Pandas do ride bicycles

And this is how it looks like when my daughter tries the panda jumpsuit her crazy mom bought her for Christmas. :-)

To one and all: A blessed Christmas

I got a bonsai, a Japanese pepper tree, for my daughter for Christmas. It includes a colony of five little adorable clay panda bears (it had to, didn´t it?).
Our dog Nana is intrigued and daughter is happy.
Have a blessed Christmas and may the new year be filled with love, peace, laughter, abundance, art and prospering bonsai trees.

Shells from Robben Island

My husband was a political prisoner on Robben Island from 1977 to 1991. This photo of him was taken in the G cell with a camera that had been smuggled in by a visitor. It was in April 1991 and most political prisoners had been released - and the guards weren´t as vigilant as they used to be.
Prisoners left Robben Island with their few belongings packed i apple boxes: Mainly letters, journals and books. My husband had a collection of shells that he had secretly picked on his way to work in the lime quarry.
It might not look like much to the world, but it is my most treasured possession.

Here´s an idea

  Let´s make a panda bear.

Under the rainbow

Happy bear family.

Happy Langa family.

I´m stubborn, I know. I call my internet shop "RainbowNationArt" even though I´m painfully aware that the concept is "very 1995". Back in those days, during the first vibrant years of democracy with Nelson Mandela as president and Desmond Tutu heading The Truth and Reconcilliation Committee (TRC), South Africa was nicknamed The Rainbow Nation. All the different people was to unite as one, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, shimmering in the colours of the rainbow - free of racism, fear and hatred.
Okay, yes, I admit that it was naive to think that it would happen from one year to another, or even from one decade to another. Sadly, prejudices die hard. The term "Rainbow Nation" is no longer fashionable, and is seldom used without irony or bitterness.
But the struggle for non-racialism, in South Africa, in my mother land Sweden and elsewhere, must continue. Until we rise like the Phoenix bird, I will keep using words like "solidarity", "Rainbow Nation" and "eco-warrior". Even if I they are "outdated". Even if I sound like dinosaur.

Find my happy rainbow card here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/202546438/panda-bear-greeting-card-happy-family?     

Hanging with panda bears in Beijing on Christmas

I drew a panda bear paperdoll for my Christmas cards this year. I´m aware it might seem somewhat far fetched, but it´s basically just a combo of stuff I love: Christmas, panda bears and paper dolls.
Some few years ago, we travelled to Beijing, China, for Christmas. It was very cold - and very, very magical. The first snow fell the day we visited the Great Wall, and we did see pandas, not in the wild, but at the Beijing Zoo. I was the first time a saw them in real life. I was so taken, I even forgot how cold it was. There cannot be a more beautiful creature on Earth. One was playing with a ball, another one was eating bamboo shots and a third was, I think, just chilling and posing for the camera.
I have not been to Beijing in summer, but I hear it´s hot and crowded. So I´d say winter is the ideal time to visit this amazing city. 

Together with my daughter on the Great Wall.

My children on the Sacred Road. Beijing.

Merry Christmas, sweet heart.

You can find my card here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/210802475/cute-christmas-card-with-panda-paper?

I love it

I love drawings by children. I love everything about them: The strong colours, the creativity, the spirit and the energy. I also love the absence of fear. No "I can´t draw", they just grab the pens and brushes and get started.
My wish for mankind is that we, as a species, never loose this ability; That we continue drawing fabulously and fearlessly throughout our lives.
This painting was done by my 7-year old daughter Tholakele in school yesterday. It depicts a dragon reading a story about a troubled raven.

Note the sympathetic "a(aaa)" in the thought bubble.

Tholi painting a scary skeleton with glow-in-the-dark paint.

I miss him

"Forgiveness liberates the soul.

It removes fear.

That is why it is 

such a powerful weapon."

Sharing a Fanta with the legend, South Africa in April 1994. Photo: Magnus Walan

I miss Nelson Mandela. On December 5, it´s one year since he passed away. I was in the anti-apartheid movement and I was lucky enough to meet him a few times. He was just as wonderful as the world has come to know him. Above all, he was kind to everyone, not only to presidents and billionaires. Once he invited me for a glass of soda, although I was a "nobody" in his circles.
I was in Cape Town the night he died. Madiba had been poorly for a long time and we knew that the end was near. We thought we were prepared.
But the following morning, as the sun rise, I saw Robben Island from the window. Once, not too long ago, it was the Apartheid hell hole where Madiba and other political prisoners were incarcerated.
It hit home. I cried when Swedish Radio phoned for a comment. I did not want to live in a world without him.
I drowned my sorrows in green tea with a friend in a Sea Point café. Along with thousands of other South Africans, we made a pact to do our best to keep his legacy alive. To, when faced with an obstacle, ask ourself what Nelson Mandela would have done, and to live without fear, and to always grasp the opportunity to put a smile on a fellow human´s face.

I painted this in my journal. "Hamba Kahle Qhawe" means "Go well, hero" in Zulu.

 

The Entire Universe

"So

I love you

because the entire universe 

conspired to help me

find you."

It´s like Paulo Coelho wrote this sentence especially for me. For I am sure that the whole universe in fact did conspire to help me find Paul.
Let´s take a look at the facts. I was born in a small town in Northern Sweden. He was born in Soweto in South Africa. I was a figure skater, he was a political prisoner, sentenced to 25 years on Robben Island for terrorism. I mean, what were the odds for us? Even just for meeting eachother, let alone falling madly in love?
But somehow we did. One dark, velvety night in February 1992, all the stars aligned on the sky of the Southern hemisphere. I left Sweden two years later, a few months before the first democratic elections in South Africa and the rest is, as they say, history.