The Book of Green Tea
Diana Rosen
The copy I acquired had a very smooth excision.
The book is designed with wide margins coloured in light green and adorned with various quotations. Very enticing for someone in search of bookmarkers. Or so at least this is the rationale I give to the disappearance of the design elements from page 17 and page 18. The absence is almost invisible until one goes to turn the page.
Consulting the library copy, I was able to see what attracted the scissors.
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Tea is a miraculous medicine for the maintenance of health. Tea has an extraordinary power to prolong life. Anywhere a person cultivates tea, long life will follow. — Eisai, Kitcha Yojoki (1211) |
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The Way of Tea by Sen-no Rikyu (1522-91) harmony (wa) respect (kei) tranquility (jaku) purity (sei) These four elements are critical to bringing the art of the chanoyu to its exquisite end |
The cutting offers a kind of reverse curation.
It reminds me of my favourite passage in The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo. Where the emperor is greeted by a garden shorn of bloom but finds a single specimen in the tea house. Ironically our book was pruned to show a verse given by that very same emperor to the tea master: “When tea is made with water drawn from the depths of mind / Whose bottom is beyond measure, / We really have what is called cha-no-yu. – A verse given to Sen-no Rikyu by his shogun, Toyotomi Hideyoshi.”
And so for day 2407
16.07.2013