It seems most faith traditions encourage some form of discipline. Most of the time I think discipline is healthy. Right now I think we try too hard. Right now I would rather embrace what comes naturally. My husband spends an hour in prayer every morning. I feel guilty for not maintaining the same practice. Normally he finds me still in bed when he's done. But that's ok. Because I get more out of lying in bed, watching the daylight pour in through our curtains, long strips of yellow and red that we first used as the table cloth at our wedding. I don't read the Bible religiously, either. But that's ok. Because I get more out of sitting on my front porch watching the vultures clamber around in the tall trees outside. The sound of the branches snapping under their clumsy weight reaches something deep inside me. I have a spirituality that comes so naturally to me. It is simple, and completely un-disciplined. It is nothing more than myself. And anything but myself. It's beauty and wonder and peace in everything, and I am connected to it in the noticing.
It is my experience that out of chaos comes order. Out of a million random events in my life come the words "wabi-sabi". I had been contemplating on my spirituality, and happened upon words for it in this month's issue of Mother Earth News. According to the author, Griggs Lawrence, Wabi-Sabi is "a subtly spiritual philosophy that sees home as sanctuary". Juniper (2003) (I can't believe I just cited like that in a blog) says "If an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi". Griggs Lawrence continues, "everything in a home, from the breakfast table to the attic windows, presents an opportunity to see beauty, because beauty is ordinary".
Hello new understanding of my soul. I like these bursts of daylight, though I know they are as impermanent as my home or myself.
I don't keep a Wabi-Sabi home, if one can keep a home Wabi-Sabi as they keep it Kosher. My home is anything but a sanctuary to me right now. It's a mess, frankly. But inside and outside my home I encounter things that draw from me that spiritual longing Juniper mentioned. And as I transition from grad school to civilian life, or any life, I look forward to connecting with the ordinary parts of my day, taking refuge in ordinary routines like cooking and cleaning, clearing out the unnecessary, and exploring these standards of Wabi-Sabi:
HISTORY
I try to fill my home with meaning and personal history. Keith's great uncle's war chest. His grandmother's drawers. Plates, bowls, and mugs that each carry their own memory.
IMPERMANENCE
The shadow, the daylight, and consequently the day. The plant. The wall. Me, the observer. Suddenly we are all equally impermanent. And equally beautiful.
INCOMPLETENESS
I do this too often - I take pictures of the most random things. Like this dough. I was rolling out fauschnaught, and struck by the beauty. I am sure it is very un-wabi-sabi of me to try and capture the moment and make it permanent. But I like that I recognize it's beauty.
VISION
Vision is about texture and color. I love our hand-carved bed Keith designed. I love our hand-woven orange blanket from Guatemala. I love the sunlight coming through those orange window shades / wedding table cloths I mentioned earlier.
CRAFT
I am sure a lot of these examples do not count as "Wabi-Sabi". Craft is about things made by hand, moving away from factory products. This is more like reclaiming those products and personalizing them. All but two of these were trash items that I was drawn to
(and then drew on...)
SPACE
Space is about simplicity. Letting open areas be their own decoration. It's part of making the home a sanctuary. The rest of our lives are busy, and our home should be an escape. My house, however, is covered in color and clutter! But one aspect of "space" that I do notice and enjoy in my home is light, and how it creates its own beauty in a space.
SABI (or the beauty that comes with age) AND SOUL
Keith and I refer to these things as having "personality". Like Keith's grandfather's 'barn tool drawer', now our tea drawer! It wears the scars of it's history so beautifully! From the cup ring to the heart-shaped newspaper that has managed to stick through the decades. I do think that the intensity of life gets stuck on objects. They live with us and outlive us.
HOSPITALITY
Many of our friends live in the city,
so something Keith and I have tried to offer is an outside space of hospitality.
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