“A friend is what the heart needs all the time.”
-Henry Van Dyke
by Beth Haley
Masu boxes were originally square wooden boxes used for measuring out rice during a time when powerful families, military warlords and samurai ruled Japan, called the feudal period of Japanese history.
Today, I made a masu box, with a lid, out of origami paper.
It’s a great size for small treasures or small desk items like paperclips, and for an uncovered box, if you double the paper with both plain sides facing inward, the bottom of your box will have a nice design also.
Otherwise the inside looks like this:
Which is fine if it’s going to be covered by a lid anyways!
Directions for making an origami masu box: Origami.me
by Beth Haley
From this blank square of paper, the zen question, “Who am I?” becomes, “What am I?”
The end result is, not necessarily, as important as the process of creating. If we are mindful throughout this creative endeavor, we may each see something different.
“All things are given life and form.”
Religion in Chinese Garments by
The square is the uncarved block (Pu is a Chinese word meaning “unworked wood”). The Taoist meaning of Pu is: perception without prejudice and without the distinctions of right or wrong, beautiful or ugly, good or bad, black or white.
Fold after fold. Crease and un-crease; a new creation is coming into being. Just like we can take the old lines and creases of our life and transform them into something new.
The paper has memory; it remembers its past lines. They are like scars on the soul. They may heal, but once there, those lines remain.
We can unfold (turn back time), and remember our past. Then, make new creases and story lines to form a new shape, outlook, new picture, or a new present and future.
Haley 2019
Pilgrimage Studio 