A Tea Stronger Than Death

“This particular residency was a thematic one, and the theme was titled Meeting for Teas. So it drew artists curators and thinkers from all over. We all had this time and space to sit with Tea independently, sit with Tea communally, and talk about tea in all the different ways, including decolonizing as an aspect of tea and tea culture. And I couldn't stop crying the first two weeks when I was there, and I didn't even really know what I was crying about. To a certain degree, I kind of did, because the day that I received news that I've been accepted was the same day my Nai Nai passed away.”

Mimi Young, née Lin, is a Taiwanese Canadian animist spirit medium, Tea devotée, writer, and the founder of Ceremonie. Mimi’s work lies at the intersection of animacy and re-animation, intuition and creativity, using symbolic interpretation and ancient Chinese wisdom practices to commune with the Unseen and invite new possibilities during times of uncertainty and change.

In this podcast episode, Mimi shares excerpts from her limited edition artist's book, A Tea Stronger Than Death: Poems of Hurt and Healing While On Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain.

“Created during the 5-week thematic residency, Meeting For Teas, held at the Banff Centre for Arts + Creativity, located on the side of Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain, this collection of poems and illustrations of grey-scaled cyanotypes (sun prints) is both prayer and journey through light, shadow, and verse, giving honour to the painful and healing moments of locating oneself over and over again, with Tea, the departed, and the more-than-human.”

She also has an upcoming sliding scale 6-week transformational writing series titled UGLY WORDS.

Learn more about Mimi Young at https://shopceremonie.com/

Follow her on IG @shopceremonie

This episode was edited by Nina Maria Iniestra De La Riva and comes to you with the support of Erika Mai T. Apuli from Earth Rooted Assistants.

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