The Japanese have an artform that has evolved from mending broken pottery. It is called KINTSUGI, which means golden joinery, or KINSTUKUROI, which means golden repair. Artists who use this artform repair broken pottery by mending areas of damage with coating covered or mixed with powdered gold, platinum or silver.
Pottery repaired in this manner is considered to be more beautiful and more unique than it was when it was still intact, before it had been broken and ever so carefully and tenderly repaired.
And it is, indeed, more beautiful than before, with veins of gold running along its side, shimmering and glimmering, and making the pottery vessel functional and usable again.
I wonder if the same may not apply to us.
We all have areas in our lives or in our person where we have experienced “breaking,” even getting shattered. As fragile human beings, as time goes on, we simply cannot escape getting cracked and chipped and fractured as we encounter the ups and downs of life, and as at times we make choices that are not the wisest.
Yet, as we choose to pursue our mending, through whatever means work for us—psychological, physical and/or spiritual—we and those around us may be delighted to find out that the person that emerges after the “repairs” has far more depth and richness of character and wisdom to tap into than the person we were prior to our “breakage.”
Yes, we too can become more beautiful than we were before, with our soul scars covered with the gold of healing and wisdom that come from working through our pain in healthy and even noble ways, taking the “high road.”
So, I wish a Kintsugi new year to us all! We can only benefit from such an approach to hurts and failures as we make our way through an imperfect world.
