The Calligrapher — Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之

The 'Sage of Calligraphy'; his running script has set the standard for 1,700 years.

Eastern Jin calligrapher (303–361), master of running script/cursive script/regular script — the Sage of Calligraphy; his Orchid Pavilion Preface is the most celebrated work in the tradition, and nearly every later master traces lineage to his hand. Eastern Jin dynasty

Cultural Story

亭 was the roadside post where travelers rested and the magistrate's sub-station where minor suits were heard, a roof on pillars, open to the breeze. The 說文 reads it as to stop, to lodge. 蘭亭 is where Wang Xizhi wrote his famous preface by the water. 亭亭 is the girl standing straight as a pillar. The character is the pause built into the landscape.

Energy Reading

Earth (土)

Comparative symbology, not fortune-telling.

Common words & phrases

• 亭子 pavilion · kiosk · pavilion building
• 凉亭 pavilion · summerhouse · gazebo
• 亭台 pavilions and terraces · pavilions · pavilions and terraces
• 亭亭 upright · graceful (of a girl) · slim and elegant
• 报亭 newsstand · kiosk · news kiosk
• 邮亭 postal kiosk · mail kiosk · post pavilion

Read the story behind the character

亭子 and 凉亭 are the park shelter and the garden photo; 亭台 the classical vignette on a postcard. 亭亭 is the compliment for a slim bride. 报亭 is the vanishing newsstand; 邮亭 the postal kiosk now rarely staffed. The character names any small roof on legs, the pavilion, the booth, the stand. It is the architecture of the pause, the place to stop, sheltered, before the road continues.

Why this character belongs on skin

Halfway up the mountain there is a place to stop, a roof with no walls, open to the rain and the view alike. This is the pavilion where the traveller sets down his load, and the poem is finished in the resting. The Daoist builds nothing to enclose—only a frame for the wind, a bench for the sunset you did not know you needed. To pause is its own discipline; we rush past the very things meant to save us. A pavilion on the skin is a promise to stop, to let the day arrive without hurrying it onward. It is the tattoo of one who has learned the holiness of the interval—between tasks, between lovers, between the breath going out and the breath coming in. Let it mark you as a shelter others can find, a person who stands still long enough to be a rest for someone tired. Wear it where the shoulder meets the neck, the place a weary head might lean.