10-27-16

Sashiko and Inner Space

Sashiko is an old mending technique for recycling cloth. Its ancient traditions were meant to patch worn clothing, usually with material died with indigo. Its evolution from Japan has brought it to our present time as a craft with some prescribed stitches and patterns of revealed white thread. The equipment consists of stronger twisted thread and needles milled to slip easily through heavier material. While there is often an emphasis on precise regularity of patterns and stitch distances, its appeal to me is its imperfect possibilities. It is an example of a wabi-sabi aesthetic in its simplicity, impermanence, roughness, economy, asymmetry, and its implied personal care. At a time when there appears to be a resurgence of interest in textile crafts and design, sashiko offers a wonderful metaphor for perfect imperfection.

Sashiko and other rough crafts circumscribe a new vision of beauty. So often we think of something as beautiful because it fits our ideas of perfection. Beautiful connotes flawlessness, symmetrical contours, rigid spacing, and precise engineering or, in human terms, someone with features defined by the social lottery.  Something or someone beautiful may have some or all of these characteristics, but re-thinking beauty encompasses the less-than-perfect. Perfection is an ideal in all circumstances and what is left behind must then be imperfect. But, if we think of imperfect as less-than, then what have we said about the world in which we live? What have we said about ourselves?

The beautiful ideal seems permanent and immutable. In fact, our ideas about what or who is beautiful are subject to changes we often don't appreciate because of their subtlety. If something we think of as beautiful changes, then are we still so certain that it is beautiful? And doesn't that insight change what beautiful means? If we think of the imperfection of beauty, then we have a way of seeing the world that doesn't lock us into a rigid mindset and imprison us in some concept of what is desirable. If we think of ourselves as beautifully imperfect, then we are open to infinite possibilities of self expression. We can begin to love ourselves in our many dimensions. We can move through our lives with greater ease and freedom. We can age without the stigmas of what it means to be old or sick or dying.

When we talk about sashiko and its metaphorical possibilities, we are talking about being "cut from the same cloth." We are talking about patching our lives together in individual ways that make us stronger for the mending. If we are all imperfect and torn in one way or another, then mending with patches is how we are healed. Even if we think of ourselves as torn, we don't often think of how we might be repaired or mended. We accept the idea that we will always be torn and frayed. When we find patches that make us stronger and whole, we discover that we can wear our mending on the outside or on the inside. When we wear it on the outside, we show others the patches and the stitching. We are free to say how we have been wounded and then restored. We are saying that we are vulnerable and we are exposing our damaged selves. We are inviting others to show their patches and encouraging them to see their imperfect beauty.

When we wear our patches on the inside, we are free to own our woundedness and to begin the process of growth that healing entails. In the quiet of inner space we find our sacred ground.

When I was studying for chaplaincy at a Zen Buddhist center, we sewed our own rakusus. A rakusu is an apron-like vestment worn by those who commit to the precepts established by the Buddha centuries ago. Buddhist monks sewed their robes from cloth used to tend to the sick, washed of the blood and pus that soaked them. The cloth was intended to be washed, patched, and recycled as a symbol of the care, commitment, and compassion towards those aging, sick, and dying.  Because of the blindness of societal prejudice and oppression, the full robes of the committed shrank into a form that could be worn underneath common garments. This is the form of the rakusu today. Our rakusus were sewn from pieces of fabric donated by family members and friends as a way of celebrating our personal lineages and a way of symbolizing that our common apron could assume a sacred identity. We made every stitch with the determination to make the apron strong and durable. Every stitch was a silent prayer for peace. When we entered the inner space, we joined the inner and outer spaces of our lives. Most of us students were novices at sewing and so our aprons were imperfect in most dimensions. The stitches weren't even and the patches were sometimes akimbo. Yet, because we had imbued them with a sacred meaning that dwelt within us, they were imperfectly perfect.

When I think about my life, I think about how it resembles sashiko stitching and I think that what I present to the world through my life is something resembling a sacred commitment. I had always thought that it was important to achieve a seamless joining of inner and outer spaces, integrating who I am with what I do. I think all of us achieve just such an integration of self, but I am more inclined now to think it is a product of many overlying patches and it is hardly seamless. It is no longer important to hide the stitches or the frayed edges. There is freedom and creativity in thinking that our lives evolve not in spite of the patches but because of them. We are imperfectly perfect and beautiful. We grow and outgrow. We tear and wear out parts. We mend and we heal. We are in a process of being and becoming.

Once we recognize ourselves in our mended state, we can better appreciate the imperfect beauty of those around us. We can look closely at the mendedness of our neighbors and see that the cloth from which we are cut is the same as theirs. Their stitched patches are also sacred. May all of us be covered with sacred cloth. May all of us be protected and comforted by the stitching in our inner and outer spaces.

10-6-16

The Perfect Pen

Someone who does quantities of writing might have had the same dilemma I have experienced. All of the documentation required of me in my professional life was done by hand. I suppose that now such documentation for most jobs is recorded into a computer. I, too, have experimented with a keyboard in my own writing and have become almost paralyzed at times trying to decide how best to do it: should I drag a pen along a piece of paper or should I sit before a screen and watch all the words flow silently onto the blank page? Should I use a computer (we still refer to keyboarding as writing) to divulge to my secret journals all the longings and disappointments of my heart or should I hover over the page with pen in hand and let the tears drip and warp? If I am convinced that what I write should last for a very long time, then what pen should I pick to do that? If the paper is too thick and the pen point too fine, then the words will fade or appear anemic. If the paper is thin and the ink in the fountain pen is too copious, then every word on the page will spread and the backside of the paper will become a palimpsest of sorts and useless for recording additional thoughts.

So it is that a dedicated writer finds many excuses for not actually sitting down and beginning the process of writing. All the same, there are some considerations about writing and the tools that make that happen that reflect how one views writing in general. A pen is simply a tool that, like all tools, allows us to produce something else. And, like all tools, there isn't a single tool that does everything we want to do. So, it makes good sense to match the right pen with the paper, to pick the ink that suits the pen, to pick the nib that matches how the pen slides over the surface of the paper, and to have a pen that fits into one's hand like the handshake one hopes to get from an old friend.

In some cases, the pen selected is the one that forms the crispest letters and allows words to be compacted or spread out along the line. Ball point pens ask for a firmer grip and heavier leaning onto the paper. Ball point pens are easily rotated or held unconventionally by the hand with a uniform line emerging from the tip. Fountain pens, on the other hand, are notoriously finicky about their loyalty to their original master, having been formed by an individual's hand pressure and angle of writing. The nibs on fountain pens inherited by sons from their fathers (or daughters from their mothers) are sharpened in a way that may tear at the paper in the next generation and (who knows?) revive resentments of a difficult childhood. Managing such a great burden may mean that perfectly good tools may get discarded along with fond memories of an otherwise demanding dad.

The choice of ink may also be how one expresses the deepest thoughts and the most felicitous sentiments. What do brown or green ink connote? Should one take a chance on "cocoa" or "indigo" or "sage"? Writing snobs say that a bottle of ink should be discarded after a year so as not to clog the point of the pen. On the other hand, ball point refills never seem to run out, leaving one with the difficult decision about whether to replace early (how do you know?) when a writing project requires consistency. And, if one is conservation minded, should refills be thrown out before they have run out, just because one now wants black instead of blue?

I don't suppose it needs to be a matter of either/or but could be both/and when it comes to choosing a writing tool. One could prefer a fountain pen for those rare thank-you notes or for the letter that sails from the heart and binds one soul to another. The ball point pen might be the best tool for a father when writing his homesick daughter away from home for the first time, hoping that his nearly illegible writing will comfort her and not deepen her loneliness. The keyboard might serve better for the note that says you don't want to talk about it. In these rushed and frantic times, the fountain pen is the best reminder to slow down thinking and reacting and to foster slower responses. Writing in general is the antidote to prolonged screen times that so many of us now indulge. Writing one another forms bridges and useful connections. Handwriting implies slower and deeper reading. There are more lines to read between and greater space for it. Writing carries intention and thoughtful writing pulls from us our better selves as we make gestures of connection with others.

Perhaps these considerations are more than necessary when all we are trying to do is communicate. I would suggest, however, that the thoughts we put into when and how we write are important to a communication that supersedes the present trends toward clipped and compressed writing. Who are we when we write? Where do we find our inspirations? How does what we choose to write affect our relationships with the recipients? How are we changed by our writing? How does our writing allow for creativity in ourselves and how does it coax creativity from others? If we can stand back and in a detached way observe ourselves writing, how do we appear? Are we hunched or open? Do we pause often to think our way into our writing? Do we edit or cross out? How many other ways do we bring ourselves to our writing? And how do we invite writing companions?

I think of how daunting other writers have found the blank page. It is less a potential space with limitless possibilities than it is a millstone. Perhaps one has selected the wrong tool for this writing. Perhaps the writer hasn't considered how we can be completed by what we write. Marrying intention with acceptance of one's own small efforts can often lead to a process of growth and maturation. Perhaps we are too afraid of trusting ourselves to create new and lasting ideas. Yes, mindfulness can center us in our deepest and most noble thoughts.

It is worth considering all of these things when writing. One needn't become paralyzed attempting to make writing a perfect effort. One only needs to want to connect the inner life with ordinary life. And it is possible that the most perfect pen for you is actually a pencil.