My Wabi-Sabi Master Is My Dog -
Perfection Is A Gooey Chew Toy 
On A Worn Out Old Blanket
by Galina Pembroke

Up until recently, three dominant attitudes have ruled my dwelling My boyfriend’s, "if it breaks, fix it." My own, "if it breaks, replace it." And my dog’s, "if it breaks, keep it and love it all the more." Without realizing it, my dog has been a master practitioner of wabi-sabi, a Japanese aesthetic philosophy that celebrates the simple and the handmade, including the flaws. Especially the flaws. More than just the appreciation of unpretentious arts and crafts, wabi-sabi is a uniquely joyful way of viewing and contemplating the world. As Leonard Koren describes it in Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers (Stone Bridge Press, 1994), wabi-sabi is "the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete." It is no coincidence the first practitioners of wabi-sabi were Zen Buddhist monks and tea-masters. My dog, Tucker, continues in that venerable tradition. A 30-pound sheltie-crossbreed, his woolly coat has been painted by the creator in a wholly imperfect pattern of brown, black and white. With his flattened, rock-chewing teeth, Tucker makes an unlikely leader. Yet, through his actions, my dog has shown me the beauty of wabi-sabi.

Presents and Presence Every year I celebrate Tucker’s birthday, which I maintain is the day he stepped out of the dog pound and in through my door. For me, this means the challenge of shopping for a new dog toy that promises to delight Tucker and light up his wabi-sabi casual life. For Tucker, this means the aggravation of me dangling another squeak-toy or Kong product in front of his unimpressed snout. I am such a consumer fool. Every year it’s the same. Polite dog that he is, Tucker examines the shiny new object with feigned interest. Then he dismisses it and curls up in his war-torn blanket to gnaw on his ancient, mangled-beyond-recognition ball. Once a perfect sphere, it now resembles a cracked egg. With its aged crevices and unsightly protuberances, I am unable to understand how Tucker could want to be near it — let alone drool over it. Tucker couldn’t be happier. Slobbering contentedly over his gooey-soft treasure, he shows me that perfection cannot be bought, achieved, manipulated, or maintained. It is an inner experience canine wabi-sabi.

The Perfect Cloud 
In India, there is a mantra that signifies this feeling of fullness. Translated, it is "That is perfect. This is perfect. From the perfect springs the perfect. If the perfect is taken from the perfect, the perfect remains." Too bad this insight is absent from our "new is better" culture. Wabi-sabi is key to sustainable living. Even Tucker’s bought-and-soon-forgotten rejects are passed on to other less discriminating canine wabi-sabi practitioners. For dogs, mangled chew toys. For people, wabi-sabi pottery. These handmade, gloriously flawed (by design) objets d’art look pleasingly "pre-owned" right out of the box. Wabi-sabi regards the imperfections in these one-of-a-kind creations as enhancements. Western culture unconsciously imitates this aesthetic with pre-faded jeans and "distressed" furniture. We savour recycled and retro. We have, many of us, cultivated a taste for beauty wabi-sabi style. With Leonard Cohen (himself a Buddhist) we sing, "There’s a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in." As I struggle to appreciate the beauty wrought by decay, Tucker is my faithful wabi-sabi master. We are running barefoot through the soft sands of an ocean beach in my town of Nanaimo. The night air feels clean and cool. I stop often, dislodging the golden grains from between my blue-painted toes as I search for a driftwood chew toy. I find it and throw Tucker a three-foot log. When he returns, it’s a frayed six-inch twig. He will not let it go. I brandish another mini-log. He ignores me. He is mesmerized by the twig. He has found the perfect chew toy. Marred. Scarred. Semi-hard. Its strength lies in its very decaying, dwindling glory. I too chew up my environment. Pens and pencils are particularly attractive when I’m struggling with a new challenge. I used to discard these tooth torn tools. But Tucker has taught me the value of fractured belongings. Now when I look at the indented implements of my creative struggles, I see their scars as battle wounds, each bearing witness to the origin of a thought. Wabi-sabi teaches us that rain and ice may crack and erode the new and the beautiful, but the crumbling marks they leave behind are the signature of water, the life-giver. It teaches us to look up into the sky and see that the cloud itself is the silver lining.

Everything is Enough Every day we suffer disappointments. Like some mangled chew toy, life falls short of our ideals. Yet our bitten pencils bear witness to our earnest efforts we have given it our best shot. Like Tucker, now all we need to do is stretch out on our war-torn blankets and delight in what we have. Canine wabi-sabi.

Galina Pembroke is a freelance writer living on Vancouver Island. When not typing and researching, she enjoys gardening and yoga. (204) 255-4884 E-mail info@aquarianonline.com Website www.aquarianonline.com