“人生” - Life
Identity is a key connection as a human being. Recently I started to practice Chinese calligraphy again. With every stroke and character bringing out a lot of memories. It has become a way to connect with things that I may have lost after I moved to 🇨🇦. I reflected upon the meaning of each Chinese character as I write and meditated. It is not the beauty of character construction itself, but the wise meanings behind each character.
For these two words: 人- human; 生- be born, fresh, lively. When they are combined together they become “life”. They are only 7 strokes in total, and they look fragile. Unlike some other characters which take up a lot of space and many strokes, like the character itself (such as 龍，Dragon🐉).
I am amazed by the wisdom that the ancient Chinese possessed in transforming our everyday life objects into the forms and meanings in the Chinese character system. I wish to dive into the dictionary to re-discover the meaning of each Chinese character.
As an art therapist, we support each life/client delicately and gently because every person is precious and sacred.
Art-making is not only a self-care activity for me but also a reflection of life journeying together with my clients and myself.
身分認同對一個人來說很重要。自從來了加拿大，我覺得我漸漸失去了華人身分，也還無法適應加拿大身分，是一種兩頭都著不到岸的感覺。
最近開始用中文書寫重新反思我加拿大華人的雙重身分。這不是像以前那樣練習書法的寫法或要求自己如何寫得好看。而是從他們每一筆、每一個頓點去思考他們自身的意思。
例如“人生” 這個詞，只有7個筆畫，看上去很纖細和脆弱，沒有任何東西去保護這兩個字。不像有一些字來說，例如“龍”字，筆畫多和佔的空間就很大，就像它意思本身。“人生”這個詞雖然看上去纖弱，我們人類一直都想盡辦法要追求、探討、深究它的奧妙。其實人的生命本來就很脆弱，我們都被要求一直要往前走，卻在當中很容易被不同的東西所牽絆。
“生” 的甲骨文就是在土壤裡已經發芽出土的苗，要經過多少的醞釀和阻礙，那個苗才能從漆黑一片的土壤裡冒出頭來？作為藝術治療師來說，每每看到不同個案在為了他們的人生努力地去成長和往前走的時候，我很感恩我能陪他們走這段旅程。這絕對不會是平穩筆直、風雨無阻的路，而是在最幽深的峽谷或最黑暗的深淵裡，他們慢慢地學會如何保護自己的人生，從而探討最核心的東西- “我是誰”。
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