Wabi-Sabi

I finally found the name for the way I view nature, the world (or at least try)....
The Japanese Philosophy of Wabi-Sabi: Seeing Beauty in the Everyday

...I’d recently discovered wabi-sabi, which to me seemed a great umbrella for a lot of the conversations getting under way at that time: Simplicity, slow food, recycling and reuse. In the first wheredo-we-go-now months after the planes hit the towers, I thought Americans might go the wabi way, toward Victory Gardens and plainer living. Instead, we went for easy credit and patriotic shopping; wabi-sabi had to wait.


Hard knocks change a nation. Wealth ebbs and flows, thrift and greed take turns in our cycling consciousness. After 9/11, we shopped. Seven years later, we stopped. “It’s the end of the era of conspicuous displays of wealth,” historian Steve Fraser told the New York Times in October 2008. “We are entering a new chapter in our history.”


Wabi-sabi time.


Wabi-sabi is an ancient Japanese philosophy with roots in Zen, revering austerity, nature and the everyday...


Wabi-sabi has made inroads in Western culture time and again; strains of it can be seen in the lifestyles of the Puritans, the Shakers and the Transcendentalists. It showed up in Arts and Crafts furnishings (a reaction to the overwrought Victorian era) and even in Eames chairs (simple, functional design for the masses).


Wabi-sabi is a logical reaction to a society disgusted with its own excess. (William Morris, father of the Arts and Crafts movement, often railed against the “swinish luxury of the rich,” and many of his lectures could be used on the campaign trail today.) But the beauty in it is that it’s not a bitter condemnation — it’s a change in perspective. Instead of buying, we could make things. We could grow our own. We could put away the credit cards. We could start by taking on the most important tenet of the tea: ichigo, ichie, or “once in a lifetime.” This reminds us that every meeting is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion to enjoy good company, beautiful art and a cup of tea. We never know what might happen tomorrow, or even later today. But in the moment, we could stop to share conversation and a cup of tea. And that sure beats the bad news on TV.

Or as Still in the Stream notes:

The complete term 'wabi sabi' describes a way of life practiced by those who notice and appreciate the significant moments of each day, live fully in each change of season, and connect with nature and those around them in meaningful and gentle ways.