the star festival Tanabata 七夕
Happy Tanabata! July 7 is generally¹ the day on which this Star Festival, originating in China and adopted in Japan, is celebrated. The story behind Tanabata goes like this, collated on Wikipedia from multiple sources:
Orihime (織姫 Weaving Princess, represented by the star Vega), daughter of the Tentei (天帝 Sky King, or the universe itself), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (天の川 Milky Way, lit. "heavenly river"). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (彦星 Cowherd Star, or literally Boy Star, represented by the star Altair), who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime no longer would weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet.
In the Way of Tea, Tanabata is often referenced by themes involving—among other motifs like weaving—the Milky Way, making it a great time for anyone who loves space. Many of my space-themed tea utensils are meant for use primarily around Tanabata; I'll share photos of them in future posts. One spectacular tea bowl that I saw recently in the Raku Museum² that blends Tanabata motifs is a shallow (for summer) red tea bowl by the fourteenth-generation Raku, Kakunyū. Sai'i 綵衣, pictured below, is named for the garment woven by Orihime, but the flowing water design of the colorful glazes also suggests the form of the "heavenly river" we know as the Milky Way.
photo CC BY-NC-ND by knockeye @ hatena fotolife
The photo at the top of this post was taken at a chakai held by Tankokai DC a few days before New Horizons' historic flyby of Pluto in 2015. It illustrates the Tanabata custom of writing wishes on pieces of paper and hanging them on a bamboo plant. You could probably guess without looking what my wish was. :) The photo also shows my night sky/constellation-themed yukata (see also my space kimono post); while yukata are too informal for almost all tea gatherings, this summer-time, festival-themed one was a happy exception.
A year later I participated in a summer intensive chado workshop at Sunshinkai at which the theme was chaji, the hours-long form(s) of tea gathering in which the host serves multiple courses of food and sake along with thick tea, sweets, and thin tea to an intimate number of guests, generally not more than five to seven, usually fewer. One of the practice chaji was hosted by Krzysiek, my former classmate at Midorikai and a student at Sunshinkai. As it fell on Tanabata, he and the assisting students took full advantage of the thematic possibilities and assigned me the role of primary guest. So along with touches like bamboo in the waiting room for guests to hang their written wishes on, they made things like this Milky Way-themed yōkan:
But the real jaw-dropping moment for me was when the dry sweets to accompany the thin tea were served, and I found that they had made sweets (out of marzipan if I recall correctly) in the shape of the New Horizons spacecraft:
It was such a thoughtful gesture and a delightful effect—this was a real tea moment, one that I'll never forget.
¹ In keeping with its status as a capital of Japanese traditional culture, Kyoto generally celebrates Tanabata a month later, in August, closer to its occurrence in the old Chinese lunisolar calendar.
² At the time of this writing the Raku Museum's web site is down, but I hope it will come back up soon; there aren't really many other good resources for information about Raku on the internet.
