Cogitating over Kanji

Came across some interesting etymology about the radical “示” (113), which is simplified to “礻” when used as part of a compound (as in 神).  Apparently, it originally came from the image of an altar in ancient Chinese oracular bone inscriptions.

I've always loved delving into the history of words, but mainly in English or the Indo-European family.  With Japanese, obviously I'm way out of my element, but since it's pictorial in nature, it's pretty interesting to check out even for illiterates like me.  I must have gotten bored in some writing practice/doodling and ended up combining it with the early oracle character form (with some drops of blood added for effect).  Picasa offered some cool effects, so I thought I'd share.  T-shirt designs perhaps?

And then after a bit more doodling, I present to you my masterpiece... ta-da!

Next time I'll have to play around with 義, like Hudson Taylor is using there.

References:

http://sokasoka.blogspot.com/2008/02/approach-altar-to-pray.html

Richard Sears' Chinese etymology site

http://silkstory.net/hanzi_xiangxing/xiang070.html

My regards to Caspar David Friedrich.