What’s in a cup? Black-brown from Brazil it steams in a white porcelain mug. On a cold winter Saturday morning I sit quietly with the snow on the other side of the window and a bit of Miles Davis wafting out of the MacBook Pro with the warmth of the ceramic filled with coffee. There have been studies showing how holding a warm cup can actually affect our psychology. When we hold a cup of coffee or tea, the mere warmth and comfort can make us just that much warmer in our interactions with others. For me the sense of stillness and observation that I feel each morning with my mug full, is, well, meditational.
This black and white (or brown and white) is minimal. A clear simple circle of dark within a field of white. The circle is simplicity that bends back on itself. Liquid warmth is a crushed bean risen from the earth steeped in the picture of the minimalism of Lao Tzu, water. The water course way. Water seeking the low rather than the high. Earth, water, fire, basic elements of life held within earth, water, and fire again as ceramic. These elements flow and return in my hand, the container and the contained.
Often I tumble down the stairs and blindly slap the button on the coffee maker in the dark. When I return from the shower, a bit warmer, I slide into my comfy chair by the window under the wooden Buddha that sits mid-window, with a full cup. I curl a bit and rest the mug, still wrapped with my right hand, on my chest so that I can feel the warming nature of the earthen clay seep into the bones of my breast plate. Slowly the mind wakens with the graying of the sky from black, restful, pondering the scent of the Fair-trade Brazilian fresh ground, or the shape of the steam rising in the still cool room. Nothing has started yet. Nothing may ever start again.
