I’m often humbled by what is present in a seemingly ordinary tract of land; this in the middle of an urban environment. Thus a little wabi-sabi today. First an image.
To credit the quotes I included, I have to link to the PDF they’re from, as I wasn’t able to locate the author.
The primary aesthetic concept at the heart of traditional Japanese culture is the value of harmony in all things. The Japanese world view is nature-based and concerned with the beauty of studied simplicity and harmony with nature. These ideas are still expressed in every aspect of daily life, despite the many changes brought about by the westernization of Japanese culture. This Japanese aesthetic of the beauty of simplicity and harmony is called wabi-sabi (wah-bee sah-bee).
Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is the beauty of things modest and humble. It is the beauty of things unconventional. The concepts of wabi-sabi correlate with the concepts of Zen Buddhism, as the first Japanese involved with wabi-sabi were tea masters, priests, and monks who practiced Zen.
© Pamir Kiciman 2010
Material characteristics of wabi-sabi:
Suggestion of natural process
Irregular
Intimate
Unpretentious
Earthy
Simple
