Stylish Blog Award

I received a Stylish Blogger Award from Salvatore at Feng Shui Life Mapping. Wow! This is my first ever blog award!

I'm very honored, especially because I really enjoy Feng Shui Life Mapping blog. Lots of great info, not only about the art of placing things within your home, but about living a life of intention and positive direction. Do check it out!

According to the rules of this award, I am to list 7 things about myself. (Hmm, this is hard.)

1.  I wasn't allowed to watch much TV when I was a kid, so I had to invent other ways to be entertained. (Reading, writing, making stuff . . .)

2. I'm very skeptical of people who claim to have all the answers and tell others how life should be lived.

3. My favorite book of all time is the Mahabharata, condensed and translated by William Buck.

4. I love sour candy like lemon drops and Sour Patch Kids.

5. Sometimes when I am outside sketching, birds and other animals will come sit by me.

6. I have never had a cavity or a broken bone. Hope my good luck continues :-)

7. Rainbows make my heart sing!


Now, I get to pass on this award to 15 awesome blogs! (This is hard, because I love all the blogs that I visit, and there are so many of them.) Well, here are 15 that I like, they are all blogs about art, creativity, travel, nature, romance, dreaming, poetry, beauty and magic. You will probably enjoy them too, so please check them out if you have some time : )

1. Spirithelpers

2. The Purple Caravan

3. Quoteflections

4. Alexi Francis

5. Papaya Tree Limited

6. Bethany's Journal

7. Tommy Kane

8. afiori by Maria-Therese

9. Calligraphy in the Landscape

10. TeoStudio

11. Ces and Her Dishes

12. Kayla Coo

13. Lin's Art

14. Malice in Underland

15. Lalipourie




Rules for accepting this award are:

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded it to you.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pay it forward to 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
4. Contact those bloggers and tell them about their Blog Award!

I Follow My Heart

Heart Fire
photo by Abdulhamid Al Fadhly

Happy Rosa Phoenix Day! 

Today is Valentine's Day as well, a time to celebrate love and romance.

Today is also the one year anniversary of launching my business, Rosa Phoenix Art & Design.

It's also time to celebrate a new year (the lunar new year was on Feb 3 -- I launched my business on the lunar new year 2010). 

It's a good time to take note of a change, and the beginning of a new cycle.

I moved back to my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona.

This was after living for 10 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and prior to that, New York City.

I left Phoenix and my family at age 18, to see the world and live a life of my own.

I quickly adapted to big city life in New York and San Francisco, met lots of people, learned about other cultures, and made great connections everywhere I traveled.

Everywhere I went, I found love . . . in the form of friends, neighbors, romantic partners, and even kind strangers who helped me.

My heart went through its own changes.

It grew with love, it shrank with fear, it broke with sorrow, it strengthened with courage and resolve, it reached out to others when they needed caring, and it even broke others' hearts, through carelessness or cruelty.

My heart has been transformed by all these experiences and interactions with other people. I feel that now it is a stronger and wiser heart, growing and expanding more all the time.

I follow my heart. It constantly leads me to new places that are full of risk and renewal. My heart leads me on my journey as an artist, a twisting and turning path where nothing is known or secure. Yet this is what makes me happy.

My heart also leads me away from my comfortable and familiar life, and many people I love and care about. This makes me sad because I miss them, but I also have faith that my heart is leading me to the place where I need to be.

I trust my heart to guide me.

Now my heart is leading me back home.

I am returning, 18 years after I left, to live with my family again in Phoenix. It definitely feels like a full cycle has been completed, and a new one is starting.

For some time now, I've been having visions of the Arizona desert, its colors and textures and vast open spaces. Arizona is forever a part of me. It called me back, and I responded to the call.

I'm looking forward to the new adventure, whatever is in store for me.

Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate the heart and the people you love. I always follow my heart, and my heart led me back home. Love is here with me, where it has been waiting all along.


What does "follow your heart" mean to you?