Since April, we have resumed lessons at Junshin-an.
For sweets, I made handmade sakura mochi. The sakura leaves were salted and preserved from the sakura tree in my garden last year, then kept frozen for a year.
The scroll features a haiku composed by my father-in-law, “Drying wafers, carried away, a light sound,” along with a picture of plum blossoms. Both the calligraphy and the painting were done by my father-in-law.
Though the season is slightly off, we wanted to do this while it’s still spring.
In the first week, we inspected the setup for the upcoming tea ceremony at the botanical garden on the 14th, turning Junshin-an into Daimeseki and practicing the procedure of the furo.
Newcomers practiced the Bondemae in the corner of the tea room.
In the second week, we practiced the procedure of thick tea and thin tea in the style of Daisu ro demae.
Originally, we were supposed to use a lacquered stand, but we used a makeshift stand instead. We ordered utensils of KAIGU from a ceramic artist in St. Louis, but they still haven’t been delivered, so we had to use substitutes.
