As we celebrate Christmas 2018, let us reflect upon the wabi-sabi of life. This is a Japanese term about accepting and celebrating the imperfect and temporariness of life. From Wikipedia:
“In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.[2] The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”.[3] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching…”
The reason I am urging this concept is that as the years go by, we all age (and physically deteriorate as we become elderly). I feel the impermanence due to the recent deaths of Tucson activists whom I knew along the campaign trail, Claudia Ellquist and Dave Ewoldt, Green Party members who ran (respectively) for Pima County Attorney and State Senate. It’s hard to believe both are gone, as well as strong Democratic educator Georgia Cole Brousseau, formerly on the PCC Governing Board. Their powerful voices for social justice, education, and the environment will be missed.