What Are Tea Cozies?

Tea and Essential Conversation

Ever cozy up with a cup of tea, relax and rest, let yourself just Be?

A little story about the history that’s resulting in this outlet called tea cozies. Several years back I began to receive information about essential conversation, what it is and does for us, for everything. It has continued to reveal more and more over the years of essentially engaging in the essential conversation going on at many levels at once.

So we begin with what is meant by Essence? I love dictionaries that expound upon words. I use them frequently. I especially enjoy the genesis of a word, that begins to point to the essence of the word. like esse. Esse means Be. Being is the essence of all existence. When we begin to spiritually consider the mystical experiences inherent to simply being, we open into our essence.

Essence: “the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character: conflict is the essence of drama.” Tune in to watch the divine dramedy unfolding!

We are connecting with our true nature in essential conversation. It is going on all the time, without words. We are in a dynamic feedback loop in which everywhere presence, this all-pervading conscious Being that is formless is in direct contact with all form, existing as such, and a dynamic feedback loop is commune-icating throughout. This can be directly experienced when we are quiet and attuned. It’s amazing, and so much that’s beneficial goes on when we are able to quiet down and Be.

Conversation is derived from French and Latin: con: with and conversari ‘keep company (with’). My LightHearted ministry is a companionship ministry in which we keep company with One another on the journey Home Here. It is the plan of this site for us to keep company with One another.

There’s much more to essential conversation, but the joy of the dynamic is the ability of Presence to Be with and Be in essential conversation with us.

The formless and the form are in dynamic interface, communing, communicating. The formlessness of Presence companions Itself in, though, as us.

Essential conversation between us and the Innermost can be considered prayer. It’s both quiet and lively. Simply Being allows us to be as we are, have our experience as it is. It’s unconditional, and that is the key to change and freedom.

Being within and with ourselves, expressing the truth of the forms and/or formlessness we’re experiencing, we can share it in such a way that we experience an unfolding within and between us. Our relational field opens up in a dynamic way such that something new comes into Being. We are changed.

Renewal takes place through the transformation of our conscious systems. You could say there are three in the conversation between two that have Presence in the midst. It’s always so, but often we’re oblivious to the fact.

These little tea cozies were inspired by the little sayings that appear on the tea labels on my tea bags. I’ll begin a conversation around one of this pithy sayings, and you can sip on your essential tea and join in with how it impacts your living system. Please do.

The story of tea cozies continues with my meeting Michael Thunder who was the proprietor of the White Dragon Good Feelings tea shop in Durango, CO. We became fast friends and essential conversationalists. I also learned a lot about tea and tea ceremonies. At a certain point, he invited me to offer meetings at his tea shop. This resulted in a LightHearted gathering called Tea and Essential Conversation. I met some lovely new friends that came to show up and get real.

There’s a kind of translation that goes on as we listen deeply, beyond and within the topics of conversation. We ask questions that take us deeper in, wondering and wandering into our experience listening to our withinness while we listen to One another, exploring certain topics, cozying up with a beautiful lovingly prepared cup of tea.

Further Adventures With Tea

The beautiful being Vietnamese Buddhist Monk known as Thich Nhat Hanh/Thay, offered an incredible tea meditation. In his inimitable fashion, we sat and contemplated a cup of tea, we traversed and slowly tracked the entire journey of what was in our cup back to its origins. We included everything and everyone on every step of the journey from our tea cup to the container, to the store, to the shipping, to the people involved in stocking shelves, drivers, packers, trucks, ocean liners or air freight, back to the country of origin, and those who got it from the manufacturing plant to the vehicle, all those who manufactured tea into tea bags. All the energy forms involved, back tracking to the tea farms, those who pick tea leaves, the gardeners who raise the tea bushes, the soil, the water and rain, the sun, the roots, into the very core of the plants, all that comprises the making of the plant. Suddenly all of that was in the cup of tea I was sipping, and taking into my body.

It’s quite the experience as this kind of conversation is going on with a simple sip of tea. Dear Thay invited us into interBeing with a simple cuppa.

And then there’s the impact of that, an integration of far more energy than just what the steeping tea itself offers. What’s the impact of having all that coming in and joining all that already comprises this amazing living body?

A return to “The Point”

This is a quote in the comments from this song by Harry Nilsson: “I would share a cup of tea and conversation with anyone who loves this song.”

Here’s a favorite of mine “Think About Your Troubles”

There’s so much to the context in which we engage with our experience. There’s an opportunity to experience the essential in every day life, in something as simple as a cup of tea. May we enjoy many together.

Drink up! Share a cup that ‘overfloweth’ with me.