While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.

Hope is the sun. It is light. It is passion. It is the fundamental force for life's blossoming.

The reactions of the human heart are not mechanical and predictable but infinitely subtle and delicate.

We can bring brilliant flowers of victory to bloom in our lives when we weather the hardships of winter and emerge triumphant based on our practice of the Mystic Law. The key to victories lies in how hard we struggle when we are in winter, how wisely we use this time and how meaningful we live each day confident that spring will definitely come.

Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself.

Having lived through the transition from totalitarianism, I am acutely mindful of the need to never take for granted the basic freedoms of thought, expression and belief that democracy brings.

Just as cherry, plum, peach and damson blossoms all possess their own unique qualities, each person is unique. We cannot become someone else. The important thing is that we live true to ourselves and cause the great flower of our lives to blossom.