Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers seems to be the definitive text helping Westerners understand this ancient Japanese art, philosophy, and aesthetic. I dropped it into my Amazon shopping cart at the last minute, hoping it would give me ideas about curating some zen into my current surroundings. But what it actually brought up was intense nostalgia.
Apparently, I already have a very Wabi-sabi way of thinking and it’s deeply rooted in my childhood.
When I was a kid, I played for hours on end in the yard, making potions out of flowers, leaves, and other bits of plants I found; whispering wishes and secrets into their veins, then letting them go in the wind. I loved the beach; digging in the sand; rolling in the salty waves; singing to periwinkles until they bravely came out of their shells to say hello. I loved the parks that had wooded trails where I could explore for what seemed like forever. I loved the creek behind my best friend’s house with the stringy moss that looked like green, flowing hair, and the bugs that walked on water.
My childhood was not simple or stress-free but the time I spend in nature taught me, on some level, that I wasn’t alone and that everything has a purpose. It eventually helped me to understand that change is the only constant.
Wabi-sabi seemed to me a nature-based aesthetic paradigm that restored a measure of sanity to the art of living.
Koren, p. 9
Several years ago, I was working for NBC doing editing and operations work from a cubicle in 30 Rockefeller plaza. One day, I brought in a flower that my then-boyfriend’s mother had cut for me from her garden. I put it in a jar of water on my desk and later that day, happened to notice a small inch-worm crawling across a petal. It was no more than a few millimeters long and the discovery of this tiny, new friend brought me so much joy. So, naturally, I told no one he was there.
Over the next week, I’d find him in all kinds of new places – venturing across my keyboard, intrepidly scaling my desk phone; waving from the side of my monitor. Meanwhile, as life in offices goes, I had all manner of people walking by and stopping at my desk. I’d have meetings where several people would be studying the work I’d done on my computer screen and my little friend would be inching by right under the monitor…
but no one ever noticed the inch-worm.
‘Greatness’ exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked details.
Koren, p. 50
I always had less than my friends (fewer toys, fewer clothes, fewer rooms in my home) but I never felt like my life was lacking. I had love, creativity, solitude, joy, wonder. I didn’t crave attention or material things because I didn’t feel like having them really brought anything meaningful to others. My best friend growing up had an immense collection of American Girl dolls and Beanie Babies and whatever else was the cool thing to have at the time. But I knew that all she really wanted was for her mother to tell her she was proud of her; that it was OK for her to just be herself. I saw that the presence of all her stuff was a constant reminder of the absence of her eternally-working father.
Get rid of all that is unnecessary… Wabi-sabi is exactly about the delicate balance between the pleasure we get from things and the pleasure we get from the freedom of things.
Koren, p. 59
That said, I have always been a collector of small treasures. Seashells, torn arcade tickets, a lost skate-key, love rocks*, dried out flowers, a yellow nut from a racecar tire, tiny love-letters never sent, sea glass. As a little girl, I remember thinking that these trinkets were immensely special in and of themselves. I didn’t know why; I could just feel it. Now, these things connect me to the spirits of my past and remind me of the human I am and have been.
Things wabi-sabi are usually small and compact, quiet, and inward-oriented. They beckon: get close, touch, relate.
Koren, p. 67
The more I read about the wabi-sabi aesthetic, the more I remembered the smells, sounds, and textures from my childhood. Turning these pages, a world and a lifetime away, I found myself hearing the deep, resonant, fog horn that seemed to always come lingering through my bathroom window when I brushed my teeth before bed. I caressed the crumbling cracks on the concrete steps leading to our apartment building. My mind filled with the musty basement smell that I only remember going into a handful of times. I moved the wobbly part of my bed’s wooden headboard that was missing a screw. I ran my fingers through the shiny leaves of the boxwood shrubs that lined our yard. I felt the warm, salt-air wind on my skin.
I starting reading this book thinking I would learn how to best feng-shui my apartment and instead, I learned that I AM a “thing wabi-sabi.” This ancient art and philosophy from the other side of the planet has been in my experience for as long as I can remember and reading about it allowed me to wake up to the billion memories that make me who I am. Wabi-sabi may be an art form one can study and aspire to, but it’s also something that sneaks up on you, wraps you up and makes you remember that you are home and you always were.
The simplicity of wabi-sabi is probably best described as the state of grace arrived at by a sober, modest, heartfelt intelligence…pare down to the essence, but don’t remove the poetry.
Koren, p. 72
Books & References
Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren (2008)
*a love rock is any rock which has an unbroken line that goes all the way around it. This was something my mother taught me when I was little, and I have no further explanation than that.
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Wonderful! I am looking around right now at the many little treasures tucked around our crazy house; you describe your childhood perfectly. I still have the little note you wrote me that says, “Keep this forever…” It never ceases to amaze me how much we can learn about ourselves through great books! Great post.