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Welcome to another year of Global Tea Hut! We are overjoyed to see so many of you returning again, and to look around this huge circle and meet so many new friends as well. It has been an amazing experience serving you this year, and we look forward to finding new ways to make this experience better in the coming year. As most of you know, February is the start of the Chinese Lunar Year - a time for renewal, Spring and good wishes of prosperity to those we love. In that spirit, we hope that the coming year inspires us all, and that the tea in these envelopes find its way to a thousand, thousand cups; and beyond to the beautiful souls who drink them, taking the spirit of tea with them as they go out and change the day! In that way, we will shift the consciousness on this Earth and help heal a world to harmony.
If you are new here welcome yourself. Have a seat and a bowl. Look around and introduce yourself. There are around 150 tea brothers and sisters from around the world sharing this tea with you. Feel the community in this gathering each month. Step outside of the illusion of disconnect, of linear time. It doesn't matter that you drink the tea on a Tuesday and we on a Monday; if you drink it in the spirit of togetherness we will find each other as surely as if we were sitting at the same table. And it doesn't matter that we are practically far apart - this world isn't flat, it's a globe. You sit drinking your tea and that earth touches the beach; across the ocean is another beach touched by those same waves and another sister sitting on the ground drinking the same tea. Inland, one of your brothers in Russia sits looking out at the snow-swept fields, thinking of you as he drinks his tea from a warm, steaming bowl. Do you see him in your tea? Throughout the month we are indeed having one, huge global tea session together!
As time has gone on, this experience has become so much more than a means to support our free school and center. Global Tea Hut is the highlight of so many people's month: a connection to this tradition, to tea and to each other. We are so honored to be a valuable part in your lives. We encourage you to go look through the past issues online and see what you have missed. Also, you can see all the photos in living color, and many of them are gorgeous.
In the coming year, we hope to improve the packaging of Global Tea Hut. Right now, Joyce is hunting for some small, recyclable tins or boxes to put the teas in, instead of envelopes. This will prevent the more fragile teas from getting crushed on their way to you. We also hope to incorporate more authors into the mix this year, and therefore would like to encourage all of you to submit some articles throughout the year, or at least participate on the forum connected to our website. You don't have to be an expert; we encourage you to share your personal experiences with tea and with these envelopes of love and light. As we mentioned last month, the free online magazine The Leaf will be jumpstarted once again this year and it will contain a more tea-related and less personal tone, while these newsletters will seek to combine tea wisdom with spiritual, communal and personal experience, lending it a more friendly and casual tone. That is how we intend to differentiate the content of these two free magazines. We have had some discussion about taking
out the annual subscription renewal and just setting the subscription permanently, saving lots of hassle for some people who would rather cancel if and when they choose, rather than having to resubscribe each year. If you have any feelings on this issue, or would like to comment, we will be starting a discussion topic on the forum...
There is a tremendous amount of energy beginning to flow through this center, tradition and all the beautiful souls involved. As we create this healing space, feel free to participate in any way you can. Involvement is the best support, and the only way to truly understand anything. We believe that tea will play a large role in healing humanity and thereby the earth. It is a great teacher of harmony: within and without, to Nature and our fellow beings. We pray that these teas may be such medicine, bringing you light from Nature.
Tea brings Nature to society.
