Subscribe via RSS‘The closer things get to nonexistence, the more exquisite and evocative they become.’….Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets, and Philosophers
The basic concept of elemental refers to the ancient idea of elements as fundamental building blocks of the nature of EveryBody and EveryThing.
That which is elemental is inherent in the design of all and each one of us. Bringing this purity into expression requires pause, inquiry and recognition, exploration, discovery and acknowledgment. It demands enough quiet to notice and appreciate what is hidden in who and what we are. It requests willingness to see what lies below the surface and it declares acceptance of things as they are. With an ability to slow us down, that which is elemental acts on us, moving us authentically forward. It promises to shift the balance from doing to being, from perfecting to appreciating.
Our universal longing for wisdom, for genuineness, for individual expression within a shared experience of life calls forth our elemental selves. In this meeting, we realize InfiniteFulfillment and the subtle art of living in the natural order that it occurs.
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What is elemental in being human? Being.
In line with the opening quote, I have a definition of wabi-sabi taped to my computer screen that I would like to share.
Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea-markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent.
I love the whole idea of this, and it seems elemental to me and it occurs that it is also exquisitely simple, just not that easy.
Pared down to our barest essence, we too are perfect in our imperfection and wise in our authenticity. What makes us who we are at our core – at our very essence – this is elemental in being human.