Evergreen Reads to Empower Your Mind
The Standard Sister
Note no.22
Wellness
November 15, 2025
Hello Stranger
We all live inside a continuous stream of events — the routine of daily life, the short or long trips we take, the relationships that begin and end, the quiet swings between joy and disappointment. Most of the time, we remember only the extremes: the highs and lows, the beginnings and the endings. What we often forget is the space in between. The Japanese, as always, found a way to define what others overlook. They call it Ma — the interval, the space between things, the pause that shapes our ability to see. It is not emptiness but a living gap where something new can begin. This article follows the journey into that space. From the aesthetics of Japan to the quiet of a Greek island in winter, it asks what happens when we stop filling every moment — and allow the empty ones to speak.
Hydra, Panagiotis TETSIS
Learning the Art of Ma in Hydra
Article by The Standard Sister
In Japanese culture there is a concept with no precise English translation, yet once you recognize it, its presence becomes unmistakable: Ma (間) - the interval, the space between things. Unlike the Western idea of “empty,” Ma is not an absence. It is potential - a space of possibility, where something not yet formed can begin to take shape. In Japanese music, Ma is the silence that gives the notes their weight.
In architecture, it is what allows a room to breathe. Across Japanese aesthetics, meaning is created not only by what exists, but by what exists between. Ma appears clearly in three foundational architectural elements: Engawa - a threshold between indoors and outdoors, a zone of perception and pause. Tokonoma — a nearly empty alcove where one object gains significance precisely because of the surrounding space. Zen gardens (karesansui) - where deliberate emptiness, raked gravel, and open ground create a meditative depth. When a person enters a space of Ma - a space of quiet - something inside us instinctively recoils. The body trained by urban life expects fullness: movement, notifications, screens, tasks, noise. When true silence arrives, it feels at first like lack. But this is a misunderstanding. Silence does not take anything from us - it returns us to ourselves. The first sensations are discomfort, restlessness, even fear. But if we remain inside the quiet long enough, something subtle begins to shift. What felt like “nothing” becomes a texture. A presence. A beginning. This is the essence of Ma: emptiness not as an ending, but
Andreas Feininger
as the opening of formation - a spaciousness where new clarity emerges. Once you begin to understand Ma, you start noticing where it appears in the world - not only in temples or minimalism, but in landscapes, seasons, and places that breathe quietly when the world looks away. And islands in winter are among the clearest examples. I’m writing these words from a small café on the island of Hydra, in Greece. I’ve been here several times, always in summer, when the port is crowded with yachts, the alleys are full, the restaurants overflow, and human noise rises above the sound of the water. Hydra in summer is alive, cinematic, overflowing. But winter turns the island into something else entirely. Even though the light today is bright and warm, the island is nearly empty. There are more cats than people. Most restaurants and shops are closed. Only a few locals sit quietly in the cafés, and the quiet becomes the dominant force in the island’s story. Within that quiet, a different Hydra reveals itself - the island’s real rhythm: slow, honey-like, patient, untouched by outsiders. A familiar rhythm for residents but only becomes visible to an outsider in the space of
Ma. At first this quiet feels almost impossible, too large, too empty. But slowly, gently, it becomes something you want to keep and when more visitors arrived over the weekend, I suddenly found myself worried they would steal the peace I had earned. When you let go of what you know and allow the emptiness to settle, it reveals the bravest parts of yourself - the parts capable simply of being. Anyone willing to stay inside that interval discovers that emptiness is not threatening; it is generative. Not a moment of lack, but one of inner expansion - an opening to parts of yourself that cannot appear in the city, when everything is full. Hydra in winter teaches what Ma has expressed for centuries: Emptiness is not the space between life -it is the place where life reveals a different meaning.