Intimate vs Gigantic: The Temaeza Challenge

More than 15 years ago, I had the privilege to make tea for Eric Lloyd Wright and Mary Wright atop the construction site of their home-to-be overlooking the Malibu Cove and the Pacific Ocean. Eric, who passed away at the age of 92 in March 2023, was Frank Lloyd Wright's grandson and a Taliesin Fellow, meaning that he not only grew up but also apprenticed with his grandfather in Wisconsin, and Arizona. Mary is an accomplished artist and taught painting in Japan for many years in the 1950s. Each has been deeply committed to maintaining sustainable lifestyle very close to the land as the events of Wright Organic Resource Center testify. 

Eric continued design and built in the signature "organic architecture" style of his grandfather, where building and surroundings engage each other to create a style of life akin to living with  nature, not merely in it. This was to be their family "house", but it was a dream never fulfilled as a residence. Rather, it remains a living sculpture in nature, site of many community gatherings, film soots and a place "just" to be quiet in nature. 

Like a temae, its most "outstanding feature is that it is literally not out-standing; it cannot be seen from any road or from any other spot on the 24 acres upon which it rests. When the structural concrete pour (walls, floor, internal supports) was completed, the adjacent hillside at the “back” of the building, a site sacred to native Chumash peoples and those of us who honor the natural forces of life, was pushed against the "back" wall. The soil carpetes the roof, blends into the profile of the "second" (there are interior stairs) story and formed part of the wall of the entryway.  It is seamlessly connected to the earth.

It was on the top of the plywood for the roof that set up my goza, straw mat, and prepared to establish temaeza, the place where tea is made. I needed to have electrical power for my kama heating element, so they pulled one of the power cords from the construction site up the ladder to the top. The cord was so long that I decided to coil it neatly into what I decided was my kare sansui (raked sand) garden.

                               

The biggest challenge, however was to determine which way the guests would face. The ocean vista was remarkable, but I realized, too big for the intimacy of temae, so I had them face a set of rebars set against the hillside, looking very much like a furosaki byobu of bamboo. 

It’s a powerful decision to turn one’s back to hugeness, but essential to establish a barrier to cultivate the notion of intimacy and camaraderie. 

There is a reason that the nijiriguchi, small hatchway entrance to a tea hut, is one of the key elements of chashitsu design: to draw into narrow-focus the mind and heart toward the matter at hand. 

In chanoyu, 

large becomes small; 

small becomes large. 

Like organic architecture, 

it all drops 

away, 

anyway.

Sensei's New Year's Chakai: The Parlor Game

A chakai is a large tea gathering, designed to accommodate many people, in contrast to a chaji which may accommodate 1 - 5 guests at the most.

The chakai at Matsumoto Sensei's home in Los Angeles for hatsugama, literally the first kettle, at new year's is a huge undertaking involving some 30 assistants, students / members of sensei's Seian-kai, her tea club, as another blog will detail. To accommodate upwards of 120 guests, about eight sekis, like a "seating" in an exclusive restaurant, of 15 guests are accommodated in five "acts" that cycle through the first floor rooms and gardens of her home. The acts include the presentation of koicha and usucha, thick and thin tea preparations in her tea rooms, and a special tenshin, meal, during which time karuta (from the Portuguese word for "card"), a parlor game that is traditional at New Year's gatherings, is played to distribute gifts to the guests.  It is the latter "game" that will be discussed here.

"Tale of Genji" Theme. Reading the Scenario.

As it is the custom in Japan, guests present the host with a monetary gift in an appropriately celebratory envelope, of course, and the host reciprocates with something that is appropriate to the occasion. Because this is a crowd primarily of chajin, tea people, the gifts are utensils and other tea related items, including tea bowl, tea scoop, purification cloths and kaishi, a wad of papers used in many occasions by guest.

As the tenshin service comes to an end, two or three of sensei's students appear from behind the festival curtain (blocking the dining room from the house foyer) usually in some form of costume related to Japanese cultural history. One is holding a basket or box containing folded white strips of paper, the lots or fuda (cards), on which distinct phrases are written inside, usually in kanji, the Chinese characters, or kana, the phonetic alphabets. (Most recently there has also been translations in English.)

In this type of kujibiki (luck of the draw) each person is invited to select one paper and reveal the contents at the appropriate moment to the assembled The game officiants will read a line or poetry or story and stop at the place where one of the phrases will complete the idea. The person who has that phrase is given a gift, and the process continues until all gifts are distributed, one to each guest. In some years the game  is based upon key historic poetic phrases that are know by all educated Japanese people; in other cases, the phrases are lists related to the new zodiac year or other seasonal references. The entire process takes less than 10 minutes, after which the guests quickly leave to allow the assistants to prepare the room for the next seki. 

"Saru-San Hear - Speak - See No Evil" Theme.
Preparing Gift Tray

Because I am not educated in the Japanese cultural system, and cannot read the kanji, as jolly as the spirit of the game is -- certainly much lighter than the deep quietude of the tea presentations that preceded it -- I have never been able to participate without assistance for someone to explain what theme of the metaphorical puzzle is. I have admired the costumes for their creativity and frivolity without a doubt!

About 10 years into my study of tea -- about 1995, one of sensei's assistants came to four of us -- all non-Japanese -- after class on the Monday night before the third Sunday of January, sensei's official hatsugama date, and said that "Your group is going to be responsible for the parlor game that year." We four hakujin / gaijin, white folks / foreigners have never considered ourselves a "group", rather a few people who don't speak Japanese and who enjoy learning together because sensei will be encouraged to speak English to us in class. We were all in our 50s and yet had little else in common. We were each brought up and educated in different parts of the USA. Two of us had been to Japan, two had not. None of us knew any Japanese poetry or other Japanese literary references. What were we to do?

A quick discussion about the predicament revealed several key challenges: 1/ what did we all know in common; 2/ did Japanese women (most of the guests are women in their 50s+) know what we know; 3/ how were we going to actually do it?

"Wizard of Oz" Theme:
Lion, Dorothy, Tin Woodman, Scarecrow

Americans are a diverse bunch. Our culture is not as orderly, not to mention old, as that of Japan. We quickly considered what we knew in common -- Mickey Mouse, Superman -- then quickly what our Japanese colleagues might also know ... and we came up with theme: the classic Wizard of Oz film staring Judy Garland. We immediately set out to tell the story and have the phrases on the paper chits relate to the film.

Surrendering the Gift; Note Uchiwa

Cross Cultural Doesn't Always Work Well

But we had one other obstacle: language. Could we tell the story without verbal language? We went one better: we told the story without words by using still images from the iconic film made into uchiwa, the ubiquitous flat, round fan used in Japan, and had the same images reproduced for the inside of the chits instead of text. Additionally, each of us modified our formal kimono dressing and assumed one of the key characters in the show: Dorothy, Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow. The paper chits were drawn from Toto's basket.

The parlor game was a great hit, and we were satisfied that our "group" had passed yet another important cross cultural test. We informed everyone, however, that it was not possible to do another game as we couldn't imagine what the theme might be. 

Hidari-kiki 左撇子

I am pretty sure that Rikyu's first child was in fact a left - handed girl. She was quickly sent to the shita-machi, the lower part of the city (and social class so as not to endanger the family's reputation where she lived out her days professionally as a social worker for burakumin. Her praises are sung to this day by ronin chajin ghosts hovering over the Toji Temple fair on its monthly antiques rotation. Her presence is palpable to me as I have been studying chanoyu since 1985 as do migi-kiki, right-handed, folks.

It has not been easy to learn the tiny gestures for temae, and through the process I have developed some related dexterities (vs. sinesterities). One day, in my kitchen doing some chores, I put down a teaspoon with my left hand in that special way one replaces the chashaku on the natsume lid. It stopped me in my tracks. The gesture for handling a chashaku isn't casually "normal", so, I asked my left hand what was going on here? How did "you" know how to do that? My hand replied that it has been watching the right for many years.

Perhaps this is related to the time that Matsumoto sensei said to me as I was placing the chashaku on the natsume after the initial cleaning: "Show your mind."

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to attempt to learn how to write kanji at a group lesson taught by Seiseki Abe, the master who trained Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido, and his acolytes in shodo (the Way of the Brush). I had the opportunity to attend another of Abe sensei's lectures, that one on misogi, water purification ritual, and found access to such information very sparse in Los Angeles.

The event was held in a dojo in Los Angeles with mostly hakama - clad Aikido students in attendance. We sat on the mats as this very frail man, also dressed more for combat than calligraphy walked into the space. A bow, of course. He began to speak softly and it was lightly translated, but really needed little explanation.

A burly tall student was told to run toward this thin man who simply touched his attacker on the arm and sent him sailing across the room.

"Fa-su-to su-tu-ro-ku!" the master said.

Two more times the student attached. The second time he was immediately thrown down. The third time, the master took him by the wrist and in a spiral motion sent him flying to the other side of the combat zone.

"Se-ru-do su-tu-ro-ku! Fa-su-to ka-ra-ku-te-ro: Ah!"

The Hiragana lesson had begun. Three strokes: horizontal, vertical and a spiral.

Ho-ri-zo-n-tu-ru su-tu-ro-ku!

We were then given brushes and paper and urged to write the kana.

Yes, of course, I tried to do it left handed and showed it to the master. He stared at me and I said, "Hidari-kiki." He shook his head and gave me the brush in my right hand. Abe explains the relationship of Aikido and Shodo, "There are five or ten thousand characters we can brush in learning about form and line, but ultimately we are pursuing something beyond these, and that something is none other than “ki“"．

OY! Beginner's body took over. How complicated but refreshing an attempt.

It reminded me of the times I had to do a temae (not gyaku-gate, when the guests sit to the host's left.) A tongue twister for the mind, for sure!

Abe sensei passed away in 2011. Another interview with him around the time I attended the class is a click away.