maiji: hydrangea

[image set: 1) Photo of notebook next to two glass dip pens, one of which is just a tip. The page shows a handwritten haiku surrounded by ink splotches in varying shades of vivid blue resembling an explosion of flower petals. Some of the edges of the ink splotches are tinged with crimson, and bits of the lettering overlapping the splotches gleam with gold. 2) Eight swatches laid out in diagonal 4x2 rows next to a mini flashcard set being used as an ink colour swatchbook. 3) An open note book next to a ceramic waterpot with ink lines of the poem and leaf-like outlines. There is an extra "flower" written in the poem. 4) The same open notebook, only this time splashed with deep blue inks, including a patch that obscures the extra word "flower", which was a handwritten typo. A waterbrush lies across the page.]one hydrangea bloomten thousand flower clustermy skandha body- Poetry and art by Maiji/Mary Huang, humangray.comBack when I made this, I'd started doing something a little different with my process, which I'm still doing right now. It didn't happen intentionally; it just worked out that way due to my playing so much Star Ocean The Second Story R in my spare time, haha. Instead of writing throughout the month, I look at the kigo when it first comes out, jot down some thoughts, and then largely leave it and let it percolate. I come back close to the end of the month and then start writing again and finish it up. It’s been interesting to see how my thought process and inspiration transitions through the conscious pause!With "hydrangea", I started writing some things related to the idea of a water vessel, inspired by the flower's name. My thoughts at the end of the month turned to its appearance, and the idea of pieces and parts of a whole. This haiku reflects on the Buddhist concept of skandha. Below the cut, some thoughts on flowers, fruit, our understanding of death/perception of our bodies, Star Ocean 2, organizations, water. It’s a bit of a meandering reflection, just kind of wandering around, considering things as they arise. [READ-MORE]When I look at a hydrangea, I see a flower. I usually think of it as one flower. But when I look closely, especially if I’m trying to draw it, I quickly realize I’m actually looking at a spherical cluster of a whole bunch of flowerheads packed into the appearance—one might say the illusion—of a single flower. I remember learning a long time ago that some berries, like strawberries and raspberries, are not actually berries. They’re what we call an “aggregate fruit”: basically a bunch of tiny fruits packed together and look like one fruit. Harder to see on a strawberry, easier to see on a raspberry or a blackberry, with all the wee segments connecting together.Is anything we can see around us a single, indivisible, fundamental thing? All living organisms are aggregates too. Made up of billions of cells, every single cell alive in and of itself. And we’re constantly dying. Certainly our cells die when we get injured and bleed, or when we get sick and hack out all kinds of bodily fluids. But even when we do nothing at all, when we just sit there with our hair and nails and skin skills coming off of us, we’re dying.When I made this piece, I'd been reading Why We Die by Venki Ramakrishnan. It offers a multifaceted look at our present understanding of dying, where these ideas evolved, where science and technology is currently taking us, and important things to consider as we progress on this journey. It reminded me that what we commonly think of as death is really the loss of the ability to operate as a coherent, cohesive entity. Beyond a scientific, medical, clinical death—the death of a heartbeat, the death of detectable brain functioning, and so on— individual cells of our body can continue living, though we would likely not think of that as “us”.The Sanskrit term “skandha” is often translated as aggregate. Basically, a bunch of things gathered together. In application, it usually refers to the concept that we are composed of other things. The classic Buddhist list of five skandhas is form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness (with varying translations). There is no one single thing that is uniquely, indivisibly, us.This applies not just to organic living things. I’m looking at Star Ocean The Second Story (Star Ocean 2), which first existed as a PS1 game, then a PSP remake, and now the Second Story R remake on multiple platforms - Switch, PS4 and 5, PC/Steam. They exist in Japanese as well as other languages, each with adjustments and tweaks due to the nature of translation, society, culture, individual or team preferences. Beyond all this, it also exists as two manga and an anime, and several radioplays/audio dramas. Beyond this, there are also several universes worth of fanfiction, fanart, doujinshi. And before this, it existed as concepts - ideas, sketches, scenarios, plans that continuously evolved over the course of its development, shifting branches of code to a shared codebase, a process which repeated every time it was remade. Not a single one of these things is the product of a single individual. The development team, the voice actors, the translators, the fans, and so much more. But to me, “Star Ocean 2” is a cohesive idea, an experience of a world and a narrative with a cast of characters. I perceive “Star Ocean 2” as the culmination, the aggregation of my awareness and memories and experiences of all of these things produced by so many people across a period of space and time.Organizations are like that too. We think of them, often talk about them, as some kind of singular entity, but they're obviously not. Something I often say is that I’m always blown away that any group of people larger than one or two can work together and achieve things. It's honestly quite astounding. (I talked about this a bit more in tulips.)Understanding this at a deep level is actually a key aspect of enlightenment: the ability to perceive the inherently empty nature of all things. In Buddhism, a frequent image that comes up is the idea of a wave. One wave seems to be its own individual entity, but it's temporary: the wave rises and falls back into the water. Its true nature is the water, the ocean, something far vaster than itself. The wave is just a brief manifestation. As Thich Nhat Hanh summarizes, "Enlightenment is the moment the wave realizes it is the water."I meditate on this periodically. Usually it feels intellectual and distanced. Sometimes it's terrifying. Sometimes it's fine; sometimes it's even calming. Every so often it makes perfect sense. And I suppose in the end I did come back to the idea of a hydrangea as a water vessel - all things a moment container of a much greater ocean. [/READ-MORE]Inks used Taccia Sabimidori Eecks 031 Ink Institute Cat at Dawn PenBBS #179 Serenity I also used gold watercolour on the text.