When we are young, looking toward the future, time seems unbearably slow. When young lovers are waiting for the moment when they will meet, a minute seems like it will never end.

When we are middle-aged, like in summertime, perspective is short. We act with calculation and urgency, each moment distinct in its character and its importance.

But time compresses in retrospect. All our days and decades of deeds, later in life, seem indistinguishably mingled, like the grains in a bucketful of sand. In old age, life seems brief.

The samurai in their early years were covered up in the struggle for power. They wanted it, they tasted it, and no amount of blood, as for their successor tyrants today, was too great a price to pay for it. They were overwrought. Attack could come at any time. The moment of opportunity could open and close in an instant. Hesitation meant death. Haste meant death. Passivity meant death. Preoccupied day and night with strategy, betrayal, opportunity, and decision, even the most disciplined ambitious mind became exhausted. They needed refreshment.

They found it in tea.

Every warlord needs a break once in a while. And whatever else they may be, these powerful achievers, making their mark on the world, are smart. They know bullshit when they see it. And they know the genuine article as well.

So a small spare simple room in an uncultivated rustic environment with nothing to distract the mind or stimulate the senses, where time can expand and nothing is needed and nothing can be done, is something to value.

In the simple familiar gestures of the ceremonial form, there is no compulsion to be special or to take control. It is enough to be.  It is a relief to just be, just to live as natural and unaffected as the lilies of the field.

And to drink from a simple raku bowl and taste the field in the fragrance of the tea, its warmth permeating your cold body and the flavor sharpening your dulled and distracted mind, is a good thing.

For a moment, everything is in place. And you are where you should be. And for that moment nothing need be done.

It could be the longest night of the year. The longest night of your life. With all the universe suspended by a delicate thread. But still. Here you are. Like the light of a star.

We can see from the example of these titans of desire, of all people, and of our own lives, that time is not a thing. It is a perspective.

William Blake augured this same aspiration to innocence when he wrote:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

I am so honored to share this world and this eternity with you.

May your every moment be blessed.