The Art of Creating Space
Space-Making through a Tea Ceremony
One of the cultural villages I curated when producing the Family Arts Festival at Riverside Theatre in the early 2000s was a Japanese village. A key part of the full day of cultural activities was a Japanese tea ceremony. It was intriguing to watch an individual performing the finely choregraphed movements to make and serve tea. The process was intricate and graceful, with each turn of the hand, fold of the cloth, and placement of the equipment conveying an emerging serenity and peace.
I experienced a tea ceremony for a second time recently during a Meridian University program called “The Dancer and the Dance: Practicing Awareness-Based Systems Change.” The program explored collective intention and collaborative learning through awareness-based practices that lead to system transformation. Professor Kazuma Matoba used the tea ceremony to demonstrate the transformation of “MA” space —the time-space of emptiness, in between, or nothing to “BA” space—the ritualized creation and unification of space-time through a host and guest.
Professor Matoba stressed that the concept of invitation is very important in creating “BA,” as both subject and object are one and the same—they’re equally invited by the system. With intentionality and deliberateness, the tea ceremony creates “Ichi-Go” and “Ichi-E,” meaning “one time” and “one meeting”—an experience to be treasured because it will never happen in the same way again (just like a jazz set). The purification process of the space involves being aware of the shadows we bring with us to the meeting space. The guest is taken into consideration in every aspect of the ceremony, creating a bond cultivated through harmony, purity, and respect.
The philosophy of the tea ceremony brings a profound level of care and intimacy into a seemingly simple offering. Through the relational grace of seeing, feeling, and holding space for another, we transform our present and unveil a new experience of each other into the sacred gift of an interconnected future.
The Energy of Space Creation
In my last post, exploring the ethos of caring, four-time Grammy winner and virtuoso jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding moved away from her role as a Harvard professor to embrace the work of bringing Wayne Shorter’s opera “Iphigenia” to life. She also initiated a space of BA--what Professor Matoba calls an “immersive social field experience.”
Finding the heroism in the character lacking in the versions she read, Spalding stepped away from the singular hero narrative fighting impossible odds, to discover the heroic qualities of Iphigenia. Spalding shifted her process to a co-creative circle of other artistic voices for inspiration. The collaborative workshops brought a clarity that prompted Spalding to invite poet laureate Joy Harjo, author and poet Safiya Sinclair, and vocalist Ganavya Doraiswamy to help shape Iphigenia's voice. In recognizing the value of her collaborators’ contributions to fully represent Iphigenia, Spalding made space for them in the telling of the story. I’m excited about seeing this production at the Kennedy Center on December 10th, to experience the amalgamation of many voices becoming one.
Spalding says,
In this adventure of life, you have freedom of choice. All cards are on the table and ... (Iphigenia) gets to choose, free of everything. Through her example, we can learn how to take a creative approach to everything, using the power of spontaneous engagement. The overarching sentiment is one of humanistic love.
Creating space for others reduces fragmentation, othering, power dynamics, and ever-present silos. As in the tea ceremony, the creation of space for another, brings clearing, humility, and an embrace of feminine energy and principles.
Feminine energy pays attention to the creation of space, moving beyond self-interest.
Feminine energy is an energy of grace which affords openings for a generative future.
Feminine energy is grounded in interconnectedness, power with, and a collaborative essence.
Relational change is critical to systems change, and as such, a choice to make.
