Nothing in life is perfect. No one person is perfect. When someone feels broken, there is something that represents the healing. I know this personally. Japan’s ancient art of embracing imperfection or kintsugi represents this.
Kintsugi means repairing or fixing broken ceramic with a type of golden lacquer. The technique is an extension of the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which sees beauty in the incomplete and values simplicity.
The broken pieces of ceramic are gilded with the sap of an indigenous Japanese tree for the restoration. All of this beautiful work usually takes up to three months and left to dry for a few weeks and then adorned with gold running along its cracks. What a process!
It’s a visual of fixing what is broken with something so beautiful to behold. Cracks filled with gold represent the power of healing and remembering that what’s broken is always fixable – whether it’s ceramic or a person.
Hemigway had a quote that fits here. “We are all broken. That’s how the light gets in.”
I’m always a work in progress and may sometimes feel broken in ways. Everyone is broken in some way after all. Gold fills my cracks and broken areas and the beauty is open to each person.
