Those invisible lives
When you walk into a wild or natural farming tea plantation in summer, sometimes you have to look for the tea trees first. Trees are lush. The weeds are happy. The moths are hiding under the leaves, the spiders have made one big home after another, and the birds laid another egg and pecked a few worms today.
The trees are ugly too, and I heard the uglier the better. The whole mountain is like a shaggy and disorganized puppy dog that hasn't had a haircut in a long time. In winter, it may look like it’s dying because there’s no man-made water supply.
This might be a daily scene of a chemical-free tea garden, where coexistence and prosperity are the expression.
Beneath the surface of the soil, there is a rich ecosystem just starting its day. The healthier the soil is, the healthier the tea trees are. The living, breathing soil is a healthy mass of bacteria, algae, and filamentous fungi that are busy decomposing and transforming decaying organic matter for the plants to reutilize and absorb. When you hold a handful of soil in your hand, there are hundreds of millions of tiny beings inside.
Plants rely on their root systems to divide their burrows. In addition to weeds, the roots of the tea tree also intertwine with other crops, enriching its own content. Because no fertilizer is given, it has to put down roots and absorb more nutrients and water. The more independent the tea tree is, the more it grows on its own. It also means that the tea soup we drink is richer in substance.
We are all in a living cycle
Everything is all in oneness, from the inconspicuous soil, changing climate and the interdependence of various living organisms, to the growth of a small leaf and then through human hands to make different tea flavors, brew tea, then absorb into the body and then transformed into the necessary nutrients we need. In the ever-changing cycle, what never changes is the living energy.
There is a law of nature - life always balances itself from two opposites. So there is no such thing as good or bad, but rather, the more abundant, the more stable and balanced the mechanism can be maintained. Some tea farmers understand it. They let nature take its course, letting the natural enemies fight among themselves. They stay away from it, doing nothing. All that is needed is to visit the farm once in a few months, pulling out the grass and pruning them a bit, because the older harvest workers who are picking the tea will complain that the tea trees are too tall.
This kind of thinking is contrary to the mainstream agricultural methods, which use chemical substances to pursue quick success and mass production. Organic beings in the soil are killed by chemical agents. Tea trees are forced to drink chemical nutrients. People also drink these elements through the tea. In this cycle, life itself is no longer the main focus, instead the desire, money, and profit become the dominant factors. We humans may achieve our goals, but eventually lose health and nature.
“What you take in excess, you must give back one day”
When a tea grower told me this, I suddenly realized that this is the core of the entire wild and natural farming method.
If the tea trees and the land are not allowed to recover from excessive harvesting, they as a result will begin to weaken and one day become sick.
The whole society’s value is telling us not to rest. In the past the imbalance from the competitive daily life created so much internal anxiety and stress for me. Ever since I started to drink wild and natural farming tea, a lot of changes are slowly flowing in the subconscious. Until one day I suddenly realized that the cup of tea sitting in front of me comes from the support of so many lives. I also realized that I have been unconditionally supported by so much invisible kindness. Coming to this understanding of appreciation has indemnified a lot of internal fears and shortages.
Drinking tea every day is a kind of reminder, as well as mind shifting, from the habitual mode of thinking, turn to see more beauty of life itself. What we’ve been given form earth we shouldn’t take for granted, but it is also true that it’s unconditional. I personally believe the simpler we live, the closer we are to nature. And being close to nature, we will remember our true nature.
