JimFormation

Enjoy your own wabi sabi beauty. Simply acknowledge your imperfections without beating yourself up or hiding them.
~ Thomas Moore

What is Wabi-Sabi?

Wabi-Sabi is a Japanese term for finding beauty in imperfection and authenticity.

Wabi-Sabi is a mom and pop bookstore, not Barnes and Noble.

Wabi-Sabi is a little belly, not an airbrushed and made up Vogue model.

Wabi-Sabi is a skin tag, a wrinkled forehead.

Wabi-Sabi are the worn areas on a stone path.

Wabi-Sabi is nature and accepting the natural order of things.

Wabi-Sabi is humble.

Wabi-Sabi is Real.

Wabi-Sabi is explained by the Skin Horse in this passage from Margery Williams’, The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real:

 ”What is REAL?” asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day… “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

 ”Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When [someone] loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

 ”Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

 ”Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

 ”Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

 ”It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.

 ”Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand… once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

I haven’t been blogging or writing. At all.

Most of my time and most of my days have been spent doing. I work all day and then spend 3 hours almost every evening at the jiu-jitsu academy.

I teach the kids. Sometimes teach the noobs. And then take my own class.

Add to that that I have been taking kickboxing classes two or three days per week, and there is no time for writing. Well, not much time anyway.

I have been playing Skyrim. Whatever.

(Oh. This was a test post from my tablet. Seems to work.)

On this day, put it all aside.

If you believe that Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, celebrate.

If you do not believe that Jesus is the Christ, meditate on his teachings. If you don’t know his teachings, I’ll help –

Love your neighbors, your enemies and those you may think “beneath” you;
Tolerate the actions of others;
Forgive those who have wronged you and forgive yourself;
Consider the hypocrisy of the religious elite;
Teach others and touch others;
Heal.

If you believe that Christmas has been spoiled by commercialism, consider the smiling children.

Have a very happy and meaningful Christmas. Much love.