I searched one full year to find a mug that was right for my Sunday morning ritual of steeping looseleaf tea. The current drinking vessel was a generously sized, comfortable mug, but when it was lifted to my lips one Sunday, something felt off. It was time for change. I began to imagine the ideal replacement mug and casually began my search not anticipating how challenging it would be to find the right one. Every time I test drove a mug from a shelf, back to the shelf it would return. Some were the right size. Some looked good and were comfortable in my hands. But none of them felt right. It became a routine, almost mindless yet mindful. I stopped looking for certain styles or colors. No matter what they looked like, I picked them up and put them down. Picked them up and put them down. During this process, I was listening; waiting for the right one to speak to me. After months of searching, the words began to pour off my tongue once again to explain my quest to a potter at a local market as I performed the same dance with her mugs scattered among plates and bowls. Suddenly in mid-sentence I stopped, looked at the mug in my hand and knew: this was the one. I heard it. I felt it. Without hesitation, I purchased the mug, took her business card and left satisfied.
On the morning of the mug’s inauguration, I looked up the potter online and read her bio where she explained her passion for clay and the process through which she goes to create her hand-crafted pieces. I learned that she owns the property where matter is dug up from the ground and taken home to prep for molding. In mid-paragraph I paused as emotion surfaced. I realized that the mug for which I had been searching had been waiting in the soil for someone to remove it from the earth and form it into a vessel for me to use. The mug did not exist when I began my search.
Eckhart Tolle claims that “Most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of the inner essence, just as they are unaware of their own essence and identify with their own physical and psychological form.” I was not looking for a mug. I was looking for something more. It was a call out to the deep waiting for the deep to respond. My approach was not clinical, attached to form and function. If that had been the case, I would have settled for any ceramic container with a handle that would hold liquid from which I could sip. I was not looking for a mug. It was the formless within the form that I was seeking. I was looking for essence.
This listening is an odd way to exist in a world where much of the interaction that takes place is on a superficial level. We quote the phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but that is how the majority of people function. Does it look appealing? Will it meet my surface need? Sold! Whether it is clothing, food, furniture, activities, jobs or relationships too many jump in and purchase, eat, buy, participate, accept and bond without truly listening. Impatience and the desire for instant gratification override our ability to hear. Unfortunately, as Tolle said, the inability to see the inner essence is a mirror on the inability to identify the essence within ourselves.
I will wait for the best rather than settle for the sufficient. It is not about perfection. It is about flow. It is about hearing the song below the surface. In his notebooks of 1912 - 1914, Piet Mondrian is quoted as saying, “The surface of things gives delight, their inwardness gives life.” When I reach to take my mug off the shelf every Sunday morning, fill it with chai and sip from its edge, I am grateful. I am reminded that there is meaning behind the form. I sense the inwardness, the mysterious, the transcendent. Life is present. It is worth the wait. It is worth a listen.