Transformation as Kintsugi

Kintsugi is a Japanese art of healing, using golden joint to mend broken porcelain or ceramic. As the result the mended piece become more valuable.

Last week I went to a class of Kintsugi. Some of us brought from home a broken vase, bowl, or pot. Others were given a whole ceramic plate to break and to mend.

The first thing was leaning to break. When I hold the pliers next to the beautiful ceramic surface ready to punch, I hesitated for a long time. I felt an enormous resistance, an urge to let the piece be its pretty current existence, one of the dozen plates in a pile.

When I eventually heard the crack, I felt a sharp pain. I could touch that pain on the rugged edge of the broken halves. The person next to me looked at the pieces they brought from home; I imagined they recalled the pain when their vase was broken.

We had to file the sharpness of the edges. Carefully rubbing the dust away and caressing the open wounds to see if they were smoothened enough was a caring act of extreme tenderness. To help them ready to be healed.

After as little as an hour, it was amazing to see that I could mend, a wonderful sense of power. Eventually I put the pieces together.

When I showed my friends these photos, of the repaired plate, they were excited. I don’t think they would have felt the same if I showed them the photo of the flawless plate before.

I talked about my transformation journey as Kintsugi process, someone asked: how were you before Kintsugi then, I can’t imagine? I paused and said: I was a solid vase, rigidly solid! Now I can feel the flow through the golden veins.