to our readers,

It’s a lopsided grin, a preference for red over purple, an affection for flashing lights. It’s a special set of rules, a different definition of beauty, an atypical view of normality.

It’s wabi sabi. At wabi sabi magazine, we embrace and promote the Buddhist worldview of the beauty in imperfection. We have embodied this principle and have made it our mission to celebrate the differences of individuals with special needs, altogether uniting their families.So many of us have a loved one with a special need — linguistic, physical, emotional or psychological. Unfortunately, many of our friends and family have been branded with the Scarlet Letter of disability. They are labeled, defined and ostracized because they are different. But who’s to say difference indicates inferiority? What defines normal?

We reject society’s mundane definition of normal at wabi wabi magazine and instead seek the beauty in difference. In our opinion, normal is generic. We acknowledge that individuals with a special need do not lead a normal, cookie-cutter lifestyle. As a sister of someone with a special need, I saw firsthand the struggles my brother, John, faced in defying normal.

In society’s attempt to cure John of his differences — rid him of his special need, if you will — it passed over the fact that John’s quirky, beautiful, eclectic differences are what made him who he is.
John is brilliant, passionate, helpful and musical, yet the world defined him only by his disability, sensory integration disorder. Is John normal by definition? Absolutely not. His normal, like the normal of others with special needs, is outside of society’s expectations — but it is fitting and wonderful. It is imperfectly perfect.

wabi sabi magazine represents this innovative worldview of redefined perfection. Each month, we will tell stories of difference, providing you with a network of support and an outlet of shared experience. We exist so you can dare to love the differences of those with special needs.

Dare to celebrate these differences.

Dare to embrace the perfection in imperfection.

Dare to love your wabi sabi.

Sincerely,

 
Kaelyn Malkoski
Editor