flecks an oak-tree
Through the rifted leaves and branches...

J. made us dinner. I drank a strong dark beer and washed clothes. Life is good. Oh yeah, another up and coming blog post these is Informed Consent versus Full Disclosure in poly coupledom.