In this last session of the year, we talked about the meanings of Daichi 大地, great earth or vast earth, and the various styles that could be used for both these characters. We especially looked at the possible styles for Dai – 大, a kanji… Read More »Exploring the calligraphy of the great earth at Heart Brush
The old tensho character for mu – nothing – is actually a pictogram, either of a person dancing, or holding ceremonial pieces of wood, so it is really interesting to work on. The more complicated tensho has a strong balance and the kaisho style of… Read More »Mushin and Unsui calligraphy at Heart Brush
It was a peaceful journey to Lenzie along the quiet paths and roads. When we arrived we found inspiring examples by Margaret of ink markmaking using a branch or twig from each of the varied types of trees in the grounds. Birch, Plum, Alder, Rowan,… Read More »Being with the season changing – Autumn into Winter
We started the day at Lenzie with a chat about the shared cultural connections around the five elements, particularly through the Himalayan area, from India, Tibet to China and Japan. We looked at the variety of meanings as well as the different approaches of the… Read More »Meditation and calm at Brushing Fire
On a hot Monday evening we enjoyed some Shodo calligraphy in the refreshingly cool Kagyu Samye Dzong building. We wrote or painted (in Japanese the verb kaku means both to write, draw, paint) the word Kongo 金剛 which means literally metal/ gold and brave/ sturdy.… Read More »Painting brave diamonds at Zen Heart Brush
Having fun with the shodo calligraphy characters we will work with on Monday! Kin metal, gold, one of the Chinese 5 elements, kongo diamond, as well as tamashii, spirit. The meanings and variety of visuals in each of these is fascinating ?
We had fun with trying out both the curved older Tensho style as well as the more stylized Kaisho style at the last session. First we worked with with Ki 木 – tree, experimenting with the branch like strokes, and then Yume – dream/ illusion,… Read More »Shodo calligraphy – in the middle of a dream
At Zen Brush Heart we worked from some inspiring characters related to life and the elements, such as tsuchi 土 – earth /soil, mei 命 – core, destiny, life, and jinzu 神通 – spiritual/ soul power. To get a fuller understanding and feel about these… Read More »Life force and lightning Shodo calligraphy
In the Garden room at KSD a small group of us began Shakyo – copying sutras – by chatting about the history and styles and looking at some examples of the characters such as mu – dream and ku – space. Then we slowly and… Read More »Relaxing and meditative tracing of the Heart Sutra
Some fluid markmaking with the Japanese fude brushes and sumi ink was a nice relaxed way to start the group, before working with the characters 春 Haru – Spring – and 光明 Koumyou – Brightness. We had fun trying out the expressive shapes of the… Read More »Exploring the characters for Brightness – Koumyou – at Zen Brush Heart
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