Be Broken

There are various situations that could sit you flat on the rear while you find yourself picking up the pieces of your life to examine the ways in which you may put them back together.

Before you go on that journey of repair you are absolutely vulnerable, exposed yet seeing no one and showing those who may pass nothing; you are still.  You are removed from yourself.  You are everything you were and everything you will become while skimming along the recognition of your dispensability and your indispensability. You feel your vitality hovering at it’s meekest pulse before it all falls into a mass of placated pieces.

It could be that you feign a crack free exterior for some time, not wanting to be broken.  However, if you can accept brokenness and make peace with the pieces in whatever manner they are presenting, mending can begin to happen.

With time, strength will come to take necessary action in gathering the parts you want to rebuild.  If you air on the side of optimism, you may be fortunate enough to find that being broken can mean being opened.

Being broken can mean holding unidentified space that allows you to shape what will be.

Being broken can mean a greater capacity for understanding others.

Being broken can be breathtakingly beautiful at times, if within the open space you let deep, cleansing inhalation stretch down into your toes with the warmth of light and love. The kind of breathing that heals and nurtures you.

There is a Japanese art form where potters repair broken pieces or sometimes purposefully break pieces and fill the cracks with lacquer and gold powder.  It is called kintsukuroi or kintsugi.  The belief is that the object is more beautiful for having been broken.  The gold traces the history, celebrating the story as it highlights places where the pieces have rejoined to become whole again.

“Expansion” by Paige Bradley is currently housed in a private collection (and while not a traditional example of kuntsukuroi, feels fitting for the purpose of this post). You can learn more about her work at http://www.paigebradley.com