Tea-picking!

The last weekend in April.

Ryoshin-ji, a Zen temple . . . 

. . . with all the little folks that make me feel so happy.

All the little folks that want to be outside in nature.

Just as the temple building itself wants to be outside in nature.

Actually, there’s nothing between the inside of the building and the nature that surrounds it. They are one thing.

What a lovely day at such a lovely place! Forty or so folks (in the main, a collection of locals and students from Shizuoka University) had gathered, and I was lucky enough to get to pluck tea leaves with them.

So much to enjoy.

The maples.

The sunshine in the maples.

 The stars in the maples.

The dance in the maples.

The altar inside is beautiful, but also seems quite humble, quite aware of all that’s outside the walls of the main hall.

Yes, yes, everyone wants to be outside. If they can’t pick tea, sunbathing and just plain old looking up into the blue sky will do just fine.

Plum leaves new and newer bathe in the sun.

The young plums begin to turn red.

The carp swim through the breeze.

Sunlight and tea.

Tombstones and tea.

Tsunde, tsunde, tsunde, tsunde, tsunde, tsunde! Tsunde, tsunde, Cha no happa tsunde! (Shizuoka Duo)

(Pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck! Tea leaves, pluck, pluck, pluck them!)

The most elegant and delicious lunch I’ve had since who knows when. Tea-flavored rice balls, rice balls with bamboo sprouts from the mountain behind the temple (or rather from the mountain back-side of the temple), rice-balls with home-grown green peas, and TEA!

When you can taste the ground you’re walking on and the air you’re breathing, you know you are right where you are supposed to be. Don’t move. Let your spirit rejoice. Be grateful. Be healthy. Get ready to work harder.

Back to the fields. Pluck, pluck, pluck. Bucketful after bucketful after bucketful.

Chat up the folks plucking from the other side of the row.

Back starts to ache? Well, stretch, silly. Encourage everyone else to stretch, too.

“Whole lotta love. Whole lotta love. Whole lotta leaves.”

Good job!

Every day on Ryuso beautiful. Every day the beauty’s different.

Above, tea fields along the road up to the trailhead.

Yamabuki, near the trailhead.

The accent on the mountain this mid-April day  was the lavender azaleas. It’s a beauty that a camera has difficulty capturing.

Most of the time, you gaze upon the blossoms through the leaves of other trees, which is stunningly beautiful to the human eye—but gives an ordinary camera fits. It never knows what to focus on.

Some may prefer the azaleas on a blue-sky day, but I think they look rather elegant in the grey.

And the grey.

The grey, misty woods are a perfect place for solitude. Ask a Hearty Hiker. . . . If you can catch up with her!

Cherry blossoms and grey skies block our usual view of Mt. Fuji.

A few days earlier. In my neighborhood. Negibozu (“Buzz-cut onion heads”), with Ryuso in the background.

The joys of bicycle commuting.

You’ve saved fifteen minutes, not being in an automobile—and now, when you spot the tiny dab of color in the rice field (look close, that square bit of green is the fallow rice field and somewhere there’s something that looks like a tiny black spot)–you’ve got time for a game of hide-and-seek.

This time you might even win!

There, there! Let’s go. Off the bike.  Around the field filled with brush. He’ll never know.

And don’t stare in at him. He will know that if you do.

And then you’ll have lost again.

Wait. Where’d he go? And where’d she go? Man, she was quick. No time, for even an out-of-focus shot!

Oh, there—there he is!

Your Team A teammates . . .

. . . are right there with you. All concentration.

And then, he’s popped right out of the field and walks right in front of you.

Okay, okay, fifty meters off. But that’s the clearest view he’s given you in a long time.

Go ahead. Declare victory!

“Victory!”