i have been making tea every day now.  and this is unusual.  tea, in the last number of years, has been reserved as an offering.  for friends when they visit.  but rarely just for me.

i think it is something in the colour of the trees right now that has pulled me back to tea.  pulled me to boiling mushrooms and cedar greens and sumac.  something about the shift in the air.  something about the longer nights creeping in.  something in the cedar and the chaga and reishi.  something of the mint and the sage.  maybe something of beautiful cup!

the warm cup in my palm feels good.  the taste of cedar divine.

and somehow the tea has pulled me back into the forest.  to bathe.  that is what be called it.  forest bathing.  and i am now enamoured. and freshly bathed.

i spent the morning walking through the forest, by the river, thru a meadow.  smelling.  touching.  tasting.  asking questions.  listening.  walking and sitting.  sitting and walking.  a joy.  an honour.  a blessing.  i am definitely ignorant to much of what the forest has to say.  but i am excited to keep listening.

thrilled also to get my hands dirty in these, perhaps, last warm days of fall.  thrilled to gather herbs.  to harvest the roots of the dandelion. to find the last ripe tomatoes.  to munch on sour sorrel and spicy mustard.

it was just that kind of day.  most of it spent outside.  mostly barefoot.  many dirty fingers.  solitary in my garden.  content to create space for next years plantings.

joyfully taking photos of cosmos and sunflowers.

and as i write this (myself so full of joy) i am thinking of some friends, some struggling with deep grief, maybe you, to whom i would like to offer a forest bath and a cup of tea in my garden.  maybe this is for all of us really.  this need for deep earth connection.  this remembering. may you create time to be in the forest.  i believe it is for rest.  and may we learn the art of surrender and renewal.  in some of my greatest times of grief i have made my way to the forest.  i sit against trees.  i often find cedar.  and i pray.  sometimes i sleep.  and i ask the forest to teach me how to let go.  i know that if i sit there i will learn.

may you find your way to the wisdom of the forest.  maybe some cedar or reishi will bring you there.  or maybe a cup of tea.

love chantalle