The Opechee
This is the second to last in a series of collaborative posts highlighting the relationship between poetry and painting. Let us start with a simple story: Rikyu, the founder of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, was asked by one of his pupils, 'What is the purpose of the Tea Ceremony? Why the complex set of steps and mannerisms?' Rikyu replied, 'First we boil the water, then we prepare the tea, then we drink it, that's all.' His pupil frowned and looked on despairingly. Rikyu went on, 'Show me someone who can really do these things and I will become his disciple.' We don't often know it, but everything we do is filled with mannerisms, so much so that we look to them as a liberating quality, as something that gives us individuality and frees us from the grasp of others. As a matter of fact, it is at just that moment that they begin to entrap us more and more within banality and habit. Who knows how to eat, who knows how to stand, without becoming completely bo...
