Am currently reading Leonard Koren's book: Wabi- Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers. It had been sitting on the shelf in my inspiration bookcase for a few months, when a customer came into Book Soup yesterday and requested it. He was so enthusiastic to know that I had heard of it that I knew it was time to read it.
It is a simple quick read, and one that speaks directly to my life at the moment as well as the lives of those around me. So many people I know in Los Angeles and elsewhere seem to be at points of transition. And not easy transition, but painful and wrenching transition, either because of illness, sudden car accidents, break-ups, career changes, and many others. In the arena of there being three legs to the life stool (love and friendship, home, and work), it seems many of us are afraid our stools aren't standing up well enough to hold us.
This book is a beautiful example of how to trust these moments and just keep going... I'll share bits through the time I read it, because I think it is worth writing about more than once.
image: pictoscribe via flickr.
"How do we feel about what we know?
Acceptance of the inevitable: Wabi-sabi is an appreciation of the evanescence of life. The luxuriant tree of summer is now only withered branches under a winter sky. All that remains of a splendid mansion is a crumbled foundation overgrown with weeds and moss. Wabi-sabi images force us to contemplate our own mortality, and they evoke an existential loneliness and tender sadness. They also stir a mingled bittersweet comfort, since we know all existence shares the same fate."
-from Wabi-Sabi.
There is some comfort in at least feeling these periods of loss and transition are mirrored by nature. it is hard to argue with the order of nature and the fits of "this shouldn't be happening to me" that sometimes come up as I am frustrated and, in many ways, in shock that my life looks so different now than it did a month ago, are really just as futile as getting angry that summer is turning into fall.
I know that ultimately all the changes that are occuring for me and those around me will make some kind of sense to us. I am being polished pretty roughly at the moment, like the story of the river stone, but at the same time I would be foolish to ignore the possibilities that are coming through because of this. The fact that my being so exposed let me speak easily to a friend I'd argued with a year and a half ago last night. And that I am able to reach out to so many people who have been more than simply kind in offering to be of support.
And because, somewhere in the middle of this, I might get to move into a magical little home that I know is one I have dreamed of for a long time. So that leg of the stool will get held up. I had thought this would happen differently. There was a big part of me that hoped for a particlarl storyline. But if i know anything at this point in my life, it is that the storyline that is happening is usually far more valid than the one I keep trying to convince myself is true.
Cross your fingers for me, and there will be an amazing housewarming before too long. Thank you and thank you again to all of you for putting up with m during this period of time. I have never felt so unpredcitable, even to myself. I am so grateful you have been kind enough to treat me like it's all normal.
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