Broken Vessel

We all experience cracks, hard knocks and shattering as we journey through life. Mending as we transform, after life altering experiences, is the art of inventive repair. 

Expansion by Paige Bradley

A recent accident was a powerful reminder of the impermanence of life.

One moment I am on top of the world - the next moment I am lying in a broken heap.

It takes a brush with mortality to remove any vestiges of importance, to see how little everything we struggled like busy ants to achieve amount to just an anthill.

We go about our lives merrily oblivious of the moment that could punctuate our existence. 

In these months of recovery, I have had the opportunity to examine my life at leisure - what have I left unfinished, unspoken, undone? 

I acknowledge the fears that held me back, notice how much energy I expend on things that really don't matter at the end of the day. 

Mending my brokenness is an exercise in going within to a place of "no mind" - floating without attachment to thoughts that keep me bound to old attitudes.

In a state of stillness thoughts settle like sediment to the bottom of my mind - allowing moments of clarity to shine through. 

Healing my brokenness in this suspended state is liberating. I stay home without guilt, with no expectation to return calls or respond to emails. After three months of just "being," I return to my life with an abiding sense of calm.

It is easy to resist being pushed and pulled in many directions - shrug off invitations to events I always wanted to get out of - only doing what makes me feel alive. 

In the many changing phases through life, the poignancy of existence makes it possible to mend without hiding the cracks - allowing the light of consciousness to illuminate from within. 

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of ceramic joinery, highlighted by repairing with polished metal. Finding that vein of gold in life's scars, honoring the broken fragments by tracing its patterns - we celebrate the art of living.

Yoko Ono’s kintsugi artwork for illy Art Collection