Kintsukuroi

 

 

 

‘Kintsukuroi’,  or“Golden Repair”, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending breaks with lacquered powdered gold, silver or platinum.  The artist treats the breakage and the repair as part of the history of a piece rather than trying to hide the breakage, the flaws or the imperfections. - — Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics

 

Who is the judge of our broken places, our perceived flaws, or our imperfections?  Society.  Those who would put us asunder.  Ourselves.  Comparison.  Who among us is so perfect that we have the dedicated role of Chief, Judge, Executioner of self? Why do we not celebrate our uniqueness, no matter what society or others say?  Why do we not celebrate our difficulties in life that we have survived?  Why do we not glory in our heroism of having survived at all?  Least of all, why do we choose to be degraded by comparison?  Comparison is the thief of all things of Joy.

‘Mushin’ means ‘no mind’, the state of non-attachment, of acceptance of change, and fate.  I guess it depends on religiosity.  It depends on our conditioning as to what we think might be ‘wrong’ with us, of that which does not fit within a tribe, of those things that we see as wanting within self.  Where is the rule book?  Where is the sceptre that we carry that allows us to even consider judging another’s flaws, let alone what we beat ourselves up with as things that are not whole and beautiful and unique.  We are not in survival mode of the cave people’s need to have a perfect lineage of our progeny, or genetic traits that are ‘white like me’, or trickle-down judgements of a tribe that meant life or death.   How far have we even evolved when we deny that life has its ups and downs, its hard knocks, it shatterings?  When did compassion become so rarity that we need reminding that we should have it?  At what point does the mending of our cracks and breakages finally shatter into irreparable pieces?  How often have our societies driven wounding beings to give up the mending?  Why do we accept self-imposed imperfectness?  Wouldn’t practicing Kintsukuroi’ on ourselves allow us to be more accepting that it is absolutely common for every living being to make mistakes and to have some bumps and bruises in this hard life down here on Mother Earth?  Who have we judged today?  Was it others, was it ourselves?  How much pathos does one need to go through to realize that we are so beautifully, wonderfully, unique and what made us so?  Perfectionism!

We beat ourselves up because we judge others?  We judge others and ergo we judge ourselves and it is a vicious cycle of our own perceptions of what should be perfect and how others, and we, are not.  Who taught us to set such standards that have us judge, jury and executioner of ourselves and therefore ourselves?  Think hard on this because the answer(s) will set you free. 

Does the trigger for perfectionism belong to conditioning by others, early in your childhood?  Back then, you had no mature logical tools/skills to decide for yourself.  You are no longer a child.  Stop, look, listen to yourself talking to self.  Are you speaking the language of a vulnerable, unskilled child to yourself? 

Does the trigger go back to how, as a child, you set perimeters and perceptions of Self and began to hammer on the mantle of earliest ideas about Self and take them out into the larger world to allow others to cement those imperfect perfections that you scripted for self?

When are we going to stop the idea that someone or something has a right to put down what could sure make us revel in the beauty of the ways we ‘fix(ed)’ things?  When do we see our \scars” as things of beauty, of things that make us wiser, of things that have been, actually, gifts?  I know these things are true of me. 

I learned to see my broken, fixed, places as gifts for others.  I have a great deal of cracks.  In fact, my cracks are more than my fixings, betimes.  Betimes, my gift of ‘knowing’ my broken places helped me know how to help others, how to use that knowledge to help others heal their broken places, helped me learn to feel like I had to know my mendings WERE gifts for others.  I learned to look at a group of children and be able to point out those who had broken places like I had had and I knew what I was working with for them.  Oh, yes, my broken/mended places were, immensely, gifted things. 

As well, I learned NOT to compare myself to others… mostly.  I learned, when things get tough, look back at how I mended other cracks in who I was.  I learned to consider whether it worked, or did not work, in ways I tried to fix those broken places.  Then I chose to mend new broken places with that knowledge.  Oh, yes, those wounded spaces became gifts. 

Rather than revel in my brokenness, I learned to revel in the mending.  Can you find it in your heart to do the same?

©Carol Desjarlais 8.23.21