A tiny seed from the bottom of my heart

नवरेह मुबारक

“Navareh Mubarak”, as they say in Kashmir, congratulations for the New Year that just started according to the Kashmiri calendar.

I am very inspired by Greta Lundberg, maybe because I feel a bit like her, tiny and powerless to change the world. Yet her courage has tremendous power. I admire how she keeps going despite her disadvantages…

gretathunberg: “I’m very tiny and I am very emotional, and that is not something people usually associate with strength. I think weakness, in a way, can be also needed because we don’t have to be the loudest, we don’t have to take up the most amount of space, and we don’t have to earn the most money… We need to care about each other more.”

Suddenly most of us are at home, “social distancing” ourselves so we don’t spread this particularly vicious coronavirus. As we are forced to have more time to ourselves, parents having to spend more time with their kids, I feel a surge of compassion, of coming together as a community and as humans with this challenge. Its not like we never had a pandemic before but this seems to one that will define us and change us. I feel so much hope and love all around. I feel like a tiny sapling in a forest of supportive trees.

acrylic and oil-pastel on watercolor paper, 12 x 12 inches (30x30cm)