Sometimes, more often than I’m willing to admit, I don’t really know what I’m writing when I practice Shodo. For me it’s art. Art for the sake of art. I fell in love with it so long ago I don’t know exactly when. Words are art in a way that seems different from western calligraphy.
Maybe it’s the mystery.
If I saw them as words, maybe it would be different. I write the words, and sometimes they have meaning. But Shodo is so deeply rooted in ancient Chinese that it is easy, even for my Japanese fellow students, to miss the original meaning.
Chinese is to Japanese as Latin is to English. It’s helpful to learn, you get the roots of the language, but English is a Germanic tongue. Sure, it’ll help you pass an SAT test, or even better, the MCAT. But read the words below and, hey, that’s pretty. What does it mean?
Shinshuku Recchou
Which means, the Northern Star is aligned.
So why am I writing this? Why is this my homework? I guess it was in my stars.
B.S. Donovan 