What is Wabi-Sabi?

An active aesthetical appreciation of poverty" is how Daisetz T. Suzuki described wabi-sabi. "Wabi is to be satisfied with a little hut, a room of two or three tatami mats, like the log cabin of Thoreau", he wrote, "and with a dish of vegetables picked in neighboring fields, and perhaps to be listening to the pattering of a gentle spring rainfall." It is the acceptance of growth, decay and death and the acknowledgement that nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. My lifestyle is embracing rustic elegance, quotidian pleasures, appreciation for imperfections in myself (and others), celebrating the beautiful and practical artisanal arts and crafts, and being reminded by nature that there is continual creation, destruction, and regeneration in the cycle of life. To translate the concept of wabi-sabi, a metaphor would be the "reverse side of a brocade - all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of color or design" - K. Okakura