I write this to you from the foothills of the Himalayas, six months pregnant and sipping lemongrass tea in the afternoon sun.

It’s the final days of a chilly mountain winter here, and the sun is shining through the early morning mists each day as we wait for the rain that breaks the cold weather each year and signals the start of the new season of warmth. We’re quietly watching each sunrise, each sunset over some of the highest mountains in the world, and I’m breathlessly hiking around in the clean air and altitude; napping and writing a lot.

It’s a delight, in every sense of the word.

Perhaps, a world away from the ceramic studio.

This week has seen a deluge of emails and ads in my periphery, advertising Black Friday sales and I’m so conflicted. Like all of us, I love a sale, but I equally resent the culture of over-consumption.

Before Covid, I spent many years travelling as a photojournalist to some of the most remote and financially poor communities in the world. I saw first hand the impact the ruthless supply-chain models of many manufacturers had on the people who create our products with their bare hands.

“… In other words, wabi-sabi tells us to stop our preoccupation with success--wealth, status, power, and luxury--and enjoy the unencumbered life… Wabi-sabi is exactly about the delicate balance between the pleasure we get from things and the pleasure we get from freedom of things.”

― Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers