Nanakai – Seven Gatherings of Wagashi and Tea
Nanakai is a series of seven tea gatherings.
It is a journey in which a single soul is slowly woven from darkness into light.
Through these gatherings, the threads of family, memory, and lived experience are gently re-tied
and transformed into something softer, wider, and more compassionate.
This is not a program to achieve something, but a process of remembering, feeling, and integrating.
Each gathering stands on its own,
yet each one naturally leads to the next.
Together, they form a quiet arc of transformation.
What follows is an overview of the seven gatherings that make up The Weaving of Light.
1. Dreaming Her Way
The first gathering marks the beginning.
It takes place in the liminal space between sleep and waking,
where something long held inside begins to stir.
Here, participants are invited to reconnect with the courage to begin,
to sense the small but undeniable spark that says, “Something new wants to live.”
What was once silent or dormant is not forced awake,
but allowed to emerge gently, in its own time.
This gathering is about the first step,
and the moment when the past stops being an enemy
and becomes the ground from which something new can grow.
2. The Taste of Memory
This gathering moves inward, toward roots and remembrance.
Scent, taste, and warmth open a doorway to memory.
Through wagashi and tea, participants encounter layers of the past that are often carried unconsciously.
Here, memory is not analysed or explained.
It is tasted.
Family stories, inherited emotions, and unspoken tenderness
are allowed to soften and rearrange themselves.
This gathering is about reconciliation,
and about meeting one’s own history with more gentleness than before.
3. Fire in the Heart
At the centre of the series lies fire.
This gathering addresses emotions that are often difficult to hold,
such as anger, intensity, and unexpressed desire.
Rather than suppressing these forces,
participants are invited to recognise them as life energy.
Fire here is not destructive.
It is creative.
This gathering explores how strong emotions can be transformed
into movement, expression, and clarity,
and how inner heat can become a source of vitality rather than a source of conflict.
4. Breathing Dream
This gathering brings attention to rhythm and breath.
Thought and body, which are often experienced as separate,
begin to move together again.
Through breath, silence, and presence,
participants sense a quiet synchronisation between inner and outer worlds.
Nothing needs to be solved.
Nothing needs to be fixed.
Breathing becomes a bridge,
allowing the mind to rest
and the body to feel included in the dream of living.
5. Returning to the Body
This gathering is about embodiment.
Attention returns to the hands, to gesture, to simple actions.
Making, serving, and receiving become forms of prayer.
Here, spirituality is not abstract.
It is found in movement, repetition, and care.
Participants are invited to recognise the body
as a living vessel through which meaning is expressed,
and to rediscover dignity in everyday acts.
The sacred is no longer distant.
It is present in what the hands already know how to do.
6. Offering to the Earth
This gathering turns toward giving back.
What has been received, carried, and learned
is gently returned to the earth.
In nature, participants acknowledge the weight of inheritance,
family patterns, and long-held responsibilities,
and allow them to be placed down.
This is not an act of rejection,
but of gratitude and release.
Through this offering, what was heavy begins to dissolve,
and what remains is a quieter sense of belonging.
7. The Long Night’s Wisdom
The final gathering takes place in stillness.
After movement, memory, fire, and return,
there is silence.
In this space, stories no longer need to be repeated.
They are understood.
What was once pain becomes knowledge.
What was once a struggle becomes wisdom.
This gathering is not about answers,
but about a deep, steady clarity
that no longer needs to prove itself.
It is the wisdom that arrives
after one has stayed with the night long enough.
Epilogue — Weaving Light
The seven gatherings become a single cloth.
They hold the time a family has lived,
the emotions that have been passed down,
and the moments that were never fully spoken.
To weave light is not to erase the past,
but to forgive time.
To serve tea is to remember love.
