I love yard sales, car boot sales and estate sales. Flea Markets, jumble sales, auctions, charity shops, thrift stores, you name it. All wonderful places to find useful things such as things for altars, household stuff, fabric, linens, unusual tools….
Once in Berkeley, at a place called Urban Ore, a fellow monk found me an item used in ceremonies which would have cost hundreds of pounds, or millions of yen bought new in Japan. Seeing this gleaming item being held aloft and processed past beaten up old wardrobes and office furniture is a sight indelibly imprinted in my brain.
While looking around for inspiration for a posting tonight I stumbled upon this site called Jalopy Junktown. From now on it is where I will go and have a look around when I want to see neat stuff.
Dear Rev. I had this exact same experience back in the States. Rumaging through so much odds and ends in a country side garage sale. In the mass of old pots and pans and baby clothes and old shoes nothing caught my eye..but then in a little wooden box tucked under some old moldy books, I found the most perfect little Japanese tea whisk. So carefully hand carved from a piece of golden bamboo, with a tiny poem carved on the handle. The man at the sale said there wasn’t much call for those types of “Shaving Brushes”anymore. He was glad to sell it for $1. Here in Japan one so nicely made costs $40 or $50 U.S. So needles to say, you have a fellow rumage sale fan here.