I think art reflects life we all get
hammered and we all have to sit with our
pieces and find a way to redefine what
wholeness looks like and to make
something beautiful out of the life that
we have so my name is dr. Alexa Altman
and I'm a clinical psychologist somebody
actually showed me a bowl with these
gorgeous golden seams running through it
and I had one of those like lightning
bolt moments of like what is that what
does it even mean
King Suki King is golden Suki is
rejoining this idea of gold and
rejoining like bringing these different
aspects of a fragmented part of
ourselves together the process when I
sat down to Japan to learn the authentic
way of repair is multi-step and
multi-layered the whole process from
start to finish we're talking about
between 28 and 35 days depending on the
size of the piece for me part of why I
wanted to share King Suki was to be able
to communicate it and make Kisuke
accessible so we begin with the ball but
the bowl in this practice represents
just like in 15th century Japan some
aspect of yourself the second object is
the cloth
so I think about the cloth as like the
things that hold us you know it could be
a mother's love right it could be a face
you know for some people the cloth is
you know their own inner resilience that
part of them that's like I've got to
break this open because I'm not living
an authentic life
so our next teacher is the hammer and
hammer it's an instrument for change it
can destroy but it's also used to build
and bring things together so we're going
to use the hammer as an object for
change and so we could think about in
your own personal story or history what
are the hammers one of the things that
come and hit you and whacked you and
opened you I just feel around kind of
noticing the brokenness without rushing
in to fix it this is the part we skip
over this is the part we want to clean
up our mess really fast and hope nobody
sees it immediately the human impulse is
to puzzle and fix this is the part
actually where this practice becomes
about mindfulness where I just want to
invite you to just sit with the pieces
don't rush into fix it and just survey
the pieces as they are
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the blue is all about connection the
alchemy of the chemicals coming together
to hold disparate pieces so connection
is the name of the game not perfection
so healing happens in connection not
perfection so we kind of waited breathe
and wait and breathe and wait and
breathe
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so once the bowl is set and glued then
comes the filing this isn't an effortful
process this is actually takes like a
very soft filing and smoothing over the
excess what you don't need anymore and
so the holes and cracks that you'll see
in your ball can be representations of
loss it could be a space for new
information to come in those cracks
might be important part of your story
every Bowl has a story to tell just like
every person has a story to tell we're
just telling it through this bowl right
I say the gold is the glory it's a
celebration the gold it's not about a
cover-up in any way it's actually about
a highlight the gold it's an opportunity
to highlight the journey I like to think
about it like it's drawing a map
literally like a map of the story of
what you went through or how you did
this
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I think art reflects life that King su
v--'s a reflection of what it means to
be human
we all get hammered and we all have to
sit with our pieces and find a way to
redefine what wholeness looks like and
to make something beautiful out of the
life that we have
[Music]