“Cracks do not just let light in, they let world in. When we say cracks come with their own weather, we name their atmospheres of grief and astonishment, their humidity of longing, their winds that do not blow in straight lines. We name the business of becoming undone in ways that make new touch possible. We speak to the climates of feeling that resist tidy names, where sobbing might be a form of measurement, where disorientation is a form of orientation. The crack does not invite repair; it invites reverence. Not sealing, but sensing. Not a plan, but a pulse. “
~ Bayo Akomolafe, Facebook, June 19, 2025
Late posting today, I spent a several minutes scrolling while waiting for my coffee to brew. I came upon Bayo’s post wherein this quote. I had become familiar with this contemporary sage several years ago via his Facebook posts. Last summer walking, I listened to him on several Spotify podcasts. My impression is that his way of thinking defies description. Ever poetic, eccentric (not oriented centrally, but unconventionally), radical (relating to, proceeding from the root), and eclectic (deriving ideas from a broad and deep well) come to mind. Admittedly, while I don’t always understand him, he does provoke and perturb which gets me to thinking more. And isn’t that a good thing?
Since Leonard Cohen wrote and sang his famous phrase about the crack being how the light gets in, I think we’ve taken a kind of reassuring refuge in the possibilities evoked. For me writing about a wabi sabi life, it aligns with noticing and naming the inherent beauty in imperfection.
“The crack does not invite repair; it invites reverence.”
Maybe, no need to fill with gold.
Maybe, the sitting with, sobbing in wonderment. Bittersweet multiplied by life.
Maybe, as Bayo suggests in a later post,
“Be careful with wanting to remove the thorn in your flesh. It may just be that the thorn sits still to teach us that we are wilder than recovery, nobler than the taxonomy of compliance that manufactures wellbeing-so-called. It may just be that the thorn wants to teach our human flesh that we are also plants.”
The alchemy in the crack, created by the thorn, containing its own medicine.
Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.
A Wabi Sabi Life 