Tag Archives: wisdom

How to bring more love into your life

We all long to love and to be loved, but so often we forget that there is more to love, than the romantic love between two people. So I would like to share with you my ways of bringing more love into my life:

Be Love (Photograph & Text by Imke Rust)

#one: self-love.

If we cannot love ourselves, how can we possibly know how to love somebody else? So the best is to start a love affair with yourself right away. Just treat yourself the way you would like to be treated. Take yourself out to dinner. Give yourself a hug. Forgive yourself. And start laughing with yourself about your latest mishap, just like you would if it happened to your best friend, and you would like to make him or her feel better.

#two: love for another. any other. every other.

When you can feel and express love for the sunshine that tickles your face in the morning, or the beautiful shape of the tree on your way to work or for the stranger that moves slightly to let you pass, then you will soon realise that love is all around you.

#three: love to create.

We are always busy creating something. We are creating our look, when we get dressed in the morning. We create when we prepare a meal or arrange the stuff on our work desks. Celebrate these creations and create with love. And while you are waiting for the bus, you could quickly stack a few rocks onto each other, arrange some twigs into a beautiful shape or create love in any other way that gives you joy.

…but the easiest way is to be love.

Be love in every moment, every action and every thought! Just ask yourself: what would love do right now?

Just be love and the universe will love you straight back! I promise!

NOTE:

For those of you, who wonder what this post has to do with my art: Everything.
Creation is love (see #three) and I have started to allow myself some more self-love (#one) to let go more and more the restrictions and limitations which are prescribed by society and to rather listen to my heart. I want to be an artist on my terms. One that shares not only the ‘masterworks-in-oil-that-are-acceptable-to-be-shown-in-the-gallery, but who shares who I am as a full being. A multifaceted being, with my humour, spirituality, other interests, worldviews depression, fears and silliness.

I have freed myself of the restrictive and limiting terms ‘visual artist’ or ‘environmental artist’, ‘painter’ etc and dared to call myself what I truly believe I am: Multi-Passionate Creative Being.

I have also made a new little side note to explain to new-comers to the blog what it is about and what to expect. Have a look at the top right corner of the blog page.

Creating is one thing, but I would love to share the whole palette of being creative and being me with you. That way I hope to spread more of my love and me-being-love with you (#two).

Thank you for being there and reading my blog. Thank you for your support, comments, likes and appreciation of my art! 🙂

I love you!

PS. I do not consider myself a photographer, but I am also quite chuffed with the photograph I took of the flowers, so I just had to show you!

Storms pass

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All storms pass… even shit-storms. © Imke Rust

Recently I experienced my very first ‘shit-storm’ on Facebook, after uploading a controversial design which I made in order to raise awareness about the auctioning of a permit to hunt the very endangered black rhino.

I do not want to go into a discussion about the image or reasons or thoughts about it, but rather on something that I have learned in the past years. Things change, always. Bad times pass and so do good times.

You might be scared, angry, upset, frustrated, wronged… whatever… but this too, shall pass. Give it some time, some kindness and some love. And in the end the storm will pass. All storms pass. Always.

And usually they will present you with gift of the most beautiful rainbow afterwards…. 🙂 🙂

I was so grateful that I had learned this. So while the shit-storm was happening, I could calmly sit back, smile, enjoy a good cup of coffee and watch it unfold. I have made my art, I have shared it and I even have explained it. Nothing more for me to do, except believe in who I am.

Many people liked it, and many understood it, so I knew that I was not totally off-track. The ones that did not understand, felt offended and had to argue on and on, I would probably never be able to convince otherwise. And that is not my job, anyway. So, after I made sure that I did answer politely and ensured that there is no real serious miscommunication on my side, I could let it go.

And rather focus on all the lessons, which it had taught me or reminded me of in such a clear way. Just as clear as the rainbow in the picture, which I photographed last year at the Waterberg, after one of the most spectacular storms and rain showers.

And I could use that energy to create something new. Like this wisdom blurb. 😉

Wishing you calmness and confidence to pass through your storms and the most spectecular rainbow at the end of every storm to remind you how strong and beautiful and loved you are!

Weird Sense of Humor

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I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook…

… and especially with the inspirational or funny picture-texts that so many people love to share like hot-cake. If they are good, I am equally guilty. Although sometimes they are just getting too much, I usually enjoy the beautifully packaged bite-size pieces of wisdom.

You do not need to read the book, or hear a long story to get the message. And it is usually short and sweet to easily stick in your mind. Makes you smile, makes you nod, share and move on. And the good ones stick in your mind like those neo-coloured post-it notes. I guess the power lies in the combination of image and word, and being short and sweet.

So, that’s a longish intro to letting you know, (drumroll, please 🙂 ) that I have decided to occasionally follow suit by creating my own. Sharing some fun, spiritual, art or other Imke-wisdom…

I know, it is probably not considered to be professional to do such things and even less to publically share them on my artist blog, but – you know what? – I do not really care anymore. I’d rather have fun and be true to my inner soul, than to fit in with social conventions. (I have tried that – it was boring and too often I failed miserably at it…)

Besides finally being able to share bite-sized bits of my mind, I also get to make use of the tons of photographs I take, which too often just end up unseen in some dark corners of dusty folders somewhere in the digital space of my computer.

So here it goes:

I have a weird sense of humor. It keeps my mind wonderfully entertained without you even noticing. (Imke Rust)

Enjoy! And if you enjoy my sense of humour, feel free to like, comment or share this!

Imke