Wellbeing notes: Embracing wabi-sabi

01/11/2023 at 2:26 pm | Posted in Uncategorized, Wellbeing notes | Leave a comment
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November is not a famously pretty month. Though autumn leaves are stunning, they won’t be around for much longer. The nights are getting longer, and the land colder… and that, in a nutshell, is why November is a great month to enjoy the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi.

Wabi-sabi is a philosophic outlook that accepts the imperfection of beauty. Wabi-sabi recognises that nothing lasts, and yet nothing is ever truly completed. Leaves in late autumn are a perfect example of this. A growing season has finished… and yet the trees will burst into new life in the new year.

There’s a sweetly melancholy element to wabi-sabi, inviting us to experience the sadness of beauty as it fades away. To face up to this – to accept that real life does not come air-brushed – is a form of mindfulness, which can lead to a healthy acceptance of ourselves in this moment. The message of wabi-sabi is that it’s okay to age; and it’s okay to feel sadness for what has been and now is gone. When we accept the melancholy, we are also accepting that the scars we gain through life are a valuable part of who we are. In our imperfection lies a different, rarer kind of beauty.

So I invite you today to look at your world through the principles of wabi-sabi. What, or who, embodies the subtler kind of beauty that comes through imperfection? What, or who, deserves cherishing?

Wellbeing notes: The Patina of a Person

01/05/2023 at 12:11 pm | Posted in Wellbeing notes | Leave a comment
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There’s an upcoming auction near me on 11th May: The Fine Contents of a Wiltshire Property. I may attend, because there’s a similar scene I’m working on in the novel that I’m currently writing. It’ll be useful research. 

There’s something about antique objects that is innately pleasing, despite or maybe because of the way they’ve changed over time. Consider my great grandmother’s sewing box, pictured here. Maybe one day the parquetry lid will be restored, but even so, it will never again look new. Its surfaces reveal the passage of time – and that is surely part of its charm. Wear and tear, interspersed with licks of polish… there are no short cuts when it comes to creating an aged surface, or patina.

And so it is with people. We all age differently, and we all face different choices when it comes to the process of time. Do we apply skincare creams, including sun block, daily; do we opt for more drastic intervention? How do we react to the arrival of white hair? And do we keep our bodies flexible through exercise?

We each find our own answers to these questions. However, the icon of older beauty for me will always be the white-haired woman (or man), with serene and cared-for features, who accepts and embraces her true age. She has learned the art of self-acceptance, and to love life fully. That is truly something to aspire to. 

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