Please join us as we come together to create hand-made greeting cards from the heart. Once a year in February we participate in a love and kindness builder that began in 2014. We make 100+ Heart cards to be delivered on Valentine’s Day to a senior center in our local community to remind people that they are never alone and they are always Loved. We literally pour our Hearts and Love into greeting cards which are then delivered to someone who feels alone… someone who needs a lift… a pick me up… a shot of Love.
Art from the heart creates connection and when done in community heals.
Each year we elevate our card making and process of connecting to the collective Heart. We think about loved ones and populations in need that we want to share love and kindness with and we infuse our loving intentions into the cards we create. When they receive the card it comes directly from the heart and it reminds that we are all connected. Each year has had a different theme, but is grounded in the idea of connection and community.
THE HEART IS FOR LOVE ACTIVISM
Every January - February we gather, create and work toward our Valentines Day deliveries. It's our 6th Valentine's year of creating and giving heart card love to promote foundational community health and wellness. The Heart Card Love Service project is part of Mel's Love Land's commitment to demonstrating love in action. It is one of many loving healing initiatives we encourage, participate in and offer throughout the year.
ONLINE TUESDAYS TILL VALENTINE'S DAY
We host a card making zoom sessions Tuesdays at 5:30pm starting in December through February 8th when we begin deliveries. These session connect artist studios, living rooms, kitchen tables, craft rooms and offices to create heart cards.
Spreading love is one way we feel connected to our community. It brings us nourishment and in giving love we feel loved. It is selfish as it is selfless.
It's a wonderful experience to reflect on what your loving gifts might bring forward into the world. This love in action event allows for a blank canvass for love to make connections, it is an opportunity to build art-full community care, and have fun creating handmade cards that will be shared on Valentine’s Day.
WE CREATE, DELIVER AND LISTEN IN
It began with a Mitvah. After the death of my father, we found a place for my Mom at a wonderful Senior living spot in Pasadena, California, the Regency Park Oak Knoll, a caring, loving place where we felt she was safe. That first year was rough and when Valentine's came up an idea of creating 100+ heart cards and sharing with the residents at her new home and meet up with our newest family members. We brought flowers from our local gardens and showed up with handmade cards and lots of love. We found the cards triggered memories of childhood and paths that lead them through their lives, to loved ones past and doors that opened, to the wonderful lives they had led and the ways we shared that love were profound. It was healing to all our hearts. It was her first Valentines without my Dad, her husband of 52 years and together with a lot of help from friends and their loving hearts, extra kindness, we all felt enriched and nourished. What we realized very quickly, my Mom wasn't the only one missing a partner, feeling a bit alone and our efforts were deeply received. Thankful for 52 Weeks of Giveback for their loving contributions.
We love our neighbors because we are our neighbors. Photos from our 2022 Mel's Love Land Action.
YOU'VE GOTTA HAVE HEART (NO MATTER WHAT)
Coming together to create art is part of the magic and miracles of collective healing, community care and mutual aid. We utilize our crafting heart cards to laugh, to share, to co-create in community and the outcome of delivering love to folks is always full of meaningful surprises. The personal connections made, the stories of loves past and ancestors remembered. The joy of sharing in a deep listening. We grow into knowing love is in need of love. We create a 100+ heart cards and deliver into our communities to spread love because it is the least we can do, and it is what we were called to do. You may be called to something else. The idea is to take the loving action you are here to do. We've found love brings more love and have heard from folks they've done similar offerings and awakened a sense of sharing the gifts they've been given. We love to think of it as an activation and a gentle deeply peaceful process of creating connection through the collective heart.
WE ARE MADE OF LOVE
Every year we are inspired by the talent, the commitment and the work folks put into creating the cards. Want to highlight a few artist friends who have made this all possible by giving of their time and coming together to make and deliver cards. An idea shared grows stronger. We believe in a critical mass of thought, we believe in the inner power of that 100th monkey, in making a commitment to showing up and to doing the necessary work to co-create foundational health and wellness. We believe in miracles. We believe sending love brings forward more love. The making, giving and delivering of the cards had an exponentially loving effect.
LET THERE BE LOVE
Each year is different. We remain open to where the love is needed and have expanded to different community locations. A sober living space in our neighborhood, another senior home in Hollywood, a domestic violence support center, a tiny home village to support transitions, but what remains is our commitment to fierce, radical, authentic loving .
All Mel's Love Land efforts offer space for decolonizing, unlearning and opening the heart. Folks need space to unwind what has been wound up, to come to a different point of view and to allow for ways to let love to lead the way.
We love being able to support the post office through our purchases of stamps and every step we make to the post box is filled with joy, smiling at a neighbor, bending down to pet a dog or two and hugging the sun. So much love in action.
WHO ARE THE MEL ANGELS?
The world is full of loving folks who want to give off their time and talents to spread love. We invite folks to participate in a process.
LET'S TALK ABOUT THE ARTISTS THAT DONATE THEIR TALENTS
What can you say about the individuals who continue to share the gifts and their hearts over and over but I LOVE YOU. I love your heart. I love your passion and I love your work. Some of the first cars this year included the loving sentiment "It's Never too late to say 'I Love You.' This emerged from a beautuful soulful artist spending time in Mexico, Mary Elizabeth Holmes and brought their traditions and artistry to the table. We read from the traditions of El Dia del Amor y la Amistad the day of friendship and love as we worked through our art crafting sessions.
With so much loss, death, suffering and the constant throng of struggle there is beauty, there is grace and there is love. Never forget you are loved. Always consider the opportunity to say I love you and give yourself the gift of love in open hearted joy.
BEE LOVING LINDA
This work from Linda Gabriel comes with joyful bursts of graphic power and love from the heart. Stamps of the garden, the life force of the bees and the eyes of the heart.
Throughout the sessions we share intentions for our loving cards, talk about what we wish for those who receive the cards and the ways we can expand possibilities for our worlds with our loving. Some of the cards are created for folks who send us a request for a card, for a loved one, for someone they care about and know need support and others have no intended recipient, just a free flow from the heart, others inspired by the moment, the cut of a heart, a person pops in with a heart as a prompt to share, yet others a complete expression of the moment of presence with the supplies prompted by love.
G'S MONSTER LOVE
All the monster love cards come from big Hearted Artist: Gena Kay whose redressingtheglobe offers travel inspiration and sparkling charm from around the globe.
KINDNESS AND EMPATHY RAINBOW RAVEN AND HER DAUGHTER LULU
When the going gets rough the OG founders of our kindness and art heart cards deliver, documentarian Tamra Raven and her daughter, Louise 'LuLu' Steinberg know how to giveback, collectively operating 52 Weeks of Giveback, where kindness contributes to a world reborn. These beautiful artists represent a strong lineage of women committed to uplifting our worlds.
DELIVERING LOVE
There are two parts to delivering of the art heart cards, mailing and hand delivery, each has its own magic. We love the USPS. It is a rich part of our great United States, from the zip code system to the interconnected relationships between communities through our beloved mail carriers and the worlds they connect. One of the fun parts is getting the loving cards in the magical post box on the corner. You can request a card for yourself or a loved one on our site, click here.
Should you be inspired to send cards of gratitude and love and heart in your communities throughout the year you will need crafting and art supplies, card stock, different materials and 'stuff' to create hearts. Set aside time and allow for your gratitude to lead the way with any idea that moves your artistic soul. Once you have completed a few cards you'll experience the grace of sending, giving and receiving love, bringing alive the idea of being a bit more loving today than you were yesterday.
In honor of all of our loved ones and my Mom and Dad, never forget you are never alone, you are safe and you are always loved. Always consider the opportunity to say 'I love you' with a card made by you with love in open hearted joy.
This February Loving Service project is part of Mel's Love Land's commitment to love in action. It is one of many art healing initiatives we encourage and participate in. It is one of the featured elements of Mel's Love Land, an original Documentary Series that asks the question WHAT IF All Our Thoughts Were Loving?
We hope you experience more love, more joy and all the ways we are interconnected in the space of the heart.
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Melanie Lutz – Mel's Love Land
All Systems Love
Writer/Producer/Love Activist
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Original Documentary Series:
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IG: @MelsLoveLand
Website: https://www.melsloveland.com
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