WABI-SABI

In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete"
(Wikipedia).

Everyday I go outside to greet the day,  breathe, experience peace.

This morning, my focus was on bushes along the wall.  They were green, speckled with red blooms in summer.  But now, in January winter, they are merely grey organic skeletons. I wondered if they died or are simply enjoying a pause from living because growing is not easy. They need winter, the way I need sleep.

Despite their slumber or deadness, they stood erect, as if happy to simply be in whatever form.  My thoughts, as thoughts always do, drifted. I considered my own creaking, aching bones that will someday be a remnant of me.  But, for now, they shape my flesh and move.  A moment of gratitude.

Then, thoughts of Wabi Sabi came to me. In the past, I found it difficult to understand how to appreciate the imperfect, the impermanent, the incomplete. But now, I had a deep connection to these twiggy bushes. I saw them as pretty, radiant, an adornment of life that cast lovely shadows. Their existence, in many ways, reflects my own. I sprout from the same source.  I too am imperfect, impermanent. Though 'aging' may at times appear to be a dormant stage, it is not. I can still dance my dance while I give, learn, laugh, love, live. There is beauty in this.  I am incomplete... but I am.




For Poets and Storytellers United.