After discovering last year, the Ecstatic dance as a way to “meditate” for me, I discovered that calligraphy could have the same effects. I cannot really stand still. As an introvert I am already a lot within and I find yoga, meditation, though great tools do not help me as much. I need movement.
Today I discovered Japanese Calligraphy for the first time, a welcome gift in my new city from a dear friend from afar. A sweet surprise. A way to explore the new city too.
It is much harder than one can think. It is like starting to learn to write again, change your perspectives, your angles of view – like life, like life in new cultural contexts!
As soon as I started to see it as a dance, as a movement it became so much clearer to me. The arm moving, dancing to draw the letter. Towards the end I have also been able to see one of the same mistakes I had been doing during the whole session, but the teacher said that for today we sit with my imperfection as to her it looked good for a first-time word written in Japanese calligraphy.
My chosen word for today’s session was WIND.
You choose, either you sing she is like the wind (! ) or recall Seneca and some of his quotes around wind or this one from Jimmy Dean “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination”.
Hélène Raison 