The absence of flaw in beauty is itself a flaw.  ~ Havelock Ellis

Some of the best crystal mines in the world are in Arkansas. On our way home from a family trip, we drove through Arkansas. There were a number of roadside stands selling quartz crystals. We stopped at one stand and I bought a crystal. It’s not perfect like the ones we see in shops or on the internet. No. It’s much more interesting than that.

This crystal is called a self-healer. In the photo above you can see how enormous the original crystal must have been. This corner broke off a long, long time ago and floated in the sand. Over time, the crystal healed the myriad facets that were sharp from the severing. In the photo below, you can see how these many facets are smooth and shiny from the healing and growth.

The beauty in this crystal is because of its healed brokenness and shimmering nature. It is a wabi-sabi crystal. There are three spiritual principles of wabi-sabi* beauty. With these principles, we can view the crystal through a wabi-sabi lens of beauty that comes from self-healing. Also, through seeing the crystal as our teacher, we can appreciate our own beauty as we engage in our own self-healing.

1. Truth comes for the observation of Nature.
……All things are impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete.

2. Greatness exists in the inconspicuous and overlooked.
……We tend to overlook a lot…the minor and the hidden, the
……damaged and the waning, the tentative and the ephemeral,
……the quiet and the subtle….

3. Beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness.
……Beauty is not always or only lushness. Beauty is a dynamic
……event; an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.
……It often occurs in quite unexpected and spontaneous ways.
.

*From Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren