Hope, healing, and tea

Today is a bleak gray day. It is cold. It is the kind of day that invites depression, the kind of day that can seem hopeless. How does one find hope on such a day? It seems much easier when the sun is shining, the warm breeze is blowing, and the flowers are blooming.

Days like today, for me, are introspection days. Days when I want to do the quiet work of rest and healing.

I remember attending a Buddhist tea ceremony a number of years ago. The leader asked us to meditate on the feel of the tea against our tongue, the warmth of the tea as it entered our throat, the acceptance of the tea by the cells of our body.

Quiet meditation, quiet healing, are necessary seeds of hope. They give us the peace to process whatever it is we need to feel and appreciate. Just as our bodies process the tea, we must process life in order to maintain hope. We must savor the lessons life has to offer.

Gray days bring rain. Rain brings the earth back to life. After the rain will come the rainbow. After that, the sun will shine and the flowers will bloom. We will regain energy and hope will grow.

Hope requires balance.