Book Review

By the teahouse at the Japanese Gardens.

Photos were taken at the Japanese Gardens in Portland, Oregon

Shitamoe, he said, shoots under snow.  It was a nod to the hope of spring returning, to the ancestor Rikyu's simple tea, and to the new life, unbelievably, slumbering inside my older sister............The only sounds in the room were like breath: the soughing of the boiling water, the whisper of the tea whisk in the bowl.

"When he wrote to the Meiji court, he said the aim of tea was that people face one another as equals.  Just as you said, he wanted a way for merchant and samurai, commoner and artisan, Kyoto native and Satsuma man," she said, nodding here to Advisor Kato, "to set those differences aside and meet each other in the teahouse as equals, as fellow men"- inspired, she snatched at Kato's rhetoric - "under the Emperor, citizens of a new Japan."

The book, The Teahouse Fire" by Ellis Avery is full of tea and tea ceremony in a Japanese teahouse during the late 1800's.  It made me sad to see how women were treated during that time and how the Western world began changing things in the country.  I missed being enveloped by that world after finishing this book a few days ago.  Definitely worth reading.

Happy Friday, dear friends!

Happy Valentine's Day tomorrow!

In front of our house there is a heart of crocus each Valentine's.

Often children stop by to see it and it has even been photographed by

people walking by.  It is a little difficult to photograph, but hope you can tell.