Happy new year, may it be soft...

In Yemen, I lived in the countryside with farmers. They used to cultivate the local drug : el qât. Mountains of drug.

And I reached the artificial paradise without it, thanks to a fantastic dysentery. I couldn't stand up, neither eat, total delirium. I just felt a huge happiness... We call it fever.

All my women-neighbours came to say a last good bye. Even women crying on my sad destiny. But I still felt happy, like drunk ! (When I had been travelling for months in countries prohibiting alcohol !)

In this village, I was living at Om Ibrahim's house (meaning Ibrahim's mother). She often came to watch over me. She obliged me to drink bun, a sort of hot beverage made of coffee peel. And she put in my mouth big spoons of honey, the honey from Yemen, the Koran holy honey. That's how they healed me. The best medicine ever !

Castle-Time by Chris Garneau

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Om Ibrahim looks like the woman I drew above, in a certain way.

I inspired myself from a wrought iron Nativity I saw in Gijon last week :

A philosophic artist, Fouad Dakhouch, just sent me an article. It says that when we see the death really close, we keep in mind 5 elements importants for our life :

- To have the courage to live a life true to ourself ;

- To work only the needed to be ;

- To express our feelings ;

- To stay in touch with our friends ;

- To let ourself be happy.

It's fantastic to let go and smile again, without waiting to meet the death. And this because the only thing left when we meet it are people we love and feelings. We forget the rest. The rest becomes useless. Maybe it's always been.

This week, I was in Madrid and I allowed myself to do something I never do : going out. I begun with visiting the exhibition Hermitage, at the Prado Museum. It inspired me a modern Nativity, and then a really modern Nativity :