Kim (see previous post A Very Mini Artist’s Colony in New Mexico) had some old friends up from Santa Fe for lunch the other day and I was invited. He made everything, of course: a wonderful butternut squash soup (I’ll be publishing the recipe, so watch for that)…
…and homemade country bread (see previous post Adventures in the Art of Bread Making)…
… with a lovely asparagus salad. It was a wonderful day of old friends, new friends, good conversation, coffee outside, their great dog, Delilah, whom Finn was quite taken with.
After they’d gone, I took some pictures of the table and the kitchen. I was captivated by the beauty of the remnants of the day:
I’ve recently read a book about wabi-sabi (a Japanese aesthetic or ideal that has been evolving for thousands of years) called, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, by Leonard Koren. In it he states that, “Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.” He also says that it, “…can in its fullest expression be a way of life.”
Wabi-sabi embodies the life process. It recognizes that all things are, “… either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness… While the universe destructs it also constructs… wabi-sabi suggests that the universe is in a constant motion toward or away from potential.” Like our lunch.
And although this seems to be a natural order of things, the cycle of life, birthing and dying, coming and going, we human beings often have trouble with the idea of letting go. We hold on, sometimes fiercely–to old ways of being, old ideas, old systems and patterns and beliefs. Often this is all taking place underground and we aren’t aware of it. But our bodies react. They try to tell us something’s wrong; that we have old stories running under the surface and we must become aware. When we don’t listen, when we don’t become acutely conscious, when we continue with old ways that no longer serve us, we become ill. We get things like shingles (see previous post An Antidote for Pain) and we must stand still and listen to the wisdom of our bodies because the answers are all there, embedded in our very cells.
And speaking of wabi-sabi, here’s Finn after a day of play with Delilah. I’d say that’s some serious “devolving toward nothingness” going on there.
I leave you with this, our “coffee table” the morning after:
Love to you all,
Jeane
Your guests were remarkably tidy.
There is an ancient American sayiing in keeping with your wabi sabi, “dust to dust.’
Can you tell us more about what was learned from shingles? What the understory is?
I am sure my life is full of understories.
I am still in recovery and some pain–still not working. I believe the lessons will be clearer once I’m through to the other side of this.
“Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.” How beautiful! An apt analogy with your lunch – how things evolve or devolve into nothingness. Thanks for sharing.
Glad you liked it Laura. I loved the book. It went a long way toward examining the nature of things.
I understand what you are experiencing. I think we have to go through our evolution one layer at a time. I had such a shattering experience in Utah that my wall was finally destroyed and I was left to face everything I’d hidden behind it all my life. It was extremely painful but also intensely healing and transforming.
You are aware and your wall will shatter sometime too, I am quite certain. Until that happens all you can do is practice chipping away at it I think. Wishing you peace and healing on your journey.