Wabi Savvy is a collection of narrative poems focused on aspects of my life journey that were silenced. It was created as a catalyst for healing the open wounds, to release and make peace with the past, and shed like on the darkness of the world.

Melissa Lora is a self-published writer, poet, spiritualist, upcoming life coach, and motivational speaker. She has a growing passion for psychology and holistic healing and strives to use her accumulated knowledge to help elevate the wellness of others in various settings. She has been writing poetry to express her inner would in a creative manner since the age of 13.

Meaning of Book Title and Cover:

Wabi Savvy was inspired by the Japanese term Wabi-Sabi. Wabi-Sabi is an ancient aesthetic philosophy rooted in Zen Buddhism, particularly the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence, impermanence, suffering, and emptiness or absence of self-nature. Wabi-Sabi is a view of finding beauty in every aspect of imperfection in nature.

In the book title, "Wabi Savvy", "Savvy" is considered a homophone of the word "Sabi". Also, the term "savvy" represents the nature I adopted due to my life experiences.

The picture frame represents the act of practicing Wabi-Sabi, placing the broken frame together using gold filling as a way to brace imperfection. On the left side of the framed picture, the young girl is a representation of myself living in the Dominican Republic. The weather and body language are both a representation of gloom. On the right side of the picture, the woman represents the adult version of myself surrounded by the beauty of nature while basking in sunny weather. This setting is a representation of happiness and fulfillment. The rose being handed to my younger self represents the beauty that exists in both realities. The picture is being held together by gold as another practice of Wabi-Sabi to indicate that the past and present can coexist in harmony. The scars placed on my arms which are also filled with gold are another representation of embracing and accepting my physical imperfections.