[Teahouse] Tea House Summer 2012

[Annie Harrison]

Dear Friends of the Tea House,
 
I hope your summer is off to a fine start. The Tea House project is ramping up for the season with four tea events from now until Labor Day. You are receiving this message because you told us that you may be interested in serving in the Tea House. We are putting out a call for all those interested in pouring tea and holding space. We need your calm, mindful energy.
 
At our most recent Tea House event at the Symbiosis Gathering http://pyramideclipse.com/ at Pyramid Lake, NV, we served hundreds of parched people who came to the Tea House seeking hot tea, free water, rest and refuge. We worked with the Green Dot peer counselors and medical staff to help care for visitors who needed quiet conversation and compassionate hospitality. We  want to continue to offer chill community space that is often scarce at such gatherings. And of course, we want to serve excellent tea.
 
This summer will begin with a journey out to the Black Rock Desert for the annual Juplaya gathering that’s like Burning Man without Black Rock City. The event is a bit of Mad Max come to life. The tea crew will caravan from Reno, arrive on the playa Thursday, July 5th, set up our new tent, receive guests and serve tea until Sunday July, 8th. We will build the Full Circle Tea House that was launched after our return from the playa in 2011. We’ll likely do some side trips to the hot springs and watch our friends at the Dismal Carney, shoot at, blow up and burn down their art. Let us know if you want to join the fun.
 
From July 27th to 29th, our Saraswati Tea House will serve at the Women’s Visionary Congress (WVC) http://visionarycongress.org/ at the IONS Earthrise Retreat Center in Petaluma, California. The WVC is an annual gathering of visionary women healers, scholars, botanists, activists and artists who study consciousness and altered states. The event is open to visionaries of all genders. Ticket holders and scholarship students will pour tea for participants. We have most of our tea crew assembled, but if you plan to attend and want to serve, please get in touch.
 
The Gaia Festival http://www.thegaiafestival.com/ is a three-day music and sustainable-living fair that will take place at Black Oak Ranch in Laytonville, CA from August 3th to 5th. The Full Circle Tea House will serve in a large dome provided by the event. Organized by our wise friends at the Hog Farm, we have free tickets and meals for tea servers. The festival features a great music lineup and excellent workshops. It’s a beautiful venue and we get a chance to work alongside the White Bird and Rock Medicine communities who served at Woodstock. Let us know if you want to go.
 
The Saraswati Tea House will return to the playa for Burning Man 2012. The Tea House will be located inside Camp Above the Limit (ATL) http://campabovethelimit.com/ at the 9:00 plaza. We will once again attempt to serve 24/7 for a week from Monday, August 27th to September 3rd. Please get in touch if you have a ticket and can pour tea with us. We will hold tea trainings on site. The endurance event of the year, we are scheduling four six-hour shifts a day from 12 am to 6 am, 6 am to noon, noon to 6 pm and 6 pm to midnight. Those who want to do shorter shifts are also welcome. Please get in touch if you can commit to any of these slots. If you plan on camping at ATL, check in with us and pay your camp fee of $100 ASAP at http://www.campabovethelimit.com/dues.html. The camp needs to reserve a generator, purchase diesel fuel, rent a truck etc. ATL will also host the Palenque Norte speaker series this year and several art cars that may support a mobile tea service.
 
Finally, we want to send out a big thank you to Verga, Fritz, Ben, Wiley, Jeff, John, Sasha, Hank, Elf all the other tea servers who traveled with us to the Symbiosis Gathering at Pyramid Lake last month. Calmly pouring tea through violent weather, tortured logistics, rough terrain, scorpions, mice and the full solar eclipse, we served crowds of people and even got a little sleep. It was a benchmark for how much we could endure and still enjoy ourselves. The emergency services staff estimated that together we helped prevent medical transports off site by simply taking care of people. Far better to sit and drink a good cup of pu-erh.
 
Many thanks for all your support and inspiration,
 
Annie and the Tea House Crew