Self Care is Self Love is Wholeness

There’s a Japanese word which is also a concept and that is KINTSUGI.
(Sidenote: I speak four languages and find it fascinating that each language will have words that you just can't translate exactly because the concept or act is so important to that culture… like snow is to Eskimos. Most societies don't need ten words for snow, right?  

Getting back to KINTSUGI - And here is the WIKIPEDIA explanation:

"Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum; the method is similar to the maki-e technique. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise."

Not only is there no attempt to hide the damage, but the repair is literally highlighted ... a kind of physical expression of the spirit of mushin. Mushin is often literally translated as "no mind," but carries connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions. ...The vicissitude over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This is a poignant truth or aesthetic of existence that has been known in Japan as mono no aware, a compassionate sensitivity, or identification with, [things] outside oneself.

So we get back to the idea that wellness is wholeness within ourselves and that the things that create the fractures and breaks - even to our spirit - are part of our beauty and wholeness. Because there is no perfection, there is a journey that winds through our lives and takes us all over the place in a journey that we could never plan on. And the miracle that sometimes life takes us off of a high cliff or into a deep abyss of dark water,  a  green, flower-filled meadow at the end of a mountain valley, or a sun-kissed beach. 

That’s the philosophy for the day. Now  I want to take you into the conversation about how do we best nourish and feed this ‘meat suit’ as one guy calls it, we inhabit while we’re here in the journey of earthly life.