Wabi-sabi Faerie

Wabi-sabi Faerie wants you to celebrate the aesthetic of beauty in life’s imperfections.  Revere the patina of wear and tear.  Contemplate as exquisite the irregularities of construction and deconstruction.  Through this reverence Wabi-sabi Faerie urges you to open to serenity found in spiritual longing, your incomplete, imperfect self.  The rhythms of life.

Wabi-sabi is a world view or aesthetic from Japan.  The process of finding beauty in what is imperfect or incomplete, rather than the disappointing search for perfection  By recognizing this beauty around you, you recognize it in self.  Wiki has this to offer – read here.

I found this little faerie in the park, half buried in the dirt.  Filthy and worn, displaced from its human child companion.  Non-precious, plastic material at start, now faded.

Observing this object with reverence, I recognize its patina of faded glitter and the transformed shape of worn edges.  Beauty in the process of deconstruction.  And more, I feel the beauty of the love, hope, and tender dreams of its previous care taker.  I experience raw and bittersweet elegance.

Wabi-sabi In Scent

My natural perfuming and aromatherapist friend Miriam, of Kindred Earth Botanicals recently wondered, “What do we do with all of these mods?”  A “mod, ” short for modification, is an experimental perfume creation.  One that the nose doesn’t intend to sell, it’s not perfect enough, yet of beauty just the same.

Perfume teacher and perfumer, Anya, of Anya’s Garden, Natural Perfumery Institute, advises a Milleflore.  Taking all those mods and tossing them together in a single multifunctional blend.  Use the juice for home scenting, hair scenting, the car…  Here is great beauty in imperfection.

I’ve written about the perfume Songbird before, created by perfume artist Laurie Stern.  Songbird is a sort of mash-up of all the scents that were on a “no” list for a perfume creation project.  She smelled the rejects together and loved how they smelled.  This scents became the perfume Songbird and one of her favorite perfume creations.

And of course, perfumes, like wine, can age beautifully.  Beauty in decay.  Like the scent of autumn leaves on the earth…

Splash from the past, anyone?  Enjoying the Wabi-sabi feel (though not the scent) of this dusty old cologne encountered in a deep clean…

We Are Wabi-sabi

A process of beautiful construction, deconstruction, reconstruction and then more deconstruction again.  Dreams, hopes, and loves.  My physical body expressing these beautiful imperfections: for example my beloved messed up toe joint, my graying hair, the lines on my face.   Like you, I am nothing but perfect imperfection.  Looking around, the world glistens with beautiful imperfection.  You get it.

Missy and her Wabi-sabi case of toys