Flee to Tea

Though I cannot flee
From the world of corruption,
I can prepare tea
With water from a mountain stream
And put my heart to rest.
-Ueda Akinara

from the book Tea Wisdom by Aaron Fisher

Barefoot in Summer

My garden has gone wild.

Anyone for nasturtiums?  These are giants and the blossoms are ready for a salad.

Roses, roses everywhere.

Barefoot Days

by Rachel Field
In the morning, very early,
That’s the time I love to go
Barefoot where the fern grows curly
And the grass is cool between each toe,
On a summer morning – O!
On a summer morning!

That is when the birds go by
Up the sunny slopes of air,
And each rose has a butterfly
Or a golden bee to wear;
And I am glad in every toe –
Such a summer morning – O!
Such a summer morning!

This poem exemplifies how I feel this morning.
Oh to wiggle my toes in the grass
and feel the summer morning all around me.

Summer

Today is the first day it feels like summer here in Oregon.
The outdoors is pulling me to come and play.
I just want to lay in the back yard and get a lovely massage,
or play eye-spy, maybe curl up and take a nap, or
sniff the flowers.  Then again maybe lunch by the river would be lovely.
What calls you on a warm summer day?

Bridge of Love

 

Today I am participating in the Bridge of Love with Se'Lah at the Necessary Room.
We are encouraged to celebrate with random acts of kindness.
For some time I have been thinking of donating a tea gift basket for a fund raising auction to a very special program, Project Ed Bear.  This program provides comfort and need to pediatric oncology patients in Ohio.
A friend, Susan, has been involved in this program for a long time and I love
supporting her and the program.

What will your random acts of kindness be today?
Create your bridge of love today.

Comments are problematic today; so if you don't see it posted right away it will be posted when Blogger gets their act together and fixes it.

Strong Women - Susan B. Anthony

 

 1820 - 1906

Having celebrated the 4th of July yesterday I felt that Susan B. Anthony was the perfect Strong Woman for today.

Although most girls did not receive a formal education in the early 1800's, Susan B. Anthony's father, Daniel, as a 6th generation Quaker, believed in equal treatment for boys and girls. Consequently, Susan and her three sisters had the same opportunity for advanced education as her two brothers. Susan attended a private Quaker boarding school in Philadelphia.

The Anthony family was very active in the reform movements of the day. They worked for temperance (the prohibition of alcohol), the anti-slavery movement plus both of Susan B. Anthony's parents (Daniel and Lucy) and her sister Mary signed the "Declaration of Sentiments" at the Second Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848.

Susan B. Anthony dedicated her life to "the cause," the woman suffrage movement. The accomplishments of Susan B. Anthony paved the way for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 (14 years after her death) which gave women the right to vote.

The woman suffrage movement motto read, "Men their rights and nothing more, women their rights and nothing less."

Information taken from www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/anth-sus.htm

Lin's Ceramics

This is May from Lin's Ceramics in Taiwan.

I met May when I traveled to the World Tea Expo a couple weeks ago.

It is always fun to put a smiling face to someone you have communicated with by email.

This year, beside the gorgeous tea ceramics, she was selling some lovely oolong teas.

I came home with a Honey Oolong which I am certainly enjoying.

But ceramics is what I wanted to see and they didn't disappoint.

I love all that they make and some day would like to visit them in Taiwan.

The soft green of the set above was just beautiful.

Have you ever dreamed of having a beautiful small tea set.

When people see the little teapot; they often think they are for children.

These little sets, however, are worthy of you using to make your tea.

They usually hold a lovely Oolong, which can be re-steeped several times.

What a treat it would be to share a small pot of Oolong tea with a friend

in a small teapot and cups.

Double click on the picture of May and you will see other lovely tea sets and utensils.

I would love to carry Lin's Ceramics on my website, www.marmaladys.com

and maybe someday I will.  I will let you know if that happens.

San Francisco to Kansas

 If you're going to San Francisco

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

If you're going to San Francisco

You're gonna meet some gentle people there.

For those who come to San Francisco

Summertime will be a love-in there

In the streets of San Francisco

Gentle people with flowers in their hair.

All across the nation such a strange vibration

People in motion

There's a whole generation with a new explanation

People in motion people in motion.

For those who come to San Francisco

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

If you come to San Francisco

Summertime will be a love-in there

If you come to San Francisco 

Summertime will be a love-in there. 

Words from a song during the 1960-1970 era.

 
This picture was taken about 1971, before my daughter was born.
We had recently moved from the flower children of San Francisco to a small
town in Kansas.  Looking at this picture causes me to realize why they thought we were hippies.

I made the comment on another blog last week and got a couple requests to tell more.
What I can say is my husband and I married quite young and innocent.  We both grew up
in conservative families.  I had always been fascinated by San Francisco; so when my husband was accepted to San Francisco State College (now SF State University) for graduate school in counseling, we jumped at the chance to live there.  My husband actually did his internship at the Haight Clinic.
It was the height of the flower children era and life on Haight-Ashbury.
What exciting, eye opening times they were.
We came naive conservatives and left gentle liberals.
Nothing else in our life experiences has so dramatically impacted us.
The flower children taught us to be pacifists, which we are still today.
We learned to live with people of different color.
We learned to evaluate and understand what we believe.
We learned to love flowers in our hair.
The sad part was also seeing the love turn to rebellion.
Their was a time of protest and fighting, where my husband would check the news to see if he could get on campus on a particular day for classes.
We really were not flower children living on the street, but we lived among them and learned.