“One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist. Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.”
—Stephen Hawking
It must be said at the outset of this tale, that I heard it first from my Zenist brother, Mich Rogers, who once owned a gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico where this story takes place. I used to live in New Mexico too, right after I left the Zendo in Los Angeles to reinvent myself in the high desert, although it was not concurrent with the events in this story. I loved living out there though, because New Mexico is a timeless place where ancient indigenous cultures, Spanish architecture, and the stories of the Wild West still come alive—a gunfighter lurks in the alley, a Spanish girl dances in the moonlight, and a medicine man warns of an impending calamity. I have witnessed all three of these things in New Mexico at the start of the 21st century, although it may as well have been a hundred years ago. This particular story doesn’t contain any of those aspects (except for the medicine man), however it does contain some very sage truths that I’ve encountered in my own life, and I’ll wager you have too.
Mich Roger’s Santa Fe gallery showcased textiles and weavings made by indigenous people from around the world, and weavings are something I have always been interested in, because creating a textile or a basket represents the very fabric of the weaver’s soul, a concept found all over the world. Mich’s gallery specialized in all sorts of these beautiful things and one day, well into his tenure as a merchant of woven souls, he received a box of Navajo rugs. The Navajo were the first indigenous people to settle in that part of the Southwest many thousands of years ago, and they are most famous for their rugs, pottery, and exquisite turquoise jewelry. Each of the rugs they sent Mich was perfect, with the exception of a single, errant line that bisected the weavings. In a fury that was half anger and half disbelief, Mich put the entire box of rugs in the back of his truck and drove due west, out to the Navajo reservation on the New Mexico/Arizona border. He wanted to know why they would they send all of these flawed rugs when they knew it was for a high-end gallery that was known for perfect textiles.
Their response was enlightening to say the least, and is perhaps the greatest single piece of wisdom I have ever heard, because, as you will soon see, it applies to everything.
You see, the Navajo make their weavings with a deliberately flawed line in their patterns. This flawed line, called the spirit line, is put there to allow the spirit of the weaving to escape. The Navajo believe that if the weaving is done absolutely perfectly (which of course they are quite capable of doing), then the spirit of the weaving could not escape, which would cause a kind of imbalance or unrest in the household or business in which the weaving is placed. The spirit line releases the energy of that imbalance.
What I find absolutely amazing about this indigenous philosophy, is that it applies to so many other things in our everyday lives. For example, let’s look at the art of making music, something I am pretty well-versed in.
As a musician and producer, I have knowingly applied the spirit line philosophy directly to artists I have worked with in the studio. For example, when you record a stunning basic track for a band, full of fire and soul, it is usually the case that the best performance will have a few small mistakes. This is what naturally happens when a group of people are playing with 100% of their collective power. A large glaring hiccup must of course be repaired, but let’s not make the assumption that the subtle irregularities in the human touch are mistakes. They’re not—it’s just the sound of human beings making real music, together. If you try to fix all of those nuances, you’ll end up spending countless hours trying to change something that is only going to sound worse with each attempt at perfection. This is because perfection doesn’t exist in nature and it most certainly does not exist in human-made music. The swing of a drummer, the fretted growl of the bass, the harmonic howl of the electric guitar, and the beautiful break in a singer’s voice is exactly what you want to hear in the studio. Some might call those things mistakes, but I would call them expressions of the human soul.
I once heard from a reliable producer that David Bowie would often seize upon a mistake in the basic track of a song, like an extra bar of music that wasn’t supposed to be there, and he’d use that mistake to create a new part for the song, something that happened only once, and never again. Those kinds of “mistakes” are exactly the things that make a song unique and extremely cool after repeated listens. It makes the listener go deeper into the music and think, “Hey, that’s a really interesting part, how did they think that up?” Probably by accident, I can tell you from personal experience.
With visual art, such as painting and sculpture, it is nearly impossible to make a perfect piece of art. Artists who try for that kind of perfection often quit out of frustration and never make it to the professional level because their own attempt at perfectionism prevents them from finishing anything. This is also why Leonardo da Vinci famously wrote, “A painting is never finished, only abandoned.” The same is true with an album for that matter. With art and music, you eventually have to stop and give it up to the world and let people see and hear your creation. I’ve heard many musicians and bands say essentially the same thing when they finally finish their album, “It may not be perfect, but it’s the best thing I could do this year, or at this point in my life.” That is the artist’s path—to finish and complete, and then move on to the next challenge.
Certain art forms, particularly Zen painting and Zen ceramics, are famous for their austerity and simplicity, yet they are often made with imperfect, asymmetrical designs. If you look at some of the most famous Enso (circle) paintings done by the old Zen masters, you’ll see that there is no such thing as a perfect circle. They are usually lopsided, or even deliberately sabotaged with a comical brush stroke. The pottery is imperfect as well; it may be asymmetrical in its shape, yet it is still beautiful to behold.
This is exactly what makes a great piece of artwork so sublime—it is never perfect, yet it is beautiful because of the imperfect soul of the artist who made it. That is the essential nature in all of the music and art we love—its imperfect humanness.
Let’s look at our faces, because when you look at a supposedly perfect face by a famous model or actor, some interesting things are revealed. When their face is bisected and duplicated in a photo so that their face is perfectly symmetrical, the face suddenly becomes inhuman and almost alien in appearance. This is because faces are not designed to be perfectly symmetrical, they are designed to be unique unto that person, and our supposed flaws are what make us truly beautiful. The left side of my face slants down a little and it has ever since I was a kid. I used to be self conscious about it but I kind of like it now because that’s my unique face.
How about cooking? When we cook a meal, we can be pretty exacting in how we prepare it, but there is always going to be an imperfection somewhere—it’s food after all. Yet as the great Zen master Ehei Dogen wrote in his famous 13th century essay “Tenzo Kyokun” (Instructions For The Cook) and I paraphrase, “Using the most simple greens, build a temple.” That’s right, the human mind in a state of mindful prayer can make something simple and imperfect into a temple. This is exactly what my Mexican mother-in-law does when she prays and occasionally sings as she is cooking, and that’s why her cooking is so good—she puts her soul into it. Ask any great cook, perhaps your own mother or father, and they will tell you the same thing—when they are making a meal for their loved ones, their mind is totally in the cooking. That’s why a home cooked meal is always better than anything you’ll ever find in even the most expensive restaurants. Real food is made with real soul, so it’s never going to be perfect, but it’s always going to have that powerful spiritual energy.
Here’s one last thought on our magically imperfect spirit line before we get to the conclusion—our relationships. I think about my greatest friendships over the decades, my marriage, and the musical relationships in all the bands I have worked with. I have made many mistakes in my life and none of my relationships were ever perfect, but I kept my mind in the game, and I never gave up on people. When I make a mistake I acknowledge it, and if necessary I apologize. Because of this, my friendships—both personal and professional are strong. I can see all the imperfections in myself, in my friends, and even, dare I say it, my wife, but I love them all so much because of their flaws, their humanness, and their imperfections. Each of us has a spirit line running right through the center of our soul, it is there as indelibly as the craters on the moon, the crooked tree growing in our backyard, and the scars on our body. We’re all imperfect, and that’s exactly why we are, each of us, sacred.
The best part of the story is the ending, so here it is.
After his meeting with the Navajo, Mich took the rugs back to his gallery, sold every single one of them, and became a renowned dealer of Navajo weavings in the Southwest. He even went so far as to have the Navajo come and weave inside his gallery, so people could see their exquisite work in real time. Mich was able to make the weavers a good deal of money, it greatly improved the quality of their lives, and it led to him being initiated into one of their clans.
Then one day a Navajo medicine man called him and said that he needed to call the President of the United States, which at the time was Bill Clinton. The man went on to say that the US flag needed a spirit line in it, to allow the restless soul of the country to be free, otherwise there could be conflict if the flag was absolutely perfect, which no nation ever is.
Mich never made the phone call to Bill, but the idea did linger with him for some time. I think it was because he knew, as the Navajo knew, that the United States is beautiful because of our flaws and imperfections, and our efforts to correct them. Everything from our evolving human rights record, systemic racism, gender inequality, and social and economic injustices—all of these mistakes and our attempts to correct them is what makes this country beautiful. We still have many stains from the genocide of indigenous people, slavery, and a propensity for violence and intolerance towards marginalized people, when we should be compassionate, generous, and wise. I think we’ll eventually learn from these mistakes, just as we have in the past, and maybe, over the course of time, we’ll be able to look back in the light of history and see that the spirit line of the United States was absolutely necessary for our evolution.
Maybe when it does come time to design a new national flag, we will include the indigenous nations along with the states, as well any new ones we adopt. And when we make this new flag, let’s make sure to put a Navajo spirit line right down the middle of it, so that the restless soul of the nation can always be free.