Mending the Soul: The Ancient Art of Kintsugi and Philosophical Harmony

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of restoring broken pottery or glass with gold lacquer. The fine crystal cup does not return to its original state but, thanks to the gold, is transformed into something of greater beauty and value. Life experience inevitably produces breaks in our psyche of different kinds and degrees: our harmony is broken. Emotional or mental suffering fractures our identity; insecurity and doubt invade us, and the meaning of our life seems to dissipate. Restoring homeostasis, the balance of our person, requires taking a step back from the tumult of the crisis to gain a level-headed perspective on what is happening. Our personal mask has been broken, and putting it back together requires a good dose of gold as well as the hands of a mask craftsman, a connoisseur of the human soul. The gold lacquer for the reconstruction-transformation of the personal mask is the word. The word is the instrument. Not only the ordinary scientific word that provides methods, processes, and ...