Kintsugi

by Céline Santini

  To one of his students who broke a sculpture he said, “Dry your tears, my dear, and let me show you that what remains is perfectly sufficient to show your intention. You have to learn from your own accidents and silently transform them.”

  Was Rodin possibly a kintsugi master without even realizing it?

  What About You?

  Do you realize how unique and one of a kind you are, as a living kintsugi?

  It’s Time to Act!

  The Life Line

  Be mindful of your unique path and discover your life line.

  Take a white sheet of paper. Draw a horizontal line at the bottom of the page to represent your life, year after year.

  Don’t forget to leave space for future years!

  On another sheet, list all the remarkable events in your life. These are the major milestones of your life line, the moments when your life crumbled or improved.

  Particularly note the most recent ordeals you have lived through.

  Organize them in chronological order.

  For each event, note the impact on your life and how you felt (“perception”), ranging from 1 to 10.

  Take the first sheet and plot each event as if it were on a graph. Connect the dots and observe the design of the line.

  Some periods are calm and neutral, where the line is quite horizontal. Other events are very intense and reflected in inflection points.

  Around each inflection point, note the main characters of your story.

  Sit back and analyze your path, discovering it for the first time.

  Feel how unique in the world your path is, strengthening you from fault lines to lines of force.

  Go Further . . .

  And if you’re not completely convinced yet, ask friends and family members this simple question: “What do you think makes me unique in the world?”

  Start Here and Now!

  Take a sheet of paper and start drawing the horizontal line representing your life!

  Contemplate

  Only through suffering can we find ourselves.

  —Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  Remember the story behind the scars of the object.

  Kintsugi accepts its injuries without hiding them. Covered with gold, they are glorified witnesses to the past and the shock experienced.

  Like the broken object is healed and proudly exposes its flaws, observe and accept your mistakes and your suffering. Cherish your scars! They show you the path you’ve already traveled. As proof of your experience and your past, they tell you: You have lived and survived! Don’t linger on any memories that drag you down, but simply remember the progress you’ve made. You are reaching a new phase now.

  Today, after all the ordeals I have lived through, I am ready for the next episode. In spite of it all, I still have confidence in the future. Or maybe, shall I say “thanks to” instead of “in spite of”?

  Today, you are reaching a new phase too. Let go of what you need to let go of, and move forward! By evoking your suffering and the path behind you, contemplate your past to continue your progress without making the same mistakes again. Be mindful of your repetitive patterns and break the mold. Starting today, think and do things differently. Continuously conjugate your life from past tense to present and future perfect!

  Kintsugi As Art Therapy

  Today, several artists use the marvelous symbolism of kintsugi in order to complete a healing process.

  The artists cover volunteers’ scars with gold leaf during a gentle and at the same time strong ceremony to transcend them. By contemplating their exposed and magnified scars, the volunteers pick themselves up and find new inner confidence.

  As a matter of fact, they often choose to leave the gold leaf on for several days after the performance so that it symbolically penetrates into themselves.

  What About You?

  Don’t you feel deep inside that you are a survivor? This is the time to leave the past behind you and face the future with confidence.

  It’s Time to Act!

  The Healing of the Past

  Take another look at the graph of your life line prepared during the previous exercise. Does it remind you of something? This path, those difficulties, those broken lines . . . Don’t they look like the scars of a broken object? Now is the time to transform these fault lines through a kintsugi process!

  Take a gold marker (available in all craft stores). You may also use a brush and gold paint.

  Close your eyes and reflect upon the special energy you would like this gold marker to carry: for instance, forgiveness, resilience, love, healing, joy, peace, or any combination of these.

  Mindfully and with much care, cover your life line with gold from your birth to today.

  Let infuse . . .

  Go Further . . .

  If you wish, take another look at your now golden life line. As you would caress the scars of an object rebuilt by kintsugi, gently touch your fault lines with your fingers to measure the traveled path and to visualize the scars and healing of each phase. Proceed slowly and pause at any particularly painful “inflection” point.

  Arrive at the end of the line, corresponding with your current age. Continue the line “virtually,” going upward, visualizing all the good years full of gold and energy still ahead of you.

  Start Here and Now!

  Go and buy the gold pen or the golden paint!

  Feel

  The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

  —Ernest Hemingway

  As the lacquer hardened while drying, feel how the object is even more solid than before.

  Patiently, layer after layer, the kintsugi master has covered the cracks of the broken object with a thin film of lacquer. This natural balm from the resin of the lacquer tree progressively covered the scars of the object, fusing the broken pieces. Drying, it has prodigiously hardened. There is no turning back: They cannot be separated any longer; they have become one and the same.

  It’s thought that a kintsugi object is more solid afterward than before its metamorphosis. It is even said that some masters have the courage to test it and drop it for a second time!

  My ordeals have also made me stronger. Now I feel that I have great inner strength. I survived, and I know I will be able to survive the next injury. It’s almost like nothing can happen to me anymore. Or, better yet, like nothing can really hurt me. The cycle of life has its ups and downs, so it’s impossible to be certain what the future might bring. But I have the impression that, no matter what happens, I have been reinforced, cured, and that I now know how to better manage the next challenges.

  Just like kintsugi art, your flaws and weaknesses have reinforced you. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger . . . Now that you are consoled and consolidated, reinforced and hardened, nothing can impact you any longer: A new force is with you! Now, vigilant and experienced, you are the living proof that one can survive the toughest ordeals. You have been cured. You do, however, have to pay attention not to isolate yourself behind a thick shell: Leave yourself open to experience life.

  The Force of Nature

  Consolidation is a natural process: Just like kintsugi makes an object more resistant, so do many natural elements spontaneously fortify themselves after having suffered a shock or an ordeal.

  Think of muscles that reconstruct themselves due to a protein synthesis around their fibers, bones strengthened after a break, burned earth that fertilizes itself from the ashes, hair and plants that grow more vigorously after having been cut, or burned wood that becomes harder and more resistant, and so on.

  The Japanese have developed an entire art form around this last example, shou-sugi-ban, or art of burned wood. Boards are burned, scraped, irrigated with water, dried, and finally rubbed with finishing oil. Strengthened by a carbonized layer
of wood, the core is now protected against ultraviolet radiation, moisture, temperature fluctuations, insects, and, ironically enough, fires! The finish has an intense and dark but brilliant beauty and over time develops a deep sheen.

  Like nature, ordeals and challenges harden and reinforce us!

  What About You?

  Do you feel the strength of new forces circulating within you?

  It’s Time to Act!

  Meditation of the Tree

  To root this growing force within yourself, connect to the energy of a powerful tree. You can do so by simply closing your eyes and visualizing the tree. Certainly not a weak or frail tree, but a centenary tree in its full force, vigorous, stable, large, and well rooted.

  Imagine, for example, a large centenary oak tree, a Lebanese cedar with expansive branches, a banyan tree with deep roots, or a baobab tree with a strong trunk expressing stability and strength.

  Feel its energy. The sap circulating, its roots firmly digging into the soil, its rough trunk, its large branches, the wind that gently rustles its leaves. Minute by minute, its strength spreads into you.

  You are becoming that tree. Incorporate it. Incarnate it. Become quiet, calm, and serene, just like the well-rooted tree. Breathe like it . . . deeply and gently, as long as you wish.

  Then, slowly open your eyes again.

  When returning to normal life, use that quiet strength whenever you feel the need.

  Other images can also express this force: for instance mountains, elephants, or gorillas . . . Choose the energy that best suits you.

  Go Further . . .

  Next time you are walking in a park or forest, choose a tree that “speaks” to you and make a connection with its energy, sap, and roots. Adopt it. Some people even hug trees by embracing their trunks: That’s the tree hug therapy. Follow your inspiration.

  Start Here and Now!

  To get started, put your hands on the next tree you come across and try to feel its energy.

  Welcome

  Well, nobody’s perfect!

  —From Billy Wilder’s movie Some Like It Hot

  Proudly accept the imperfections of the object. It is even more beautiful and precious once broken and repaired.

  Here is the paradox of kintsugi: It is its very imperfection that makes it valuable. Its injuries make it priceless. Cured by gold, exposing its scars, it is that much more precious when the memories of the cracks remain visible.

  The lesson to be learned from kintsugi is to understand the tyranny of perfection. Change your outlook, lift the mask, accept your flaws. Observe and embrace your weaknesses! They reveal that you are only human after all . . .

  I first experienced this truth in a self-help seminar, where each person completely opened up to the group. At the end of the session, during a debriefing, we shared our feelings and indicated to the others how we perceived their essential selves and what had moved us. One of the participants said to me:

  “Thank you . . . Your fragility is more beautiful than you will ever know! And furthermore, I believe that is where your own strength is rooted!”

  Therefore, it may be time to see the value of your own path, your own “accidents,” whether they are physical or psychological. They played a part in who you are. Today you have overcome them, and, paradoxically, it is thanks to them that you have developed your resilience and your new strength!

  Sometimes the past reappears and tries to drag you down. Don’t let it control your life any longer. Rather, proudly show your new self to the world, demonstrating what you are capable of. Straighten yourself with pride! Recognize the splendor, the force, and the beauty within you. They have always been there, but life’s challenges have given you that little extra soul you needed to reveal them. Kintsugi teaches you to accept your authentic grandeur. Be proud of what you have become, of who you are . . . perfectly imperfect.

  The Eulogy of Imperfection

  Why is everybody striving for perfection? Would the Venus de Milo be as famous if she still had arms? Or the Winged Victory of Samothrace if she still had her head? On another note, which of Santa Claus’s reindeer is the most famous if not the one with the red nose? And would the tarte tatin be as famous if it had been forced to stay in its mold?

  In a world of mass production, often imperfections give value to objects, by adding additional character.

  For example, the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, symbol of American independence, is an object of extraordinary affection in the United States. This enormous cracked bell is a true national icon. Its injury reminds U.S. citizens of the resilient force of the American democracy.

  What About You?

  Are you ready to let go of the tyranny of perfection and accept your fragility with pride?

  It’s Time to Act!

  The Kintsugi of Your Rebirth

  Whatever ordeals you have behind you, now is the time to officially recognize their cured scars by creating a kintsugi object that symbolizes your healing.

  Carefully choose an object that represents you or an injury you’ve suffered. For example, it could be an object in the shape of a heart, star, circle, dice, or diamond; a stone; or a painting . . . an object that makes sense to you. For instance, a person I know has chosen a mirror with a long family history. For myself, I have chosen a stone in the shape of a heart given to me by a very dear friend who found it in nature. She collects them whenever she takes a walk. It is one of her talents! She offered to let me choose one from her collection. I don’t know why, because at the time I wasn’t familiar with kintsugi, but I chose the only stone with a crack.

  If you do not own this particular object yet, obtain it. You can create it yourself out of clay, have a potter or glassblower make it to your wishes, or buy a finished piece such as a paperweight or a porcelain decoration. But first look around you. Could you perhaps own something already that might be suitable?

  If you like, you can also personalize it, using a method of your choice, like painting or engraving it with decorative elements such as initials or symbols embodying special feelings.

  Choose a fabric with special significance for you, and fold up the object in it with great care.

  This is the most difficult step. Grab a hammer and hit the object to break it, projecting into this action all the energy of your own injury and your own chagrin.

  Carefully gather all the pieces of the broken object.

  Mindfully follow the detailed instructions starting on page 11. Depending on your patience and means, you can choose the traditional method of repair or use a simpler, more modern approach.

  Contemplate your creation. It’s official: You are now cured!

  Reflect and meditate on this thought . . .

  Go Further . . .

  Choose the best place to display it so you can contemplate it every day, as an invaluable daily reminder of your healing.

  If you want, you can also share its story, your own story, on the website esprit-kintsugi.com to inspire other people and encourage them to take the resilience path you just initiated.

  Start Here and Now!

  Choose your symbolic object right now.

  Share

  Just as it is better to illuminate than merely to shine, so to pass on what one has contemplated is better than merely to contemplate.

  —St. Thomas Aquinas

  Present your creation. Share its history to inspire others that repair is possible.

  The metaphor of kintsugi transmits hope and reminds us that things can actually be repaired. Proud of your progress, you now realize the beauty of your imperfect life path.

  Why not let others benefit from your experience? Could the ordeals that you have overcome also be experienced by others? Today, cured after your initiatory path, you can inspire them with hope for their own resurrection.

  For myself, I
have long hesitated to reveal my personal flaws to others; the first version of this book was much more theoretical, without examples of my own life and the path I covered. Then a friend pointed out that in the phrase “personal development” is the word “personal,” so I decided to throw myself, unprotected, into the water, and share all of my experiences. I thought this might make my writing more intelligible and maybe more inspiring too. Since I have been able to survive all of these challenges, coming out stronger than before, why not other people too? Why not you?

  Yes, one can certainly survive this injury: You are living proof! You came, lived, and conquered . . . Now the moment may have come to transmit your own message and share what you’ve learned. Words can heal sufferings. By accepting your scars and admitting your flaws, you can encourage other people. No matter how you share it, your experience will give others confidence in their future. Maybe it’s time to let the whole world know that you gathered all of your broken pieces and are now cured, reunited, ready for a new beginning. United with the universe.

  Art and Sublimation

  The transcendence of suffering is a recurrent theme in the arts. Tortured by demons and traumas, artists often use their pains to transmute them. They play with the sensitivity of suffering and make it resonate at the center of their art. The spectators’ feelings thus echo the artist’s. In the same alchemistic process as kintsugi, the artist is transforming his lead into gold, transcending his pain into sublimation.

  Examples of this abound. Think of the wrecked sculptures of César Balda- ccini, the vibrations in the paintings by Van Gogh or Guernica by Picasso, the melancholy of the Romantic literature of the nineteenth century, or the most beautiful and sad love songs.