I remember reading this ancient proverb somewhere when I was a kid and it sparked a lovely little luminous flame inside me. The flame has grown to a toasty warm fire over the years, and when I am looking for ways of best helping those who are suffering, I think of this phrase.

Next Wednesday, October 15 is this year’s Blog Action Day. And the topic? Poverty. In line with my philosophy that communication + education = solution, I’m thrilled to be a part of this great idea to bang our blogs together to stimulate awareness, conversation, and creativity about something that is in desperate need of our attention. If you’d like to join in with me, all you have to do is register your blog here and follow the guidelines. If you don’t have a blog, all you have to do is read our posts on the day and even better, comment! We each have a voice, as tiny as we think it is, when you join them all together I can tell you, a beautiful echo sounds across the airwaves and stimulates positive action.

So yeah, I’d love you guys to join in – the thought of all of us being creative and posting our thoughts and expressions about poverty for just one day makes my skin tingle and fills my heart with hope…

Have you missed Harriet’s adventures? I sure have. But fret no more, Harriet is here! Well, ‘here’ being in the blogosphere – you see, she took a little wander over to Melissa’s place, known to us all as Melissa Loves on Ez’s fabo Creature Comforts blog!

Exclusive new illustrations of Harriet are over at Melissa Loves right now, go and check ’em out and tell me what you think. Also, Melissa asked me a few questions about how I came about drawing Harriet, you can read my responses here too. I do hope you like! Here is a sneak peek…

So click here to be whisked away to Melissa’s lovely post about me + Harriet, thank you Melissa!

That is actually the title of a book, published in the ’50’s, written by Lorna Hill. My mother passed it on to me when I was a young girl… a beautiful book I recall it to be… old, and interesting looking, and well, I never read it. And in my growing wisdom and hindsight I know why – this would be a girl I could never relate to.

So patience is not one of my virtues. But I am hoping it is one of yours…My Heart Wanders feels like it has been and gone right? Wrong. It is still in it’s baby phase. My dear, patient readers, I’m here to confess that my workload, and all those little unexpected life changing scenarios that have occurred over past months took precedent over my gathering of all your beautiful images. And, well, another bit of wisdom I found is that I can’t write two books at once. Who knew. So, while my other yet-to-be-revealed book is now in the hands of my publisher, and my life seems to have calmed for the moment, I am going to pick up where I left off and gather the images together for the My Heart Wanders judges. I want this book to be fabulous, just in case you didn’t already know that. And fabulous things take a while to create, even though I want everything done yesterday. And as you will see from the above picture, this project has been in the works for quite some time! I did this drawing over a year ago, well before I even knew I would have my very own blog, or before I knew that each of you would be such an integral part of my wandering heart journey. This piece is sitting near the piano at my parent’s place, and when I was there I walked past it a number of times each day – a nice reminder of our journey together.

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Some My Heart Wanders news to tell you: As from my time back in Sydney, I made a little decision: to bring on board a special guest as one of the judges. With the other judges all in accord, without further delay I would like to announce that the new guest judge is… my Mum! So, welcome aboard Mum, thanks for accepting the invitation, and I do hope you will enjoy the journey with us.

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So, this weekend, it’s either dedicating my time to catching up on my accounting or My Heart Wanders – hmm, which should I choose?

xx

PS yes there is a heart in that rambling tree, it might take you all weekend to find it though, perhaps if you fuzz your eyes it will stand out more – let me know if you find it!

PPS how about a song to launch us into the weekend? I pick this one, from one of my all-time favourite female singer/songwriters/poets. Enjoy.

This is Flo’s home. Flo is Harriet’s brother’s friend’s sister-in-law’s cousin’s uncle’s boyfriend’s best mate. Flo was not home when I visited her. She was probably out for her morning swim.

When I finished my degree some ten years ago, I made a pact to myself that I would produce one artwork per year, no matter what else I had going on in my life. I kept this up and although it was a struggle when I had my stores and styling work, it was very satisfying. This canvas above is one of them, and i completed it about 5 years ago. It stands approx. 2 metres by 1 metre and it is mixed media, with mostly acrylic, charcoal, and pastel as well as rose petals. It’s called ‘two to tango’ and I’m not sure what you might see, but it is two seahorses intertwined, back to back – one seahorse is in the wing of the other. Inside the two seahorse bodies is a woman’s figure bending backwards, with her hair cascading down to her feet. The writing on the bottom left says, “So I have a story to tell. It starts with love, that is, accepting suffering with your heart”. This is a reference to the Chinese character I have in the centre of the image which means ‘love’. But in Chinese, there are two loves I was taught – one without the heart symbol in the middle, and one with. True love, or ‘accepting suffering with your heart’ is with the heart (‘xin’) symbol which I included here. This symbol which I was taught about by a Chinese calligrapher many years ago, was an inspiration for many artworks over the years.

Seeing this artwork again the other day brought back lovely memories. My parents have kept it in a room above the bed I used to sleep in. Water reflections from the pool dance on the ceiling and instantly reminded me of my own dancing water reflections on the ceiling of le petit bateau in Amsterdam. It’s funny how the symbol of water seems to run so prominently through my life.

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Up next: Food glorious food! A new guest is about to arrive in the kitchen, so copy down Rach’s recipes while they are still up, and get ready for some more delicious recipes to come! You are gonna love this talented lass too, I just know it.