In May’s Zen Heart Brush, our Japanese calligraphy group, we wrote “世界” – sekai – world in Japanese. The character se “世” – world/ generation/ society – has nice horizontal and vertical line combinations while kai “界” – world/ boundary/ limits – has an expansive… Read More »世界 – Sekai world of Shodo Japanese calligraphy
The last of our series of free events related to Japanese calligraphy and meditative practice was Shakyo copying – tracing a sutra.We started with a talk where Blair discussed the history of Shakyo (and of course including the famous story of Genjo / Xuanzang c… Read More »Deeply, slowly and softly – Shakyo tracing at KSD
At Kagyu Samye Dzong Tibetan building we had a large turnout for this free Shodo calligraphy group (apologies to those we couldn’t accommodate) and enjoyed a gentle introduction to the way of Sho. Before working on the kanji characters, we talked about the history of… Read More »Meditative calm and connecting to spaciousness and light
In this session generously supported by the GB Sasakawa Foundation, our group of adults with children were able to try out Japanese calligraphy for the first time and find out about some of the history and culture behind the beautiful characters. The participants enjoyed the… Read More »Enso zen circles and old bone language at Maryhill Art Group
At Zen Heart Brush this time we worked with the characters for Shodo – the way of writing. 書 Sho/ kaku can mean to write, to draw or to paint so has a fairly broad range of interpretation. Lots of horizontal strokes in this character!… Read More »The way of sho
We first had some fun loosening up with some markmaking before working on the kanji character 古 ko / furui for old or ancient. Exploring the oldest bone carving style of character was really fun in addition to the tensho and kaisho styles. 鏡 Kyou/… Read More »Kokyou – the eternal mirror
The primary school group on Saturday at North United Communities in Maryhill Hub tried Japanese calligraphy for the first time and had lots of fun! To begin with we did some short meditation together, just grounding and breathing, settling, and then touching the materials which… Read More »Spring experiments and lots of tensho!
Secondary school young people at the Friday night North United Communities group embraced Japanese writing and Shodo calligraphy. The group had some meditative time first to feel the textures and weight of the materials, such as the types of fude brushes, suzuri ink well and… Read More »Clouds and heart-mind at Maryhill Hub
At our first Sasakawa Foundation sponsored event in Ruchill, local children and staff tried out Japanese calligraphy for the first time, using traditional materials such as fude brushes and sumi ink to write some Chinese kanji characters. We explored a natural theme of light and… Read More »Shodo calligraphy at Ruchill Community Centre
In January Blair visited Japan as part of a project kindly funded by the GB Sasakawa Foundation. He had an exciting packed schedule learning about various Shodo calligraphy styles of Japanese calligraphy with Shodo masters in Tokyo, and investigating mindful meditation practices with different teachers… Read More »Winter clarity and creative exploration in Japan
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