Kintsugi—A Different Wholeness

Cracked Grace

Beauty in the Broken

Some see beauty only in the pristine, the perfect, the unflawed. Rose petals dusting a counter after falling from a bloom catch my eye, sometimes more often than a rose on a vine or in a vase. Yellow tabebuia blossoms littering the earth beneath a tree capture my imagination.

What is now broken—a flower blossom, a treasured piece of pottery, a life—was once whole. The petals that break away from a bud were once a part of a complete flower. Beauty lies in the petals that fall just as beauty lies in the cracks of our lives when we patch them and continue to live, love, and laugh.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with a resin mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The mended—healed—becomes obvious in the gold, silver, or platinum that marks that mend. The philosophy of kintsugi reflects the sense that brokenness and then repair—healing—are a part of an object’s history, rather than something that must be hidden.

Just as kintsugi marks what is now whole, but in a different form, the broken—a flower blossom, a prized piece of pottery, a life—often carry marks, scars, and the world is reminded through viewing those wounds. It’s important to note that the wounded and healed can point the way to the path back to life, love, and laughter, and that their different form of wholeness has beauty and immeasurable value.

Kintsugi is both an art form and a philosophy. You can find out more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi