Dio Estas Amo (from Esperanto: «God is Love»)

The name is irrelevant, only source is matters.

And to find my source it took me a long time and an incredible journey.

I was born and raised in the middle of Siberia. My uncle was a famous artist and all my mother’s side of the family had an artistic talent. As long as I can remember, I was drawing, creating, writing and evolving.

I had a very bohemian teenage upbringing and I was part of a creative activists group, including Jazz Music bands, DGs, Artists, journalists and poets. In my early 20s, I was involved in the creation of various life-collaboration events, mixing music improvisations with art and body-art performances.

25. «We’ve been exploring creativity as far as we’ve been exploring the borders of our young minds.»

I’ve always been looking for inner answers to rhetorical questions and that self journey brought me to Bali Island in Indonesia. The Island of 1000 temples, one of the most spiritual places on Earth. I found myself in tropical jungles, sitting and meditating in vipassana retreats, doing yoga for 3 hours per day and climbing Vulcans. I met Gurus, who taught me The Way. It changed me and my Art. Also during that period, I was teaching in a few yoga schools and eventually opened one of my own.

But the key piece of my soul puzzle was still missing.

Following the Castaneda’s steps, I went to travel to South America, where I spend over a year in between Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. I went there to experience myself, to explore the limits with sacred rituals of Bolivian Shamans and as a «Stalker» to absorb The Power and The Spirit. But that was not an answer ether.

For few years, I’ve been traveling and teaching yoga trainings in different countries: Australia, Taiwan, Russia, Indonesia, Swiss, etc. I’ve been running to find my own space in this world. And I found myself in Spain. It took few years to set on my feet and get back to Art.

From the world of Spirituality and inner research, I’ve dived in to the «real» world, where truth is flexible and words don’t mean a thing. Adult world of big money, expensive cars and shiny things. New chapter has been started, and I’m as a pure child, was trying to survive and not to lose my inner self. To find the balance, while living my daily life and experiencing every moment of it. That’s where the real spirituality starts. It’s easy to stay in Mindfulness, when you sitting in Indian Ashram. The next level is to do it in «real» world, to live the day by day life in a foreign country and trying to achieve something by myself.

Feeling strongly inspired by the contrast of these two different Worlds, I have the chance to experience: spiritual Asia and an adult world of Europe, I’m happy to present my Art expressions to the World.

And that’s the answer I’ve been looking for. The balance of two words. The harmony. The inner love.

God is Love.

Dio estas Amo.

—  Svetlana Bardakova

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