'Heart Sense'

I inherited my mother's love of flowers, in particular having a great love of pansies. She had great affection for these beautiful flowers and she'd said that she thought of them as having little faces. The word pansie is derived from the French word pensee meaning thoughts, to think and often called 'heart sense'.

The symbolic meaning of this sweet flower invokes and represents loving thoughts, love of idleness, to think, free thinker, remembrance, to consider, and is the birth flower of February. The last representation is very fitting, as February is the month my late mother's Birthday. I've been having loving thoughts remembering her as Easter approaches, as it was our favourite time of year. We always would get excited about all the flowers to come in Spring and especially finding the right Easter Bonnet to wear in celebration of Easter..

As far back as I can remember I was introspective and a thinker. I was always searching to understand what was really going on and intuitively felt a desire to find out what I was doing on the earth and what my life meant. I wanted to understand life and myself. I never really reflected on why I was this way, but I was simply driven to figure all this stuff out. I think this is the reason I became an artist because through creativity I learned about life and about myself, and it's a ongoing quest.

I'll continue to be on this journey of discovery and finding the answers to my questions until the day I leave this mortal coil.

Yesterday I heard one of my favourite philosophers and human rights activists speak on the CBC Radio for the Massey Lectures. Payam Akhavan is a remarkable beautiful, and thoughtful soul., who truly has heart sense and is a great champion for justice and peace.
Listening to him helps me to understand my own higher purpose in life and where personal power truly is found.

              "When you know yourself in a deep way, that is a true sense of power."
                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                 - Payam Arhavan