A Tea Gathering at San Francisco's Urasenke Society 

Many years ago my US Forces Forces Korea military dentist Dr. Acosta and I were in San Francisco together. Both of us had studied Ura Senke as well as Korean tea ceremony and we made an appointment to go to meet this Christy Bartlett at her tea room that she had built for the Ura Senke Headquarters in San Francisco. We enjoyed wonderful tea and tea chat with her and her assistant. Kristy points out that the camellia flower in the tokonoma alcove has a special meaning because it is a bud at the start of the tea ceremony and it opens gradually into a flower as the tea ceremony progresses and then it fades at the end of the tea ceremony, often dropping its flower head on the floor of the tokonoma, reminding us that this meeting is the only time that we have together exactly this way in this moment and we can never repeat exactly the same meeting ever again, thus emphasizing the importance of treasuring our time together expressed in the old tea proverb: "Ichi-go, Ichi-e" 一後一絵, "One Meeting Once Only". That exact camellia will never be again! That exact same time will never be again. I hope you enjoy this video. It brings back fond memories of a special time with a special lady and of all my special tea friends when we lived and shared tea in Taegu, Korea, many years ago.

Does prosperity come at the price of sacrificing peace? Can one incorporate peacefulness into your day to day routine? Although the answer seems obvious, we should question ourselves realistically how peaceful is our current way of life and do something about it. Something as small as a cup of tea can become a real experience that takes you one step closer to peace, remember "there is no way to peace, peace is the way"