It’s that time of the year again…

The year is stumbling across the finishing line, which is always a great time to reflect on how things are going, and planning for the year ahead. How was your year 2018?

It has been a quite violent year again: terrible suffering, a lot of people have been dying violent deaths, and it’s still getting worse in some parts of the world. Seeing images of people dying of hunger in Yemen, and our planet being destroyed by pollution: why am I not doing anything? Why is my government not doing anything? My government is doing worse then “not doing anything”: we actually don’t have any government anymore. They’re in permanent election campaign…. There doesn’t seem to be anybody in that government willing to make courageous decisions… How absurd and ridiculous can it get?  A lot of misery on this planet for a lot of people…

But on the good side of this year there’s also a lot to say: a lot of generous people are really making a difference in this world and bringing beauty, with warm attention, friendship, a lot of love given for free, giving a bed and breakfast to refugees for free, fighting against injustice and pollution … different forms of lots of love change the pessimist world view I was writing about above. I say to myself I have the luxury of having been born in one of the richest countries on earth in a fine family with lots of love, so I have the “duty” to reach out to help others, to make also a difference in this world. Everybody can do something to make this a better world on our own level of possibilities. 

Instead of buying presents, just be present, give your time, put away your phone, give your real attention, give love all around you, for in the end all that counts is the love we’ve given.  

So I wanted to thank you so much for giving me your time by reading my blogposts, sending me your precious comments (I LOVE to read your comments en your e-mails and that you share your experience and your thoughts with me because I learn soooo much from them!). Thank you for subscribing to my mailing and letting me into your inbox!

Like Maya Angelou said (see video below): “Be a rainbow in someone else’s clouds” !

This past year I decided to embrace my fears and uncertainty, as they give meaning to life according to psychiatrist Damiaan Denys, and I stepped way out of my comfort zone to give 4 urban sketching workshops. During the first one I felt really uncomfortable, but the three ones afterwards I even started to enjoy it and have fun 😀

These holidays I spend a lot of my time painting and drawing.  The monkey in my head (my rational left side brain) is saying again every day I should make more useful use of my days! But why does making art not seem important ? I just read this great book by Leonard Koren who writes that art is REALLY important :

Art is part of that nebulous, unquantifiable dimension of reality we sometimes call “the poetic”. [….] other forms of non-rational understanding also fall into this category. The poetic transcends the practical imperatives of life – and yet it’s a building-block of the identities we assign to ourselves. The poetic is also (importantly) a well-spring of joy, hope, pleasure and wonder… It’s a source of consolation when our fellow human beings let us down, and when we feel that the universe really doesn’t care…

If we drop beauty, what have we got? [John Cage]

And by the way, drawing is the best way I’ve found to get along with myself…. 😉

So I grab my sketchbook and I wish you and your loved ones a great end of the year and a very happy new year

Barbara