We enjoyed a tranquil shodō class at the beginning of September brushing the first part of the zen phrase anjinryūmyō 安心（立命）あんじん（りゅうみよう）, meaning Peace and Enlightenment. It was a pleasant atmosphere and our hearts and minds felt at ease after brushing, in harmony with this month’s kanji characters.
Blair introduced the visual origins and meanings of these common characters in the ancient shell and (oracle) bone style, then gave some demonstrations of the brushwork, before we started brushing them in both the 楷書 kaisho standard script and the 草書 sōsho fully cursive style, working from Blair’s otehon example worksheets.
Everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy the calming flow and energy of the characters in the cursive style, and most participants had time to brush their own rakkan 落款 signature (with their names in Japanese katakana), which Blair gave to each participant to write on their calligraphy. One of our delightful regular participants had even framed theirs with their tenugui!
After the class, Blair shared a video he had made previously of the brushwork of both styles of 安, and also shared a short poem by Ryokan, one of Japan’s much loved poets and also a zen calligrapher of the Edo period –
at an age-old temple
in the interior of Takano
in Ki prefecture
I spend the evening listening
to raindrops through cedars
Thanks for joining and catch up with you again next time for more relaxing shodō calligraphy at Woodside Library.
You must be logged in to post a comment.