Wabi Sabi and a New, Old Understanding of Beauty

I heard the term wabi sabi only a few years ago, though upon reflection, I see that it has been going on around me my entire life-unnamed, though powerfully shaping my life course and my understanding of beauty and value. Perhaps you, too, will recognize the influence of wabi sabi in your life. Though Japanese in origin, the principals of wabi sabi also run deep in North American cultures.

Wabi sabi describes a Japanese concept that is both an aesthetic-or set of principles guiding works of art-and a way of life. It acknowledges complexity and values simplicity. Wabi sabi reveres the handiwork of time and sees beauty in function. It embraces three simple perspectives: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

Because of its focus on function, all things emergent, and the imprint of time,

wabi sabi celebrates things like

    the beauty of the weathered siding on a lakeside cabin,

    the threadbare jacket, contoured and warm,

    the time and experience-wrinkled skin surrounding the eyes of a loved-one,

    a crack in a favorite mug, its winding path colored dark over time by coffee,

    a limp in the gait of one's faithful Retriever,

    the crooked smile of a gap-toothed kid.

The term is a combination of the two words: wabi and sabi. Wabi can best be translated as "poverty". A poverty that is humble and spare; the opposite of conspicuous consumption or a servitude to one's possessions. Wabi is a deep satisfaction with a modest lifestyle and an appreciation for the natural, unadorned world in which we live. The word sabi connotes the natural progression of time and its impact on all things natural, It's the "bloom of time", as wabi sabi writers are fond of saying. With its acknowledgement that nothing is ever finished, the work of time and the evidence of time are considered beautiful, if perhaps in a melancholic way.

So, the two words combine to describe a purposive way of being in the world, valuing the imprint of time, living simply, aligning with the rhythms of nature, and embracing the impermanence of all things.

Growing up I had the opportunity to live with and (I hope) absorb wabi sabi ways, if without the benefit of a name or definition of what was happening around me. Because my mother worked on Wednesdays, for many years as a child I went home from school every Wednesday with my friend, Reiko, whose first generation Japanese parents owned the orchards adjacent to our home. Even long after I was old enough to return to my own home for an afternoon alone I spent Wednesdays with the Matsumotos. The walk through the orchard to their cozy home seemed like an adventure, a retreat from "the real world" of school and the fast forward growth of our rural town. But the walk into this world was just the beginning. Except on the coldest days, when we would all be pressed into tending the orchard smudge pots to ward off the evening's frost, all of the Matsumotos would gather at the kitchen table for 3:00pm tea and a variety of desserts made fresh from the sweet fruits that grew in the orchards. We drank tea from the same pot that Reiko's great great grandparents had used in their Kyushu home on Japan's North Pacific Ocean. In fact, while the southern California town around us became increasingly new, shiny, and suburbanized, the Matsumoto's entire home stood in stark contrast in its rough-hewn character, sparsely decorated with the time-worn tools and treasured objects of their lives.

At afternoon tea, the three-generation family and their handful of employees discussed important decisions about the orchards, upcoming weddings, kid's school activities, social events in our town, or business transactions. As I look back on it, life and relationships and the direction of things were all considered and fashioned with mindfulness and discussion over that shared tea. It was as though nothing was decided quickly, alone, or with caprice. By 3:45 everyone was back to work--or in our case, play-amidst the trees that were themselves, as time would reveal, impermanent.

Little did I know, even before hearing the term wabi sabi I was immersed in this interweaving of reflection, communication, and tea. There, in the heart of the orchard, in the heart of the home, grandparents, parents, children, and colleagues daily gathered, as had their ancestors for centuries, to thoughtfully understand and fashion their lives. Tea and its drinking in this way, among salt-of-the-earth people, share a common history in Japan with the wabi sabi sensibility. Hand in hand, tea and wabi sabi have been bringing people back from lifestyles of conspicuous consumption and superficial concepts of beauty-time and time again-to remember the truly important elements of life.

I understand now that the same values underlying wabi sabi inspire many cultures and families around the world. My mother, like the Matsumotos, retreated every day. Though, in her case, it was a personal retreat. Each morning, after breakfast was served and put away, she retreated to her chair at a window overlooking a green expanse of field and trees. My brother and I must have been born knowing not to bother her during this time because it was never any other way than this. Each morning she filled the same slender black cup with tea or coffee-I'm not sure how she decided. That cup-if examined closely revealed that the handle had been broken off and glued back-was clearly a treasured part of her retreat. She kept it above the kitchen sink as though to assure herself that she would always return to her retreat where she could thoughtfully consider the activities of the day, cherish the relationships in our lives, and weigh larger decisions to be made.

Her morning practice was wabi sabi. Though I suspect she had never heard the term.

One day, while in a great hurry, I knocked the black cup into the sink breaking it irreparably. Breathless I looked to my mother for her response. Her nonchalance about the lost cup surprised and soothed me, and I learned a great deal from her wabi sabi relationship with the everyday beautiful things, the cherished simple things. In a classic wabi sabi way, I learned without verbal instruction, as we do.

North Americans writing about wabi sabi note that there are no books written in Japanese about wabi sabi. They suggest this means that the tradition of wabi sabi is passed on and through Japanese culture by way of role modeling, stories, and living wabi sabi.

For me, as the owner of a teahouse and coffee bar, I suppose my father was my greatest wabi sabi teacher. A congenial people-person, my dad preferred his quiet time in the company of others. He was a "regular" at a main street café where he sat in a well-worn booth in the back for an hour nearly every morning. He mastered an ability to "savor every sip" of his sugary black java and ponder the big questions in life amidst the comings and goings of the café people around him. He called this his "alone time"! It was his "touch stone with the community". This consummate extrovert's version of "alone time" kept him grounded in the community and in his own place there. His daily brew was a vehicle to savoring the present and to communion with the people who energized and inspired him.

I'm certain this amiable Irish American man had never heard the term wabi sabi. He practiced it though, and modeled it, by savoring the present, and daily appreciating the natural flow of his people, whom he regularly called "the beautiful people"!

It's all around us, this wabi sabi lifestyle of seeing beauty in the simple, the practical; viewing time as a fine sculptor of person and material, and creating a space in our lives to practice the age old way of tea or the ancient love of inky java. Which of course, is about so much more than a beverage. As the perfect foil for our modern American lifestyle find some wabi sabi and revel in the balance.