Dear Me,
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. 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.
Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered… It’s a richly mellow beauty that’s striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time..For the Japanese, it’s the difference between kirei-merely “pretty”-and omoshiroi, the interestingness that kicks something into the realm of beautiful (its meanings range from fascinating to fantastic)…
Wabi stems from the root wa, which refers to harmony, peace, tranquillity, and balance… Poetically it has come to mean simple, unmaterialistic, humble by choice, and in tune with nature. Someone who is perfectly herself and never craves to be anything else would be described as wabi.
Sabi by itself means “the bloom of time.” It connotes natural progression- tarnish, hoariness, rust- the extinguished gloss of that which once sparkled… Sabi things carry the burden of their years with dignity and grace…There’s an aching poetry in things that carry this patina… We seek sabi in antiques and even try to manufacture it in distressed furnishings. True sabi cannot be acquired, however. It is a gift of time.
…Wabi-sabi inspires a minimalism that celebrates the human rather than the machine. Possessions are pared down, and pared down again, until only those that are necessary for their utility or beauty (and ideally both) are left…Items that you both admire and love to use… Things that resonate with the spirit of their makers’ hands and hearts… Pieces of your own history….”
–from: “the wabi-sabi house,the Japanese art of imperfect beauty” by Robyn Griggs
Dear Me, 