Wabi-Sabi and The Circle of Life

I woke up one morning with a strong urge to listen to “The Circle of Life,” the iconic song from The Lion King. One video led to another, and over the next hour or so, I watched at least a dozen different performances and arrangements of the song.

I'm not ashamed to admit that a few brought tears to my eyes.

Perhaps that's because there is something about The Lion King that feels remarkably true to life. Beneath the music, color, humor, and spectacle is a story about what happens when life doesn't unfold the way we imagined it would.

Simba begins his journey surrounded by love and belonging, with a future that seems certain. Then everything changes.

He experiences devastating loss, guilt, and exile. Believing that his mistakes and imperfections have made him unworthy of returning home, he leaves behind not only the Pride Lands, but the life he thought he was going to live.

And for a long time, he stays away.

Eventually, Simba begins to understand that what happened to him—and the choices he made afterward—are part of his story, but they don't have to determine the rest of it. He returns home, not as the young lion he once was and not as a flawless hero, but as someone changed by what he has lived through.

He carries his past with him.

But he is no longer hiding from it.

Between the triumphant opening and the final scenes celebrating life in all its majesty lies a much darker season—one that changes the course of Simba’s life entirely. That season isn't an interruption in the story we have to hurry through to get back to the good part.

It's part of the circle too.

Perhaps that's one reason this story has remained meaningful to so many people for so long. Most of us eventually discover that life doesn't move neatly from beginning to destination. There are seasons of growth and seasons of loss. Times when we know exactly where we belong and others when we aren't quite sure who we are anymore.

There are endings we didn't choose, beginnings we couldn't have anticipated, and stretches in between when we simply can't see what comes next.

None of them exists outside the life we're living.

One Song, Many Voices

As I continued watching different versions of “The Circle of Life” that morning, something else struck me.

This one song has traveled remarkably far from its original home.

It has been interpreted and performed around the world in different languages, countries, and musical styles. Each version sounds a little different. The voices change. The arrangements change. The cultural expressions surrounding it change.

And somehow, the heart of it survives.

Perhaps it even grows richer because so many different people have found themselves in it.

Then I discovered the flash mobs.

Casts from productions of The Lion King have surprised unsuspecting people on subways, airplanes, in airports, and even at the Australian Open. One of my favorites took place at the Hertfordshire Zoo in the UK.

https://youtu.be/HaIkVdcA5-w?si=uCKjlxx9hr9WEu2M

I love the unexpectedness of it.

People are simply going about an ordinary day when suddenly music erupts around them. Strangers stop. Heads turn. Phones come out. People smile. Some begin to move with the music. For a few minutes, individuals who arrived separately find themselves participating in something together.

It isn't happening on a stage behind a curtain.

It happens right in the middle of life.

And maybe that's what I was responding to all along.

Wabi-Sabi in the Middle of Life

When I first began learning about wabi-sabi, I approached it as a philosophy I needed to understand. I read about imperfection, impermanence, simplicity, and the natural cycles of growth and decay. I tried to figure out how those ideas applied to the way I wanted to live.

But the longer I live with wabi-sabi, the more often I recognize it when I'm not looking for it at all.

I see it in Simba returning home changed by everything that happened while he was away.

I see it in a story that doesn't skip over the dark season between a joyful beginning and a hopeful return.

I see it in one piece of music being interpreted differently by people around the world without losing what made it meaningful in the first place.

And I see it when something beautiful and completely unexpected interrupts an ordinary day and, for a few minutes, brings strangers together.

I woke up that morning wanting to listen to a song.

I wasn't looking for wabi-sabi.

But there it was.