Water

I taught myself gongfu cha because I needed a practice that wouldn't let me rush. Small pot. Small cups. Many pours. You can't hurry it and you can't phone it in, because the person across from you is watching your hands.

That turned into what I now do for rooms: a guided, seated ceremony where the point isn't the tea. It's that a group of people goes quiet together, and in that quiet, real things get said. I call them wisdom workshops because that's what happens. Nothing mystical. We sit, we pour, we talk about what's actually going on.

Fire is expression. Tea is attention. You need both or you get a performer who can't sit still, or a sitter who never does anything. At an event, tea opens the evening and fire closes it. The arc works because the elements do.