Every Monday through Friday,
I meditate to several smells;
filling my senses, as I warm my hands
with a daily cup of chai tea
before work.
The spices in chai range from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Viet Nam, and Madagascar. I can only imagine
harvesting these crops at far-away farms.
Freshly grated ginger, seems the most fulfilling:
It is fruity, almost a cross of lemon and orange, and yet spicy...
It's smell, more than any of the others,
clears my breathing,
and the taste consistently
tingles on my tongue.
About once a year or so,
John bakes a ginger cake from scratch,
for the students who travel
from all over the world,
to the private art school
where he teaches.
He's baking another tonight.
All of the spices,
(much like chai tea),
have traveled from spectacular
corners of the world.
Autumn is a time of change;
a time to release,
a time to begin to seek light
as the skies darken sooner,
and a time to appreciate
tastes and scents we can only know from farmers far away.
