'Tis the Season

Valentine's Day is nearly upon us.  The responses to this fact tend to fall into one of two categories. 

1) Stress verging on panic as people try to figure out what to do for their significant others, or

2) Preparing to face the holiday alone.  This can range from bleak to melodramatic. 

Although I have yet to see a solution to the first state, there is some relief for the single among us.

Enter Valentine's Day parties, where groups of single friends get together to eat chocolate, drink wine, and complain about their lives.  I've been invited to two of these gatherings, since I have quite a few single friends.

My thought is that, in the midst of all this unpleasantness, everyone could use a bit of loving-kindness.  I think that portraiture is an excellent tool for cultivating a sense of loving-kindness towards another person.  The careful examination needed to capture a person's likeness has always inspired feelings of fondness and love in me.  My intention is to sketch portraits of my fellow single Bereans with a focus on the "four qualities of love: Friendliness (metta), Compassion (karuna), Appreciative Joy (mudita) and Equanimity (upekkha)" that are cultivated during loving-kindness meditation (Pannyavaro 2014).  

I've never been particularly hung up over Valentine's Day, but I would like to try to celebrate it in some sort of positive way, rather than simply ignoring it.  I think that cultivating loving-kindness is an excellent way to do that.