Kintsugi

How many of us have stood aghast and helpless with dismay as our favorite teapot, bowl, or dish slips from our hands and shatters on the floor? Our distress is followed by the indecision as to whether to throw all the broken pieces away or to try and glue them back together as best we can in order to pretend the careless accident never happened.

But there is a third option—we can have the smashed porcelain or pottery repaired by the technique that reassembles the fragments, replaces chips, and mends cracks with lacquered gold so that the shimmering scars become a unique and valuable part of the repaired object. By this method, the treasured artifact takes on a new life and, meaning the sense of deep regret when something good is wasted, and to , a state of mind that is free from anger, fear, ego, and attachments and an understanding of the need to accept change, not just in physical objects but in people, too.