walking with flowers with the Friendly Anarchist…

Out of all the blogs I followed in 2010, none captured my attention quite like the Friendly Anarchist.

It’s brilliant creator, Fabian Kruse, reveals straightforward ways on how to live life at your own pace, using your own rules. In fact, it was his work that I continuously plastered across my Facebook wall last year and emailed off to a few gazillion friends.

Fabian’s personal style of anarchism infiltrates, wiggling its way into your brain, providing information to help support you in living a life filled with endless possibilities. His words are rather addictive.

And more recently, Fabian wrote a wonderful book titled, “Beyond Rules: A Dilettante’s Guide to Personal Sovereignty, Space Travel, and Lots of Ice Cream.” Needless to say, I was NOT surprised at how fabulous it was! A must read!!

In November, Fabian wrote a business piece called “To Walk With Flowers.” Nestled between the words, however, was a story within a story – one that actually made me stand up and pay attention. He describes walking the streets of his community (currently Cartagena, Columbia), giving a flower, sometimes even a full bouquet, to a complete stranger, any stranger, who looked in need of kindness.

The lives he touched with his acts of compassion INSPIRED me to act and follow his example.

As a result of his exceptional story and a few email exchanges between Columbia and Canada, an idea took form – the 1st International Walk with Flowers Day on January 16th, 2011.

The essence behind the campaign is to create opportunities for anyone to bring sunshine into a complete stranger’s life. Of course, the campaign is not synonymous with the handing out of flowers, per se – it can be as simple as the gift of your smile 😀 and a friendly hello.

But what makes this day particularly special is that it falls on the eve of Art’s Birthday. And when I say ‘Art’s’, I am not referring to someone named Art or Arthur. Oh no, I am referring to ‘Art’ as in ‘artwork.’ The concept was invented in 1963 by the infamous Frenchman, Robert Filliou, in order to celebrate the presence of art in our lives. As the Friendly Anarchist states, “We believe that life itself is a work of art, and thus, it should be celebrated as often as possible.” Rather fitting then, to combine it with a celebration of kindness.

We hope you’ll join us in this wonderful world-wide event! According to Fabian, he has already had people write in and say they’ll participate from Scotland, South Africa and the USA. How wonderful is that?

In addition, it is now considered to be an ‘official event’ with the organizers of Art’s Birthday – check it out! (thanks Fabian!)

For more information, check out the 1st International Walk With Flowers Day page, courtesy of the fabulous Friendly Anarchist.

Many thanks to Fabian who wrote the Walking with Flowers story and set this entire thing up – making it international, selecting Art’s birthday as the date, and creating the website for it all! Thank you. 😀