A new dawn, a new day of hope, I rose to chirping of birds on a lazy sunday. Out the window I gazed upon a bunch of kids playing merrily. What caught my eye was a young boy trying to mend his broken car toy, with the help of his brother. After quite an effort there was a perfectly imperfect toy and he started playing again with that gleam in his eyes heedless to it's disfigurement. I thought to myself, if all we could do was the same, see through the imperfections and embrace the broken pieces of life, how beautiful life would finally turn out.
Later in the day I stumbled upon a video of "Kintsugi". Wow, really wow!! It is a japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with gold lacquer, literally meaning "golden fixing". It intricately tells us that every broken bowl has a story to tell, is mended in a different way and finally every bowl stands out in its unique way displaying its gold-filled cracks in the proudest way. Hats off to those Japanese craftsman of 15th century for introducing it to the world. A world where every scar is cringed upon and every broken thing is shoved away, Kintsugi is a step by step process where each step throws light on a life lesson.
First, contemplating the thought of giving the broken object a second chance. Just the way we deserve a second chance after the thunderbolts of suffering and learning self-love is the most important thing to get through life. Second , we go through all those broken pieces, inspecting them and trying to fix it like a puzzle. Similarly we need to carefully look through all those shattered pieces of trust and love minding their sharp edges not to get hurt again. Glancing through the wounds, analyzing them and finally accepting the reality. Third, is preparing the glue medium,the gold epoxy in exact proportions otherwise it can turn too soft or very brittle. We need to understand there is a difference between patching up and repairing. We shouldn't underestimate or overestimate what has happened. Targets should be achievable and the path should be slowly treaded.Embracing art or any creative medium is a great way to walk down this path, for me writing really paved the way.
Fourth,is reconstructing the broken ceramic carefully filling in the missing pieces with mixture of rock dust called "tonoko" and gold lacquer. It has to be integrated in our lives that something or someone is missing and it is ok to be that way. We need to accept that we are sometimes not self sufficient to make all the healing happen. In this process of building back our life we need help, be it a friend or family, to steer us through this stormy ride.
Fifth, the wait. After the reconstruction, scrape off the superfluous material, hold all the places in place with help of elastics or tape and allow it to breathe to dry for about a week. We similarly need perseverance to let all the glued pieces of our life stick together. We need tons of patience to let our new lifestyle sink in, new habits to solidify and finally let our new self awe us. It is essential for us also to have the time to breathe through this chaos. Let it be just a good night sleep or walk through a soothing drizzle , anything that refreshes and restrengthens us.
The last step before revealing is polishing the surface and transforming it into a unique shiny piece of art. At last, when we just take a step back, contemplate the sublime object wearing its golden scars and showing off its virtue, it is a sight to behold.
Setbacks should not hold us from dreaming and achieving big. Every knock down should be looked upon as an opportunity to stand up back again. Dont be afraid to showcase the world your gold filled cracks and let them scream to the world you are the hero of your own unique story. Yes, you may once be BROKEN, yet you are now BEAUTIFUL!!