"Welcoming Blessings #3" by Meekyung Shin

Meekyung Shin's Welcoming Blessings #3 shows a tiger in the midst of leaping fish. In Korean minhwa, the tiger is a familiar figure. It often represents a guardian or a protector watching over a home or whatever it shares its space with. One reading of this piece: the tiger is guarding the fishes' leap.

Why would leaping fish want a guardian? Here's the story…

The Dragon Gate

There's a Chinese legend called the Dragon Gate. In it, carp swim upstream toward a waterfall so fierce that most never clear it. The rare carp that does clear it transforms into a dragon: no longer a fish at all, and no longer bound to the water it came from. It's now something with an entirely different nature.

The legend spread to other parts of East Asia, including Korea. It became shorthand for a specific kind of achievement—a student passing the exams that decided a life's path, or an official rising through the ranks few ever reached. To clear the Dragon Gate was to become someone with a new level of power and purpose.

Leaping toward anything bigger than yourself means real risk—you might not make it. And that's exactly when you'd want someone to have your back.

The fish in Meekyung's woodblock carving aren't necessarily meant to evoke the carp in the Dragon Gate story. But holding the story loosely, as one possible lens, might lead you to your own relationship to the imagery.

The Playful Protector

The look of the artwork doesn't match the gravity of the Dragon Gate story: the fish don't look like they're on the verge of becoming dragons, and the tiger doesn't look like he's watching over anything with real stakes. He looks more like he might have accidentally wandered into the middle of something and decided to stay, a little goofy about the whole thing.

And yet we can still imagine him as that guardian—just a playful one—watching over the fish as they leap toward something greater.

Taking Leaps in Your Life

Leaping towards "dragonhood" isn't only for the person about to take a big exam, start a new job, or make some other huge move.

We can also find this energy in the smaller moments of life. In Meekyung's words, the Welcoming Blessings series is about not sitting still and waiting for your blessings. It's about "stepping forward with a hopeful heart" to welcome what's coming.

Nothing comes with a guarantee. We can step forward to meet our blessings without knowing exactly where we'll land, and we can invoke the energy of protection along the way.

Blessings, Meekyung says, "are not a destiny bestowed upon us. They are a way of living—something we discover for ourselves in everyday life and cultivate with care." Her process of carving into a wood block, layer by layer, becomes what she calls "the beautiful grain of happiness that we, too, must patiently build throughout our lives."

As you build your own grain of happiness in your life, just imagine this whimsical tiger has got your back—reminding you that you don't have to take yourself too seriously in the process.

Bring Welcoming Blessings #3 into your space. This print is available in three formats: framed canvas print, framed paper print, and framed paper print with mat.