The hubs and I are rebuilding a stone wall that is in front of our house. It has fallen over several times over the course of us living in our house for almost 20 years. Various sections have different colored concrete holding the stones together. It would be a colossal undertaking (and expensive!) to tear the whole thing down, so we yet again dug up a shit ton of dirt, brushed off the stones, bought 80 lbs. of mortar and are reassembling. Being the architect that he is, he is a little mortified that we are piecemealing this thing back together again. I do not care if it is perfect or not. In fact, I like that is a little ram shackled.

In Japanese culture there is a concept called Wabi-Sabi. It reminds us that all things, including life itself, is incomplete and imperfect. That perfection is impossible and impermanence, or imperfection, is the only way. Clearly, we are not the first homeowners that have applied a band aid to this little wall. The wall cannot be permanent, nothing is. The damage on the right is from where we put in a new water line years ago and the ground finally settled, and the part on the left is where the crab apple tree’s roots have extended and grown – too much pressure for the stones.

Wabi-Sabi is the principle that something becomes more beautiful as it ages, fades, patinas. That it constantly acquires new charm. For me celebrating another birthday is the 50’s next month, I could not agree more.

An ancient form of art stems from Wabi-Sabi called Kintsugi. Think of a bowl or a plate that you drop accidentally onto the floor. What would you do with it? Probably pick up the pieces and throw them away. But not with Kintsugi. Here, you bring the pieces of broken pottery back together and glue them with liquid gold. Wouldn’t that make them imperfect, permanently, and inevitably flawed, but somehow, more beautiful?

Last year I needed to have a little bump removed from my arm. The little patch of squamous cells just happened to land right on the wing of my owl tattoo on my left arm. My dermatologist took great delight in sewing the owl’s wing back together the best she could, but it left a scar regardless. I like the tattoo better with the scar right though it. Kintsugi reminds us that there is great beauty and wisdom in broken things…. scars tell a story. They demonstrate fortitude and resilience earned with the passage of time.

We cannot hide the imperfections, but we can celebrate them. In yoga and in life.

xoxo

JK