We so often think we need special talents and tools to do something good. But just using what is in front of us, stretching out to express what is in our hearts in the moment, can lead to small good things.
While talking on the phone with my daughter recently, I picked up a ballpoint pen, and a sheet of printer paper. In front of me was a vase of ranunculus flowers given to me as a gift.
It is not yet spring here, but the flowers on the table were a taste of spring. All my feelings came together: listening with care and concern to the words of my daughter, feeling the love from the person who gave me the flowers, appreciating the unusual beauty of these flowers, feeling the urge to express some of this, not only in my words of response to her but beyond that. The perfect expression was not there – the perfect tools, the perfect talent, the perfect response to love flowing in me. But I could say and do something.
In these especially chaotic times, there are limits to what we can do. Each moment is an opportunity to do something: love in ways we can, express what we have within us, act in ways that contribute something good, acknowledge the good in others. I need to remind myself of that, and keep doodling – in my actions and words as well as in my drawings- using what talents and tools I have in front of me and not waiting for the perfect opportunity.
Thursday, October 7, 2021
When we have experienced emotional or physical or relationship damage in the past, it can continue to feel frustrating at best and irreparably harmful at worst. I so often look at the broken places as problems, limitations, and inadequacies. Or I try to ignore them. But the kintsugi approach actually highlights the beauty in repairs.
The Japanese word kintsugi describes the ancient art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. Kintsugi takes a broken piece of pottery, and uses precious and beautiful lacquer to highlight all those places where the breakage happened. The end result is something that many would say is even more beautiful than the pristine original.
Kintsuge treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. Reflecting on this is helpful for me. The kinds of damage we can experience can include things like emotional abuse, physical illness or injuries, treatments for cancer, relationship break-ups, or forced relocation.
I have had a laundry basket for decades. The lid has slowly been breaking apart at the edges. I decided to repair it using raffia pieces that came in some packaging. I tied the raffia pieces to the edge places where it was breaking to hold them together. This is a drawing of the result. Someone commented on this drawing, and said that it looks like the raffia pieces are dancing. I can look at this basket lid, and reflect on the same for my life. I can react to the injuries, and make beauty, and creatively respond. Fully acknowledging the injuries, the hurts, the damage, but also reveling in the dance of my responses.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
…To see in contemplation, is not limited only to the tangible surface of reality; it certainly perceives more than mere appearances. Art flowing from contemplation does not so much attempt to copy reality as rather to capture the archetypes of all that is. Such art does not want to depict what everybody already sees but to make visible what not everybody sees….
To this end we have to consider a certain aspect of the term “contemplation”…. The ancient expression of the mystics applies here: ubi amor, ibi oculus — the eyes see better when guided by love; a new dimension of ‘seeing’ is opened up by love alone! And this means contemplation is visual perception prompted by loving acceptance…affectionate affirmation.”
-Josef Pieper, Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation, Ignatius Press 1990. pg 74
painting by lynn
