My Box of Feathers and Wabi-Sabi

The wooden box, table, wooden bowl and mini woven mat were all thrift shop treasures :~)
The book I had to order from Amazon as I could not wait for it to 'turn up'!

One of my boxes of feathers, feathers I have taken years to lovingly and delightedly collect, has had a moth attack. At first there was that awful feeling, with a sharp-breath intake and a slow-release sigh of "ohhh nooo" because, of course, each one is unique and cannot be replaced. There can be an 'instead of' but not 'the same as'.

As I sorted through them though, a whisper of a thought gently overtook my initial alarm....."Wabi-Sabi".

I've only recently discovered the term Wabi-Sabi ~ thanks to this lady, but it is how I have always lived, finding beauty in the signs of aging, and from childhood onwards, filling my home with worn, smooth pebbles, driftwood silvered by the sea, broken shells that used to be homes now treasured and rejoiced in by me and my family; well used and previously owned chairs, tables, cushions and clothes all with their secret stories teasingly shown on their scarred and scuffed surfaces leaving us to wonder at the tales they could tell.

As often happens if I allow myself to be open to magic ~ as Wabi-Sabi came to my mind, I found this ~

a heart~full reminder ~ and of course, it was all alright. The damage isn't that bad and birds are incredibly generous with their feather~gifts, so I will always have a plentiful supply. 

As I wrote this I was happily interrupted by a vast storytelling of crows flying with great purpose and dramatic cawing over our house towards the West. MM and I ran out to watch them and would have loved to know what they know and what their arcanum business was.