Daily painting #718 Voting Day

Daily painting #718 5"x7" oil on primed panel (unframed)

Today 3rd August 2016 is VOTING DAY. It's time for all South Africans to have their say and make a difference. GO VOTE!!

Today I share with you a Zulu Love Letter brooch...and in turn my own love letter for our beautiful country, South Africa.

I live in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) where the Zulu culture is most prolific. Our children are given the option of learning Zulu as a second additional language and while I am not Zulu, anyone who lives in KZN is familiar with many Zulu traditions and crafts. I own many beautiful Zulu beaded necklaces, brooches and belts, ornaments etc. I have this beaded brooch which I painted today and wanted to share it with you. It is fondly known of as a Zulu Love Letter. Zulu love-tokens (Incwadi) are woven in beads by Zulu maidens and were said to be sent to their lovers as a means of communication. Each colour, or combination of colours has a specific meaning. Many of these have changed over the years, but the basic and most commonly used colors were...

White - Purity, vision, true love
Red - Intensive love "my heart bleeds for you"
Blue - Loneliness "If I were a dove, I would fly the endless skies to see you"
Green - "I have become as thin as blade of grass, from pining for you"
Yellow - Jealousy
Pink - Poverty - she feels he is wasting his money and not making enough money to pay her Lobola (bride price)
Brown - My love is like the earth which gives rise to new life
Black - Anger, hurt, jealousy. "My heart has become as black as the rafters of the hut as I hear you have taken another maiden"
(Taken from a zulu kingdom sa brochure which came with my brooch)

But today I have my own love letter for our country and if I could make a brooch it would say...

Black beads for all the anger and hurt that the past has evoked and white beads for purity, vision and true love. Love beyond measure, race, religion, culture, sexual orientation or beliefs, can heal anything. If only we all could love unconditionally...love could heal the anger and the hurt. Blue beads for the loneliness that the lack of love can bring and green beads for the pining of a better future where peace and love can conquer all. Pink beads in recognition of all those that live in extreme poverty and brown beads for the dry African earth that can give rise to new life and new beginnings which can bring hope to so many South Africans. Finally my love letter would be dominated by red beads...intensive love. "My heart bleeds for you". My heart bleeds for the poverty, crime and government corruption that has been allowed to rot away at the South Africa Mandela envisioned for ALL South Africans. It is only through intensive love that we can all make a difference every day, in small ways and on days like today, in BIG ways. By voting we all show our intensive love for our country.

As idealistic as my sentiments may be, one message remains. If you went to vote today, you could make a difference. I pray that today will see a brighter future for all South Africans...my love letter to you.

all my LOVE Heidi #proudlySouthAfrican

If you voted today, I would love to hear about it. Keep politics out of it, but if you have some South African love to share...I would love to hear about it in the comments xxx

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