yong

yong (ei)

Steve Jobs is dead.

Any other news today seems pale in comparison.  He is a person of value, big, enduring.

Yong (ei in Japanese) is the Chinese character for eternal, forever.  The ) jag at the top is a dian, a dot stroke.  The rest of the character is the character for water, swei.  You can see three long strokes, like rivulets, like current in a stream:  swei.   The ancient depiction for swei is very similar, but even more like water's current.  Steve Jobs is one of the few people in my lifetime who is and will be with us, clearly, always, like a dot in the stream/ like the stream itself.

hau jyan kang

hau jyan kang

GOOD HEALTH to you                HEARTINESS

The bottom of the bottom character has brushstrokes of the four directions, heartiness out to all!

Saryu's haiku

"willow tree"  calligraphy

Without a brush

The willow paints the wind.

               -Saryu

We brushed this haiku in class Tuesday.  My calligraphy here is somewhat willow-like, breeze-lifted.  While we were in class, outdoors there was great wind.  We were under a tornado warning!

Saryu's surname and his lifespan's dates are not known, evidently (unless you know them).   This haiku is from a book from The Art Institute of Chicago,  Zen Haiku, selections and translations by Jonathan Clements.

Dream over withered fields

The last poem of the great Japanese poet Basho goes something like this:  (the translation is in Robert Hass's book, "Twentieth Century Pleasures")

Sick on a journey,

my dream hovers

over the withered fields.

Tabi ni yamite yume wa kare-no wo kakeme guru

Or, the translation could go:

as for Dream:  it hovers over the withered fields

We think of the Japanese and their distress and their withered fields, and our hearts go out to them.

In calligraphy Tuesday night, we brushed three characters for "dream hovering."

shou and kotobuki

shou

Shou is Chinese for "long life."  In Japanese, "long life" is kotobuki.  The same written character is used for shou  and for kotobuki.  My calligraphy, above, shows the character for "long life" with bamboo-like strokes and a bit of a lilt at the bottom.  The dot at the bottom is almost double-lobed.  It is OK calligraphy, and so I have added two red seals.  When I did "long life," some family and friends were having health trouble.  I see shou now and I think of them.

Kotobuki, below, is a work of calligraphy done late in his life by Hakuin, one of the most notable Zen Masters of all times.  You may know of him because of the wonderful koan that he came up with:  "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"  You can tell--yes?-- that I looked at Hakuin's kotobuki, that I have, in my simple calligraphy, paid homage to his great calligraphy.  His strokes are both bonelike/strong and round/alive.  He shows much force in this one character.

kotobuki

chang chang ge

chang chang ge

Chang chang ge is Chinese for "sing, sing, song"  or "lots of singing" or "there is song all around."

The calligraphy here does seem to move around:  from square to square, square with a line through it, square under a line, and there is emphasis and syncopation, lightness and heaviness of touch.  The open square is kou, "mouth." You see kou in the top two changs (and twice, smaller, in the lower character ge).  The other part of chang--the two squares each with an inside line--means "sun," "splendor."  So you have in the Chinese word for "sing" the notion of mouth and sun/splendor.

There is much song around, here in early July.  Robin fledglings are fussing, sparrow parents call out warnings, finches and orioles share the news of newly dried seedheads.  The cicadas have started buzzing eveningtime.  How is there one moment or word for "song"?

plum

qing

This is a calligraphy practice from Tuesday night's class. Reading top to bottom, right to left:

qing     lao     i  kuai  r 

green   old      together    =    Young and Old Together

Sandi and I also practiced some plum blossom painting.  The plum is a symbol of hope and endurance, blooming as it does so early--even in the snow--and blooming often on branches that are very old.

Sandi's granddaughter Alexis practiced with us.  Such a young, talented calligrapher in our midst.

plum practice