Even though Christmas comes around every year, it’s nice to appreciate that every gathering we attend is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
From Priya Parker’s book The Art of Gathering:
I once visited a teahouse in Kyoto, Japan, where I participated in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony to learn from their wisdom on gatherings. The tea master there told me of a phrase the 16th century Japanese tea master Sen no Rikyū taught his students to keep in the front of their minds as they conduct the ceremony: Ichi-go ichi-e. The master told me it roughly translates to “one meeting, one moment in your life that will never happen again”. She explained further: “We could meet again, but you have to praise this moment because in one year, we’ll have a new experience, and we will be different people and will be bringing new experiences with us, because we are also changed”. Each gathering is ichi-go ichi-e. And it can help to keep that in the forefront of our minds as we gather.
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