..........slow down.......take a breath.......be in the moment.......hold your thoughts & feelings as gently as you would a baby bird.......let them go.......just be..........

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Mindfulness Like Celadon Must Be Experienced to Be Understood

When creating a listing on Etsy, one of the things you do is add tags that describe your piece, such as  color, shape, usage, etc. so people can find it more easily in a search.  It is often difficult to decide what colors to use.  Do you just use the word "green" when it is really a lime green?  If someone is searching for a green necklace are they that specific?  Needless to say, the answers are quite illusive, and you just use words that seem to be the most direct.

Describing the color of the little green-blue bird on this necklace yesterday I had to stop and really think what words to use.  One issue is that describing color can be very personal.  What looks like blue to one person might look like purple to another.  It is actually quite difficult to find true colors.


Then the color "celadon" popped into my head. Yes, the little glass bird was celadon in color.  I typed it in with the other tags and posted the listing.  But I could not help wonder if what I thought the color celadon looked like was really the same color in the little bird charm, so I googled "celadon" in Google images.  Above is a picture of the necklace with what showed up in Google images, which confirmed I had found the right descriptive color.

It was interesting to read a bit more about celadon.  It is actually used most to describe a certain Asian glaze in pottery.  (I know the little bird charm is actually glass, but it is the same color as many of the celadon glazed.)

I was quite struck by this description I found for celadon green in Wikipedia:

These pots have blue-green glazes and are made in elegant shapes and were produced in kilns from all over China. Korean celadon pottery has been described by ancient Chinese artisans as having a quiet elegance whose color is "beyond description", in that it must be experienced to be understood, and its simplicity of form and style has been compared to the spirit of Zen Buddhism.[49]

I really like how they describe celadon as:
"having a quiet elegance whose color is beyond description"... "that must be experienced to be understood..."

That really is another description for mindfulness, and it is really not as illusive as it seems at first.


1 comment:

  1. I've always loved celadon! I have a beautiful lidded mug made from it that always cheers me up when I use it.

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