Maybe people don’t realize
The impact to my already cracked heart
Even the mention of another human’s passing
Can lend
Spider vein fractures on the vessel that is me
What will cause Kintsugi
Precious pain not hidden, highlighted
Empathy interlaced like gold
Potters hands still hold
Us
I was forced to think about loss of life actively yesterday, not just in passing news or a circle of people I used to be part of. Repeating that I am someone who cares quite a bit about many things, there’s a certain apathy that I employ to cope with constant pain in this world. Multiple instances of loss of life were thrust into my main focus and my heart just aches. It physically hurts in my chest.
For those that don’t know,
Kintsugi (金継ぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as kintsukuroi (金繕い, “golden repair”),[1] is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquerdusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-etechnique.[2][3][4] As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise
Wikipedia
Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally illuminated… a kind of physical expression of the spirit of mushin….Mushin is often literally translated as “no mind,” but carries connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions. …The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This poignancy or aesthetic of existence has been known in Japan as mono no aware, a compassionate sensitivity, or perhaps identification with, [things] outside oneself.
Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics
If you’ve made it this far, I’m glad.
Thank you for reading, Strangers and Friends.
Rabbit & Crown 