Imperfect Strength

We were given bowls that represent us and we took time to be mindful and be grateful for showing up. We placed the bowl in a cloth bag which represented our community and the people who surround us and keep us safe. We then hit the bowl with a hammer (aka life at times).


Finding strength in imperfection. My sister introduced me to the traditional Japanese art form of Kintsugi, meaning to join with gold. She and I participated in a workshop that made me think of this year/life and how we end a year that had broken pieces and begin anew by reassembling the shattered pieces. The process of repairing a vessel examines our relationship with fracture and imperfections…I think we can be ashamed by scars and flaws but what if we approach them with compassion and humility for what was gained and learned.

But what if we shift our perspective on what it means to be whole? Instead of disguising, discarding, or replacing the cracks in life, we actually highlight them with gold and draw attention to our imperfections. We need not be ashamed. We can display our humanness with beauty, grace, strength and gratitude. My friend Sarah says to “look for the gold” and I think that sums it up nicely.


We then reassembled the bowl and began to highlight the cracks with gold to draw attention to the brokenness and repair.

Words from a Wise Poet

As we face another upsetting reality regarding Covid-19 and the Delta variant causing another increase in infection rates and hospitalizations, conversations about public health and mask wearing, I feel the weariness that you most likely feel too. As we face the reality of corrupt power and sexual abuse and violation, of the threat to our freedom of voting and protection of rights, I feel the weariness you most likely feel too. I heard an interview with the author, Clint Smith, and he read this poem he wrote regarding continued injustices and violence towards black and brown bodies. I think it’s important at times to give language that bears the weightiness that is reality. From there, we can free up psychological resources to move forward.

When people say, “we have made it through worse before”

— Clint Smith

all I hear is the wind slapping against the gravestones
of those who did not make it, those who did not
survive to see the confetti fall from the sky, those who

did not live to watch the parade roll down the street.
I have grown accustomed to a lifetime of aphorisms
meant to assuage my fears, pithy sayings meant to

convey that everything ends up fine in the end. There is no
solace in rearranging language to make a different word
tell the same lie. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe

does not bend in a direction that will comfort us.
Sometimes it bends in ways we don’t expect & there are
people who fall off in the process. Please, dear reader,

do not say I am hopeless, I believe there is a better future
to fight for, I simply accept the possibility that I may not
live to see it. I have grown weary of telling myself lies

that I might one day begin to believe. We are not all left
standing after the war has ended. Some of us have
become ghosts by the time the dust has settled.


"Unprecedented"

We’ve heard this word describe months and months of a “new normal” and life in quarantine. There is a collective grief and trauma the world over that has been our reality since last year. There has been much civil unrest and loss of life. I do not have anything new to contribute that hasn’t already been said by people much brighter and more thought-provoking than I. I just wanted to share that I am with you in my own heartache, my devastation, my grief, my anger…all while trying to find ways to contribute to important issues and caring for myself and those around me. We don’t do it perfectly. That’s impossible. But we can do so intentionally and thoughtfully and carefully and kindly. Again, nothing profound to be said except I’m here with you in this place of unprecedence navigating to the best of our ability, seeking to learn and grow and give.

“ If we stay present to our discomfort, we will also feel something else arising—something more real, capable, sensitive, and exquisitely aware of ourselves and of our surroundings.” (The Wisdom of the Enneagram)