I know I’ve already featured one guest post and one interview recently, but when the chance came to interview Lisa Baldwin of Zen At Play, wild iguanas could not have dragged me away. It’s not often you get to interview one of the bravest, most clear-minded and humorously wise people you know…you know?

I love her take on life, the universe and everything, and I’m especially thrilled to be participating in her upcoming Treasure Project, which starts this coming Monday.

What’s it about? Oh, silly little things like mindfulness. And creativity. And decluttering (but only if you want to). And maybe stretching your comfort zone a bit in a safe and nurturing environment. And just plain fun.

(Click the buttony button to learn more and/or sign up.)

I was curious about why Lisa who, by her own admission, has “been drawing for around 5 minutes,” came up with the concept of drawing her cherished possessions…so that’s where we started.

Me: What’s so powerful about making art about our treasures? What exactly does it accomplish?

Lisa: Seeing. The power is in the seeing.

We tend to view our belongings as a single mass. We accumulate, intentionally or otherwise, and it all hovers silently around us. We pluck out what we need when we need it, and don’t think too much about each thing’s place in our lives. The Treasure Project is about really seeing our possessions and gathering clues from them.

The things we treasure for their usefulness or meaning hold all kinds of useful information that we can act on. Being aware of your treasures is the most powerful place to start when you want to simplify, because when you know what matters most, the only question left is how to clear away the rest so you can appreciate the best.

Through art-making, and the seeing that the process requires, we get to cultivate a creative habit and have fun at the same time.

Me: Displaying our imperfect creations in a space where others can see them can feel pretty vulnerable. What would you say to the people who might want to join the Treasure Project (or doing anything creative, really) but don’t feel comfortable sharing whatever kind of art they choose to make?

Lisa: Yes, I absolutely get the vulnerability of it all—I am an art-sharing chicken! And it’s interesting that we worry so much about other people’s feedback, because the really tough stuff is what we tell ourselves.

Practicing self-kindness can be part of the process—it might even be the intention of the process. At the same time, choosing who you share with is important—some humans are safer than others, and your tiny creatures of creativity need a safe place to play.

You get to create that safe place by whatever means you need.

That might mean choosing something like the Treasure Project so you can practice sharing in a small group of kindhearted people who won’t critique your work unless you specifically ask for that. Or it might be that you create a safe place to land some other way.

Either way, your creativity is worthy of your care and attention.

Me: I’m like you—I have a strong, ever-present, and yes, obsessive urge to declutter and simplify my life. But some people really need to feel surrounded by a certain amount of stuff to be comfortable. How can we each know where to draw the line (pun intended!) between feeling supported by our possessions and stifled by them?

Lisa: Yes, the sweet spot is different for everyone, and that’s a good thing. I think we need to find the line through experimentation—we’re not necessarily going to know in advance where it is, and nobody else can determine it for us.

I don’t believe that anyone is under any obligation to let go of anything if they’re happy with the way things are—you get to keep things if you want to. Clearing is a matter of asking good questions about your stuff, and getting clear about what supports you and holds you back.

Our way of consuming means that we do tend to have more than we want once we start looking closely, but it might also mean adding a thing or two, or keeping things that other people don’t recognise as treasures. Ask questions, listen to the answers, find your own line.

Me: I adore your poem “Real Lions.” To me, it beautifully expresses your desire to release the artificial urgency we create around so many things. How can we remain conscious about doing that when cultural pressures so strongly enforce the “crank it out and crush it” mentality?

Lisa: Ah, thanks so much! You know, when my time here is up, I strongly doubt that I’ll be wishing I’d hurried, cranked or crushed more. I’m going to be wondering if I paid enough attention. Was I awake?

The idea behind the crank-and-crush method is that it’s what you have to do to get the most out of life, but I don’t believe that for a minute. (Okay, maybe there are occasional minutes where I wonder if I should do more cranking, but I try to let it pass. And sometimes a little passion-driven cranking is useful, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a way of life or that you’re failing as a human if you take a nap in the afternoon.)

How can we be conscious of artificial urgency? Our bodies tell us. Our racing thoughts tell us. Our feelings of inadequacy tell us.

And if we can stop to ponder for a moment, and ask how we’d approach a thing if there was no urgency, we can often see the calmer path clearly.

Me: You’re all about lightness and spaciousness and being awake to ourselves and the world around us. How do you manage to stay so aware? And for all the times you/we don’t manage it, what can you tell us about not getting all self-judgmental about that?

Lisa: Sometimes I think I’m too aware. Other times I think I’m not aware enough.

I’m happiest when I remember that both are true. There’s a lot to be said for a good, honest effort, you know? And if we’re noticing the times that we’re not so aware with gentle curiosity, then we’re making good progress.

—————————oOo—————————

So I’m going to be playfully inviting a higher level of awareness into my life for a month, starting Monday. And giving the whole letting go of self-judgment thing a good, honest effort.

Anyone wanna join me? I’d love it if you came and played, too!

Thanks, Lisa, for taking the time for this interview in the middle of your busy preparations.   Again, folks, you can find Lisa Baldwin pondering profoundly and exploring eagerly over at Zen at Play. Or conversing cheerily on Twitter as @zenatplay. (Are you sensing a theme here?)

Today’s blog post is brought to you by the term wabi-sabi.

No, it’s not something you would order at your neighborhood sushi bar. Nor is it a new character in a manga comic book. It’s a Japanese compound word which describes an entire philosophy and aesthetic in four simple syllables.

You’ve got to love the Japanese for being so elegantly efficient.

A little Internet research reveals the inevitable drama and conflict—some say that the two words wabi and sabi should never be used together. (Neither word translates directly into English. Wabi holds connotations of loneliness, rustic simplicity, humility, and quietude; sabi refers to imperfection, the aging process, and the interest these lend to things.) Others decry the new popularization of wabi-sabi in the West, and its commoditization as a new “style” in architecture, interior design, and the like.

So here’s my disclaimer. I’ve spent maybe 30-45 minutes looking into the term, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’m not going to do justice to the subtlety and richness of the concepts involved. But since the object of this blog is to highlight the practice of imperfection, it feels like it would be very humble-and-imperfect of me to continue.

Of all the discussions I found online, this is my favorite. From the first two paragraphs:

Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered—and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. . . . Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. . . . It’s a richly mellow beauty that’s striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time . . .

I started this blog to talk about perfection and imperfection, but in my mind, they keep bringing me back to concepts like clarity, simplification, and authenticity. There’s a close relationship between these things and allowing myself to let go of my need for perfection, and that’s why I was excited to find a strongly resonant term that ties them all together.

But there’s also a paradox. I have a personal aesthetic that is very wabi-sabi on its surface—my dream house, for instance, would contain lots of grainy wood and irregular stone and earthy-looking fabric and soft, natural tones and comfy furniture you could put your feet on, and very little plastic and shimmer and glitter and ruler-straight lines and loud colors and modular, matched fixtures.

My desire to pare down my personal possessions to only those things I truly need, love, or both also seems to fit the wabi-sabi philosophy very well.

But I’m forever wanting to declutter, organize, buy things that look artfully distressed, and otherwise force-fit my space and my belongings into the spare, uncluttered, and peacefully serene picture I have in my head.

In other words, I think I have a romanticized notion of imperfection.

Ouch.

Rather than trying to fit myself into an idealized image of what I think imperfection “should” look like, wouldn’t it be more authentic and humble and mentally/emotionally quiet and peaceful of me to simply accept that my space doesn’t look like I want it to, and make changes slowly as I can without beating myself up over the fact that it’s all . . . erm, not perfectly imperfect yet?

This new revelation actually came about as I was writing this post. Yay! Fresh insight! Now I just have to let it percolate for a while.

I guess what it all means is that (cough) I would like to lobby for making wabi-sabi not just a hobby, but a part of my regular jobbie.

(And if I haven’t just scared you off with that, feel free to comment!)