Good morning!
It’s Friday, and our tour of Japan has landed us on the doorstep of a particularly forgiving word: kintsugi. As a practice, kintsugi (which means “golden joinery” or “golden repair”) involves mending broken pottery with a lacquer to which a dusting of gold, silver, or platinum has been added. The whole point is that the cracks aren’t concealed, they’re repaired in a way that helps them become a visible part of that object’s history.
As a technique, kintsugi applies mostly to pottery. But as a philosophy, it suggests that in mending we can let go of what was and move forward with a new, even more beautiful “is.”
“Let our scars fall in love.”
—Galway Kinnell
Respiteers, shall we gather at 2pm EDT to share our own mending stories? As always, check your inbox right before the hour.
Onwards we go,
Clara
I was recently introduced to this mending . It sounds like magic!
I love this philosophy that honors the history and past. I agree that, as a philosophy, it can be applied much more widely than to the mending of pottery. The mending of knitting and other garments, yes. But also to the “mending” of people, as well.