A coracle: Is it a boat? Is it a basket? Answer: it's both!So I'd been taking some time off from blogging to wait for a theme to come to me, when my friends turned me on to the Japanese aesthetic philosophy of Wabi-Sabi. When I first heard someone make reference to it, I assumed they were talking about a Japanese cowboy, or mispronouncing "wasabi." Then I took the time to look it up online and found this wonderful essay from the annuls of the Internet, posted ages ago by who-knows-who, on a website called NobleHarbor.com. I don't know who to attribute it to, but here's the introduction:
"Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came."
Wabi-sabi pottery. The pots' flaws reflect the unique character of the craftsman and the process of their construction.
This may sound a little bleak to some. As Americans steeped in a culture that celebrates youth and newness and all things cutting-edge, we don't often like to be reminded of "the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death." Yet, it is this process that has fascinated me even since my teen years (admittedly, I was slightly goth), when I first discovered Zen Buddhism and began my search for a spiritual discipline that I could identify with. Years later, I'm still searching - but at the heart of my daily striving is the practice of mindfulness, or a constant, wakeful awareness of what I am doing at any given moment. Through mindfulness we develop a deep appreciation for the here-and-now, for in each moment lies the seed of our future activities and the fruit of our past actions. I am sitting in school because a thousand small choices led me here, and because I am sitting in school, someday I will be treating patients (I hope). We see the origin of our choices, our growth, and even our eventual decay and death. It may sound morbid, but it's not: because we will die someday, we are motivated to savor and celebrate every moment of our lives. We make the decision to be happy now.
Ikebana - the Japanese practice of floral arrangement - strives to recreate the accidental symmetry and balance of nature.
On Wikipedia's page about wabi-sabi, I found this great phrase that came to me like a revelation -- the theme for my blog. "Wabi-sabi represents liberation from a material world and transcendence to a simpler life." I LOVE that phrase: "transcendence to a simpler life." In this country, we tend to accumulate more and more baggage as we age: debt, material stuff, and our own stereotypes about the world. Wabi-sabi is about recognizing that, indeed, we cannot bring these things with us into the next life, and that all of the crap we gather around us are merely borrowed and will eventually pass into others' hands. We may keep only our experiences, and even those will die with us -- unless we share them with others.
So this blog is about my attempts to transcend into a simpler life. It's about becoming rich with experiences while finding ways to be more frugal in the material sense. It's about creating objects by hand and being present for their conception, their use, and eventually their decay. While Zen is often thought to condemn attachment to any kind of material objects, wabi-sabi expresses "...the idea that being surrounded by natural, changing, unique objects helps us connect to our real world and escape potentially stressful distractions." (Wikipedia). Food can be applied to wabi-sabi, too -- wabi-sabi is slow food, grown with love and cooked with care so we may recognize and respect the cycles of growth and death that continue to sustain us. And it's about sharing my thoughts and experiences with others so that any useful bits of knowledge I come across may serve as seeds for ideas and take on new life in the minds of others.
This Christmas, I'm celebrating wabi-sabi by making my own gifts by hand whenever possible or shopping on etsy.com. I'm striving to give objects with their own unique history that will age gracefully and be treasured for years to come. Let me just say, it's incredibly difficult to think of a wabi-sabi gift for a ten year old boy, but gift-giving should be a challenge -- and I don't mean challenging in the sense that you should have to knock down other shoppers at the entrance of Walmart on Black Friday, but a challenge to find something that will truly be loved by the receiver.
"Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came."
Wabi-sabi pottery. The pots' flaws reflect the unique character of the craftsman and the process of their construction.This may sound a little bleak to some. As Americans steeped in a culture that celebrates youth and newness and all things cutting-edge, we don't often like to be reminded of "the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death." Yet, it is this process that has fascinated me even since my teen years (admittedly, I was slightly goth), when I first discovered Zen Buddhism and began my search for a spiritual discipline that I could identify with. Years later, I'm still searching - but at the heart of my daily striving is the practice of mindfulness, or a constant, wakeful awareness of what I am doing at any given moment. Through mindfulness we develop a deep appreciation for the here-and-now, for in each moment lies the seed of our future activities and the fruit of our past actions. I am sitting in school because a thousand small choices led me here, and because I am sitting in school, someday I will be treating patients (I hope). We see the origin of our choices, our growth, and even our eventual decay and death. It may sound morbid, but it's not: because we will die someday, we are motivated to savor and celebrate every moment of our lives. We make the decision to be happy now.
Ikebana - the Japanese practice of floral arrangement - strives to recreate the accidental symmetry and balance of nature.On Wikipedia's page about wabi-sabi, I found this great phrase that came to me like a revelation -- the theme for my blog. "Wabi-sabi represents liberation from a material world and transcendence to a simpler life." I LOVE that phrase: "transcendence to a simpler life." In this country, we tend to accumulate more and more baggage as we age: debt, material stuff, and our own stereotypes about the world. Wabi-sabi is about recognizing that, indeed, we cannot bring these things with us into the next life, and that all of the crap we gather around us are merely borrowed and will eventually pass into others' hands. We may keep only our experiences, and even those will die with us -- unless we share them with others.
So this blog is about my attempts to transcend into a simpler life. It's about becoming rich with experiences while finding ways to be more frugal in the material sense. It's about creating objects by hand and being present for their conception, their use, and eventually their decay. While Zen is often thought to condemn attachment to any kind of material objects, wabi-sabi expresses "...the idea that being surrounded by natural, changing, unique objects helps us connect to our real world and escape potentially stressful distractions." (Wikipedia). Food can be applied to wabi-sabi, too -- wabi-sabi is slow food, grown with love and cooked with care so we may recognize and respect the cycles of growth and death that continue to sustain us. And it's about sharing my thoughts and experiences with others so that any useful bits of knowledge I come across may serve as seeds for ideas and take on new life in the minds of others.
This Christmas, I'm celebrating wabi-sabi by making my own gifts by hand whenever possible or shopping on etsy.com. I'm striving to give objects with their own unique history that will age gracefully and be treasured for years to come. Let me just say, it's incredibly difficult to think of a wabi-sabi gift for a ten year old boy, but gift-giving should be a challenge -- and I don't mean challenging in the sense that you should have to knock down other shoppers at the entrance of Walmart on Black Friday, but a challenge to find something that will truly be loved by the receiver.
Crocheted wabi-sabi mitts, made for a very special someone!