The Holiday Card Project

I decided to take a part in the Deviant Art Holiday Card Project because I think its simple idea is great. Who wouldn’t like to please those who have not enough luck, pleasure or even health? Additionally, you can do that, which also enjoys you and what you consider to be your hobby.

The word charity usually involves donating money or things needed for life, more precisely for the physical part of life. But doesn’t soul feel hungry?

At school, I learned that there is a pyramid of values, the basis of which is just physical needs – food, drink, clothing, shelter. And if these are not saturated, you probably do not care about what is on the higher floors of the pyramid – values like love, belonging or self-esteem.

Traveling and aging brought me a little different experience.  With my own eyes, I saw huge number of people who were really poor, yet they lived in love and with supporting community, and I don’t think they had the problem of respect or self-esteem.

And of course, I saw and see a lot of people, who have their basic needs more than saturated, yet they didn’t open their hearts either for love or for the support of others.

I believe that donating money helps to change the physical reality of many people, which is great. But I also believe that giving joy feeds their souls and helps them accept what cannot be changed or paid for money.

And so I put my love and positive energy into a simple drawing, hoping to send pleasure and joy even across the ocean.

Thanks to the creative people in Deviant Art for inspiration and their excellent work.

Ivana

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Keep smiling, show emotions!

Living in the virtual world is full of emoticons, and some of them are really weird! It’s easy to push the key on a keyboard and send the picture with a mood because nobody can watch your face and real emotions. Do we really laugh or love as much as the emoticons show?

I don’t have anything against emoticons! I’ve been using them since Windows had not yet existed, and we had to do it with alphanumeric characters only. It has always been a way how to make a cold computer communication more human.

However, it seems to me that we have already come to a strange extreme. We are using emoticons in the virtual world abundantly and often thoughtlessly, while in the real world we carefully hide emotions and, unfortunately, often even in front of ourselves. Are we giving so much effort to make computer communication more human, that we don’t have enough humanity or emotionality for the living outside the keyboard?

So I draw a picture to remind the importance of emotions, all kinds of them. Finally I have seen what I somehow know, that emotions are like water. They are deep and strong, flowing one to another, quietly or in turbulence, usually without warning.  And to survive as humans, we need emotions as much as water. Don’t you think so?

With love, Ivana

Keeping courage

This week I drew a picture for myself, for my own encouragement and clear mind. I took color pencils into my hands and there began a strange heart to be formed, one heart from two opposite parts. There was a wide mixture of feelings – courage with hope, fight with faith, will with love, male with female. And it was their mutual cooperation which created the certainty that even impossible thing could be done.

Cooperation of the opposites is the key. In our everyday life we are naturally attracted into the groups on the basis of similarity. And it is also natural, that individual groups are opposed to each other. Sometimes it is only on a joke level and sometimes it can escalate into more serious fights. The same principle works in the big world of politics and adults as in kindergarten among children. Permanent focus on competition and rivalry gives the impression that nothing else could shape our identity.

And that’s why there must be an earthquake or other disaster from time to time. It’s an opportunity to check if malicious rivalry didn’t yet eliminate pity, mercy and solidarity. If there is still somehow kept the balance between Ego and Heart, if the common humanity is alive.

I pray in order to prefer voice of my heart to the cry of the ego and leave what is not essential. I hope to do it before some kind of disaster come also to my life. Unfortunately there are plenty of them worldwide.

With love, Ivana

P.S. I’ve been already told that the picture looks more like an ass than a heart….