Timeliness

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up.

So says the Book of Ecclesiastes. The Yi Jing [Book of Changes] and Kongzi [Confucius] call it "the way of heaven". Carl Jung called it "synchronicity". Zen folk might call it "mindfulness", sportsmen might call it "being in the zone". I can't repeat what traditional jazz players call it. It's that time when everything clicks, on some level. Rightness in time. Timeliness.

A good tea session can be like this. That time when every brew works out perfectly, and every sip is a marvel. A good painting can be like it, when every stroke lands in just the right place, automatically. A good haiku can be like it, when every phrase comes out unbidden, sitting perfectly on the page, just right.

We've had lots of snow recently. You know me - I like to take photos of pretty scenes. The snow fell particularly heavily, and the weather forecast said that it'd all be gone soon. I was running out of time - I had to get some shots before it all melted. However, my schedule was full, from start to finish.

Wolfing down breakfast, I headed out into the garden with my camera. I felt the pressure of imminent meetings, and all of the responsibility that they have associated with them. I felt heavy, rushed. Despite that, I was determined to photograph some of the winter - snow is quite a rarity in England, and it was the first winter in our new house, so I wanted to have at least a few photos by which to remember it.

Nothing worked.

Everything I photographed turned out poorly: bad composition, flat subjects, no interest. Of the many photographs that I took, all were deleted, excepting the mundane but amusing shot of our neighbours' charming German snowmen (above).

I headed off to my first commitment of the day feeling as if something had slipped past, something that I couldn't grab.

A busy day passed, then a good night's sleep.

Waking the next day, fantastically enough, the snow had remained despite the predictions of the weathermen. With an empty schedule, I strolled out into the garden with my camera, and no expectations.

I walked out to the far end, past the vegetable patches constructed by the house's previous owner that we have not yet replanted, and took in some fresh air. I looked around, searching for nothing in particular, content just to be in the garden with nothing to do.

Every little aspect of the quiet far end of the garden seemed magical and significant, in its own way. Various Zen sayings came to mind, which I let pass without noting. I took photograph after photograph of magic - little treasures, one after another, everywhere I looked.

Old bottles in the greenhouse, sheltering under a glass ceiling heavy with snow. Beads of water dripping off a shed roof. A leaf seen from behind, glimpsed through a gap in the fence.

I eventually returned to the house, empty and light, a camera filled with inspiration.

Which tea should I brew? My hands ran over a sample kindly provided by Nada - a 2008 spring Baozhong, picked by the farmer in accordance with times and dates determined by the Daoist astrological almanac.

a time to plant, and a time to pluck that which is planted

Timeliness.

Sharing those buttery brews with Lei, sharing scents of a Chinese spring revived before us, I thought of the famous passage from Ecclesiastes, quoted at the opening to this article.

I've learned not to force it if it's wrong. Some days, you just get it right.

That's timeliness.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.