Inspiration can come at the most unexpected times. I was weeding ground elder and suddenly a little thought came out of the blue about what I should prepare and lead at the next Forest Church. The little thought was tea ceremony. I had a rush of excitement as I considered it. I wrote it down so I could get on with gardening. Whilst reading Bruce Stanley’s Forest Church; a field guide to nature connection for groups and individuals, I found what I had thought. Somehow my memory had been jogged and there in the pages of the book was a tea ceremony. It was a relief to know that I wouldn’t have to design the whole ceremony.
An exciting thing Bruce suggests to use in the tea ceremony is a Kelly Kettle. I am familiar with Kelly Kettles. Some of you may have never heard of a Kelly Kettle. It is also known as a Storm kettle. The Kelly Kettle is so named from the Irish family who made them. They come in various sizes but what’s great about them is you don’t need to carry around fuel. You can collect the fuel from your surroundings such as dry sticks, pine cones etc. More about the Kelly Kettle can be found here.
There are various extras you can get for it I purchased the new spout whistle which is a relatively new innovation for the kettle. This to me was a necessary extra especially in leading a group when I might need to have my attention elsewhere. I also purchased a pot stand or base – it doubles up as both. In this instance it was so I wouldn’t leave a trace of having a fire.
In preparing for the Forest Church session I needed to practice making a fire and the tea itself so I could be confident in demonstrating this with the group. Here are the things I used in and what my first tea looked like:
The ingredients for the tea were taken from Fox Corner Community Wildlife Area which I’ve written of before. The tea was made up of birch (Betula pendula or Betula pubescens), elderflower (Sambucus niger), hawthorn (Creataegus monogyna) and nettle (Urtica dioica). The reason for the four species will become clear later. It was difficult to find any birch on site. What I did find that I thought was birch turned out to be aspen (Populus tremula). The reason for this was the similarity in the shape and form of the trees which were young in age. The tooth edge of the leaf was too rounded but not dissimilar to birch. Thankfully I didn’t have a reaction to it and since looking into it further it can be used to make tea (phew!).
The nature reserve at Fox Corner required a visit. I needed to make sure that I could find the ingredients I needed and also the best place to set up as a group.
I took sightings of a few different spots but as I was being optimistic that we’d have a large group I went for this space to the left of the boardwalk which is actually larger than it appears.
The day arrived. The weather turned out to be just right for sitting outside without having to bring lots of extras. We started with the prayer of seven directions. Two people in the small group had never been to the site before so that in itself was a pleasant experience. An introduction was given to what we were going to be doing. The idea was through foraging for ingredients, making tea with natural ingredients and drinking it outside we would be regenerated by it. The ceremony itself incorporated words to reflect on especially about the elements used. On the way there there was reminiscing of previous sessions and engagement with our surroundings through observation.
On reaching the area seen in the photo we sat on the ground or chairs in an arc around the Kelly Kettle. A fire was prepared in the pan of the Kelly Kettle with dry firewood which had previously been collected to avoid disappointment. A flask of hot water was brought too just in case the fire didn’t work! I spoke about the fire triangle and some of the safety requirements of using a Kelly Kettle.
The last ingredient that was needed can be seen here. This was to make the drink sweeter and was instead of elderflower. It is meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) so named as it was used to sweeten mead in the olden days. It was also used to sweeten the floors of the middle ages and Tudor bowers. A piece of the stem was broken off and passed around to smell. It was noted that it smelled of TCP -Wikipaedia states: ‘TCP was introduced in 1918.[1] The brand name comes from its original chemical name, which was trichlorophenylmethyliodosalicyl (not to be confused with trichlorophenol, a common fungicide)… The liquid form of TCP is one of the best-known brands of antiseptic in the UK, and its distinctively strong medicinal odour can be identified by many as a generic antiseptic smell.‘ The smell to some is also like Germoline an antiseptic cream available in the UK.
It was a relief and pleasing at the same time to here the whistle go when the water boiled in the kettle. During the preparations of the fire the group conversed and I put the various leaves into the big tea pot. When the water had boiled I let it stand for a bit before pouring it over the leaves. It was then left to brew. The tea was ready after a few more minutes and it was poured out and passed to those who could participate and pretend for those who for health reasons thought it better not to join in.
The words of the ceremony were then read thoughtfully.
Everyone participated as best they could. We had a time of sharing about the site and various features of the ingredients themselves. There was opportunity to share something we wanted regenerating in our lives and to hold that prayerfully amongst the group. Wider reflections on the benefits of nature to our wellbeing were also voiced. Everyone seemed to make a real connection with one another, nature and hopefully Creator God. I went away feeling euphoric wanting to be able to facilitate more of this kind of event.
If you want to see the plan that I followed including the tea ceremony and some additional material feel free to contact me about that at fo***********@*************co.uk