Readers Respond: Break
“Readers Respond” is a series featuring reflections and practices on a current theme from Vita Poetica readers . Read more about the next theme and how to submit below.
Several years ago, I realized that by way of the occasional broken plate, I no longer had enough salad plates for each family member should I decide to serve a salad or need a bread plate for all the place settings at the dinner table. I started buying small colorful plates at thrift shops and I now have an ample supply of unique, fancy, and completely unmatched small plates. I know it is a trivial matter, but from this small want we have a small joy: the use of fancy little plates and not a single worry of them breaking.
– Maura H. Harrison (Fredericksburg, VA)
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“My “breaking” practice is breaking minerals, rocks, sea shells & dirt to paint! It’s called Nihonga (mineral pigment painting).”
– Ayaka Uchida (Tokyo/California/Hawai’i)
There is a detailed breakdown of the Nihonga process on Ayaka’s website.
***
From black sand emerges a soft shell, gray-green and frail. A heart beats below, minutes old, already frightened amid the fury of hundreds making their debut at breakneck speed, or so it seems to these neonate reptiles. As they scamper, their backs harden hoping for a time when they can’t be broken. The majority will be plucked and eaten by prowling carnivores and avians gathered here specifically to dine on the hatching; an easy meal.
These premature newborns are lucky, for a storm has taken the island by surprise, pelting down water on predator and prey alike, increasing chances of escape from the clutches of beak, claw and tooth. One female is confused by the rip-tide that drags her far out to sea. Far out to sea, where it is safer for a hatchling turtle. Safer despite 20’ waves that swell, rise and break with a crash. This aqueous creature was made to survive the brew. This is not true for my son who has struggled to stay afloat, waited for rescue and now as the breaker seeks home, one twenty year journey ends and another has just begun.
Life flows in a circular path. I have learned to sit for the day in gratitude of the flow; inhaling life, releasing presence.
– Lisa Dietz (Minneapolis, MN)
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Kintsugi is a Japanese practice that calls attention to and values brokenness rather than considering it to be a flaw. Repairs are appreciated for their beauty and broken pottery is mended with gold, enhancing its value.
“Your broken places.
Are your teachers, cherish them
And mend them with gold”
– Jacqueline Wallen (Silver Spring, MD)
For the next issue we’d like to see your photos related to your practices of thankfulness. This theme was suggested by reader (and previous Readers Respond contributor) Mary Bone.
As always, we encourage you to interpret the theme broadly! Some ideas include:
Objects you use as part of a gratitude practice.
Places you associate with thankfulness.
An image you like to meditate on.
A short description of the practice associated with or depicted in the image is optional but appreciated.
If you have photos to share (or themes you’d like to propose for future editions of the Readers Respond series) please fill out this quick form or email samir@vitapoetica.org
