Illustration Friday - Resolution

Be always at war with your vices, 

at peace with your neighbors, 

and let each new year find you a better man.  

~Benjamin Franklin

Hugs by Little Pixy Boots

 Here's wishing all who read this a Happy 2011!

I am starting this year with a good feeling inside that everything is going to improve and be much better. Last year was full of ups and downs, which was probably necessary with any move to a new country, especially for me moving from Singapore to Norway. 

Finding jobs, getting permits, exchanging driver's licence, adaptation, networking - all of these become a playground for upheaval. Yet I amaze myself that through it all, I still find an inner peace and trust that everything is going to be ok. 

Yesterday during a New Year's eve party, Viking Man and I had a wonderful conversation with some Buddhist new-found friends. After much discussion on spirituality, I found that this inner peace and trust has a Buddhist term - fearlessness.

Ooooo.... how I love this word! YES - I am entering the new year with fearlessness.

No matter how the outside circumstances throw me, I remain fearless because I trust that my inner state is unchanging and stable.

Anyway, I digress.

The theme for Illustration Friday in the first week of 2011 is: Resolution.

I've written down 10 resolutions in my diary, which I'm going to keep secret...just in case they don't come true, like how birthday wishes are.

But there is one resolution I want to announce, and perhaps you, my dear reader, might consider this as your own too:

To show more love to all those around me, especially mother figures who have nurtured me to be who I am today.

I have been fortunate in my life to have "adopted" a few exemplary mother figures in my life, even if they themselves don't know I did. Of course, my own mother has shown me the most care and patience, because she has nurtured me when I was sick, fed me when I was hungry, scolded me when I was wrong. Without those who nurtured me and my soul, I would have never been who I am today.

So,

Here

is

a

BIG

HUG

to 

those

I

love.

xoxoxox

pixy

N.B. This illustration is done with ink and watercolour pencils on Canson paper. The frame is created with craft paper of muffins and ice-cream, butterflies and flowers.