Several years ago lightning struck and killed the tall pine tree in the small wooded area across the street from our home.

Today the tree still stands tall, its branches bare and bleached, a resting spot for eagles, cranes, and other waterfowl.

To my eyes, the tree is starkly beautiful and endlessly fascinating. Others in the neighborhood see it as a nuisance to be cut down.

But must a tree have needles or leaves to be useful? To be pleasing? To have the right to continue standing tall, proud, incomplete yet lovely?

As I gaze out the window each morning while brushing my teeth, I see the pine tree as a metaphor for seeing beyond the obvious.

A daily reminder in a throw-away, sound-bite, 140 character, fast food society that re-invention and possibility are there to be had if we’re willing to see it.

Utility and beauty take many forms. The pine tree doesn’t provide pine nuts any more, yet it’s a way station for birds heading across the marsh or a haunting silhouette against orange and lavender sunsets that makes me smile.

The pine tree’s repurposed life brings to mind wabi-sabi, the Japanese art of finding beauty in impermanence and imperfection.

“Poetically wabi has come to mean simple, unmaterialistic, humble by choice, and in tune with nature,” writes architect Tadao Ando. “Sabi’s meaning has evolved into taking pleasure in things that are old and faded.”

So, perhaps one day, just like the pine tree across the street, we can transcend to a simpler life where beauty isn’t air-brushed into existence and material goods aren’t the only measure of success.

What do you think?

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More on wabi-sabi

According to Japanese legend, a young man named Sen no Rikyu sought to learn the elaborate set of customs known as the Way of Tea. He went to tea-master Takeeno Joo, who tested the younger man by asking him to tend the garden. Rikyu cleaned up debris and raked the ground until it was perfect, then scrutinized the immaculate garden. Before presenting his work to the master, he shook a cherry tree, causing a few flowers to spill randomly onto the ground.

To this day, the Japanese revere Rikyu as one who understood to his very core a deep cultural thread known as wabi-sabi. Emerging in the 15th century as a reaction to the prevailing aesthetic of lavishness, ornamentation, and rich materials, wabi-sabi is the art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in earthiness, of revering authenticity above all. ~Robyn Griggs Lawrence, Wabi-Sabi: The Art Of Imperfection

Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There’s a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in. ~Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

Perfection and imperfection are both mirrors of our minds; as aspects of Yin and Yang, neither can exist without the other.