Monday, April 8, 2013

Cracked and Beautiful




Cracked and Beautiful

11/24/12


                I’ve always felt odd, out of place and different because of the experiences in my life that have molded me, for better and for worse, into the broken person I am today.  I’ve done a lot of work on myself over the past decade, hoping to piece back together all the broken places and heal.


                Healing is all about perspective and from my perspective, I wanted beautiful clear skies and lush wide open green fields, as far as the eye could see.  I saw healing that way, as perfection, without flaw or blemish anywhere.  There weren’t any burnt hillsides and violent thunderstorms in my picture of self-perfection.


                So, I remain broken.  And one day, I heard a woman tell of a potter that deliberately created clay pots with his finger prints all over them and with the ceramic glaze cracked throughout, and people love his pots.  He is simply unable to keep up with their demand and he doesn’t even try.  He insists on doing it the same way he always has; not hiring other’s to help.  He doesn’t care about money or fame; he’s simply doing what he loves to do.  Making broken pots!


                One day, the potter was working on a piece, taking his time, and lovingly allowing it to become its unique self as it began to form beneath the pressure of his hands.  It was a beautiful pot that took him nearly a day to form and glaze.  He placed it in the furnace and when it was done, he carefully removed it with a pair of tongs, and as he was about to set it on a stand to cool, it suddenly dropped to the ground and shattered.


                The potter picked up the pieces and carefully glued them together, using liquid gold to fill in the cracks.  This same cracked pot became the most prized of all his creation.  Everyone wanted it but he refused to sell it because he said the cracks were what made this pot the most beautiful of all.  He loved this cracked pot more, now that it was broken and pieced back together, than he did when it was whole.


                And here I stand, broken but pieced together and that’s ok, because I know that I will be loved not for what I was meant to be, but for who I am.  I guess that’s healing.

                                                                                                                                               tiki

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