Squiggle & Heart #14
This week’s Squiggle & Heart is based on a teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh, as described by Zen teacher Joan Halifax at a teaching I attended last year. As Joan told it, Thich Nhat Hanh, addressing a group of students, took out a single sheet of paper and asked what the students saw. When asked the question in return, he answered that he saw the wind, the rain, the seed, the cosmos, the humans who had contributed to the production of the paper, their families, their ancestors, and so forth, extrapolating the interdependence of all things.
I like that there is no tension between Squiggle and Heart in this one. Though Heart asks the question, we need our productive mind to go through the thought experiment of the web we share with all creation.
I also like that they got jaunty little legs in this one for the first time. We’ll see where the legs take them.
Lastly, I like that it ends silently. I went through a few options of what panel 6 might be, things like “what a great book” or “yeah that’s what I saw, too.” But ultimately, wordlessness made the most sense to me in this context.
May you never look at a book the same again.