I’ve always felt that it’s important to be happy with what I have — not in a making-do sort of way, but in a way that embraces the moment, that celebrates what is actually happening to me right now, the gifts I have rather than the ones I think I want/ought to have. For me it’s about living in the now. I’m happy eating cabbage and carrots because it’s winter where I live and that is what keeps well after the growing season has ended. I’m happy that it’s raining because I love the misty feeling of moisture on my eyelids. I’m happy hanging out with you today, because you are here, present, alive and just as interesting (in your own wonderful way) as any of my other friends (past or present). I like to take a moment in the mornings, or just before I crawl into bed, to be grateful for where I am, what I have, and who is around me. In Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse wrote, “The river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains… there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future.” Embrace the present — it’s what we actually have right now!
— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line