When a situation feels like a matter of life and death the deep self is close at hand and it already carries inner medicine and its own life remedy. - Michael J. Meade

kintsukuroi, or the “golden repair” of something treasured or important that has become cracked or broken. When applied to the repair of ancient and valuable pieces of pottery, the practice becomes kintsugi, or “golden joinery.” The key to this imaginative art appears when the glue used to fill the cracks and join the broken pieces becomes blended with actual gold. After the repairs have been made, the broken vessel becomes more valuable than ever. Metaphorically, kintsugi suggests that

The divine is at the edge of our awareness and vision, but it is also within us as the first seeker found when all seemed lost completely. In order to find the dream of life again, we must first find the way that the dream exists within our own souls. We may be daunted by the surfacing of all the dilemmas and trouble of this troubled world, but the deep self and soul within us already knows how we are intended to swim in the blessed turmoil of the waters of life. For humans exist to bring meaning to the surface of life and awareness to the dream of existence.

We may be closest to hearing the call when we feel most alone or in trouble, for genius hides behind the wound and one of the greatest wounds in life is to not know who we are intended to be or what we are supposed to serve in life.