When the World Was Ending
If there was ever a time in human history when people had every reason to believe they were swept up in the apocalypse, it was during the Sengoku Jidai, aka the Warring States Period of Japanese history. For a century, multiple factions battled to take control of the entire country. And to top it all off, the conditions mirrored Buddhism's prevailing belief about the end of the world. Yes, everything was going down the tubes. It was only a matter of time.
Despite the fighting, famine, and religious hysteria, people living in this period produced some of the most magnificent artwork in Japanese history. It was during this time that what we know as the Japanese Tea Ceremony came into existence. Through these accomplishments, it seemed as if people were attempting to turn the tide against inertia, to bring order to chaos, to slow down the descent into hell that everyone and everything told them would happen in their lifetimes.
I've been privileged to see much of this art at the Tokyo National Museum. Many of the examples are wall scrolls that once adorned the homes of the nobility. As we use our four walls to isolate ourselves from the sounds of traffic, work, and other minor conveniences, they needed a sanctuary from encroaching oblivion. I've always figured that is why Japanese homes from that period reflect an almost surgical precision- everything has its appointed place, and with the tea ceremony, its appointed time, as well. Anything less would invite the destruction happening just outside. I believe that it was through this artificial order that those with the means to bring change did so, that the slight reprieves allowed them to focus their energies on fixing the situation rather than exacerbating it.
With all the chaos going on in the modern world, it's easy to empathize with the people who lived through the Sengoku Jidai. Pack it in, folks, we're done here, seems to be a prevailing sentiment when it comes to major issues such as climate change. Having lost my home last year to a wildfire - one of many strengthened by global warming - I know from firsthand experience how people can entertain this mindset. It's hard to have hope when at this very moment I can look outside my window in Petaluma and see an opaque sky, smoke from the Carr Fire.
But I have an idea.
I can't paint worth a crap, so let me propose a new 'tea ceremony' for our age, something to bring order to chaos, offer some much-needed perspective, and perhaps inspire some hope for the future.
Leave your home with nothing but a garbage bag and some work gloves. Then, in silence, pick up any refuse you see until the garbage bag is full. It may take ten minutes or an hour, but you have to make sure that the bag can't fit another piece of trash. When you finish, pause to feel its weight, the burden you are removing from the Earth. Repeat every time you feel despair or hopelessness.
Why pick up trash? Well, we can't isolate ourselves indoors any longer. Mother nature doesn't have much respect for walls. And most of us lack money and political power to build a solar farm or expand a nature preserve. So trash it is.