WABI SABI is in many ways like the bittersweet taste of the last strawberry in this old Zen tale. It is an expression of the beauty that lies in the brief transition between the coming and going of life, both the joy and melancholy that make up our lot as humans.

mono no aware, a wistful pathos at the transience of things, the kind of poignant sadness that deepens an experience instead of detracting from it. The kind you feel once you’re no longer grasping at the moment, thereby undermining your experience of it, but stepping more fully into it. Feeling yourself a part of it. Being it.

The beauty of Basho’s prose, however, took the negative aspects of old age, loneliness, and death and imbued them with a serene sense of beauty.