Where would your bundle go?

After most christening or wedding parties there is a custom of preparing something for the guests to take home with them. Usually it’s a small bundle of sweets or cakes, sometimes accompanied by a quote or a thankful message, to let the guests know that their presence was welcomed and appreciated. It’s a symbolic way of sharing with them the goods of the feast.

Throughout the last year I have been trying to cultivate a giving heart. I have supported various charities and community events. I was trying to resist buying new items for myself and my son in order to support humanitarian, rather than consumerist, objectives. While I was doing this project I was observing myself and others around me and one observation struck me very hard: being able to give, in many cases, does not really depend on the state of people’s bank account but on their perceived lack of capacity to share. I observed people who refused to support causes because they say they don’t earn enough to be charitable, and then I saw the very same people discarding goods that they had bought the previous week. How is it that we don’t earn enough to give but we earn enough to throw?

There are people in the world for whom what we spend and consume every day would constitute a lavish feast. In every form. The electricity we use. The food we eat. The many pairs of shoes we wear. The books we read. The clothes we have. It is likely that we are feasting in one area or another, or in all those areas.

The Nothing New Project made me realise that I feast in quite a few areas of my life, but for one of them I am particularly grateful: healthcare. Last year I was diagnosed with a life-long illness but because I live in the UK my medicine is for free. Through the Nothing New Project I was able to support many charities, but Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the charity that heals those who would otherwise be left without treatment, was my priority. The charity deals with challenging situations and extraordinary tasks, the Ebola crisis among them. Could you imagine yourself being in Liberia right now? Being a patient or trying to help? Doctors Without Borders are uncommon people whose courage is not of this earth. They deserve our respect, our support and certainly my feast bundle.

Where would your bundle go?

May we grow

I have started this year strong and vibrant, with a head full of ideas and projects to implement. This would probably not happen if it wasn’t for my visit to Poland and the kind heart of my mum who has really helped me to reset my brain and energy levels. She did pretty much all the cooking and that was such a blessing. She gave me time and thus granted a lot of mental space that I happily filled with dreams and ideas for this new year.

I have got a friend in Poland who I love visiting. She’s a very beautiful and a very independent woman who has this fabulous ability to make things happen. Like a magical fairy with some secret golden powder that she scatters around, invisible to ordinary mortals, she creates beautiful things around her. Wherever she goes, wherever she’s present, she carries that charm with her. When you talk to her, it’s just a matter of seconds before you start noticing a change within yourself. You feel that you are surrounded with positive energy that gives you the confidence to do things yourself.

I hope that this new year will give you all this magical powder to work with. May you see growth and beauty in all areas of your life and in all your pursuits. I hope this year we will blossom together.

Happy New Year Friends!

Waiting for change

Sometimes we look for winter and we find autumn. Forced to take a step back. Forced to revisit what has happened before. Disappointed that the past is actually the present. Disappointed that things do not change quickly enough. But the past is never fruitless.The past can still give more…

Receiving Presents: Does It Matter What’s Inside?

Reminder

A father once gave his child a beautifully wrapped box. It was red and gold with a large ribbon. The father said to the child, ‘Before you can open it, let’s imagine what might be inside’.

To start with the box contained only simple objects, but as they stared and wondered, the child’s imagination grew and the box started filling up with various fantastical ideas: a troupe of dancing fairies, a musical box containing a full orchestra of mice, a pair of magic shoes that makes you walk on clouds, a toy train full of chattering teddy bears, a miniature garden full of tiny roses, trees and monkeys…The ideas kept flowing. Towards the end of the evening, the father suggested, ‘Now you can open your present’. The child responded ‘No Daddy, I don’t want to open it. I’m happy with the box’.

Would you open the box?

What would be in your box that you would find most satisfying?

Is it possible that someone’s gratitude for the gift of imagination is stronger than their curiosity and appetite for the real life? How does it feel?

First published: December 2013

Peace is Needed for Renewal, Peace is Needed for Change

As much as I see situations when I would agree with the title of this post, I wouldn’t say that this is what I experience when I am in the process of creating something. I am often troubled and pressured by a guard in my head telling me that I am too slow, too quick, or that I really should be doing something else, and of course that there is a better, simpler, easier or a more sophisticated way of doing whatever I am doing. This internal judge can speak quite loudly, boldly discrediting or shaming whatever project I am working on. The voice is especially powerful at the end of the year when I am trying to catch up on some often self- or socially-imposed agreements.

This voice is a fairly competent time thief. Because really whatever I am doing I love doing and whatever project I dive into answers a craving of my heart and soul in some way, or answers some needs that the season and family life creates.

Life is too short to take yourself too seriously (yes Rachel, you’ve told me that). Too short to focus only on one piece of a jigsaw puzzle. One piece never builds a view. It never gives you a sense of completeness. Life is made of many pieces, many wonderful pieces that complete and complement one another.

I wish we were more forgiving towards ourselves. Less judgmental. More understanding. We are all trying as much as we can in the areas we find ourselves in. There is no need for additional pressures (external or internal) on top of those that are already present.

It doesn’t matter if we are quick or slow. If we do things in this manner or another way. If we make occasional mistakes. If we don’t do things as well as someone else. The important thing is that we have the willingness to do things, that we have the willingness to renew, change or just carry on. The willingness is often enough to move us forward and it is this willingness that I am today grateful for. The need to persevere.