Saturday, February 13, 2016

Go for the gold

A delightful little piece on YouTube, about kintsugi, the Japanese art of embracing damage.

Broken pottery is repaired, but with gold.

More of the delight of wabi sabi, the beauty of impermanence.

And this is what the MS experience asks of we who follow--who have been set upon--that path. We are definitely broken, our happy comfortable lives that we were so used to have been completely changed by the MS experience. And yet, we can repair the broken pots of our lives with gold... the same gold that the MS experience itself provides.

My own personal MS experience has brought me new ways to experience the world. Often, to share compassion with those who need it, even when they're not present. To really, really, enjoy the simple beauty of the sweet scent of the air turning ever so slightly springwards, away from winter. Yesterday, I heard house finches, for the first time in months. My wife walks across the house grousing about wearing the wrong whatever or looking down in the dumps, and yet all I see is beauty.

There was a huge energetic cost to journey to the tea shop, and yet every morning that I make the dark oolong tea that I got there, I absolutely love it. Was it worth the two days of not doing even remotely well and barely even having the wherewithal to feed myself -- no energy even to eat well, certainly not to eat and enjoy... But the simple pleasure of truly good tea, truly well made, is indeed a golden experience.

So, my MS-accessorized friends... Time to go for the gold.


1 comment:

Kayla said...

Beautifully expressed, Robert!