Hong Kong or Bust!

My Flower Mandala images – which I created as a form of meditation to help me through a difficult time – have had the unexpected result of carrying me, metaphorically, to widely dispersed parts of the world.

Via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social media, they’ve found their way onto the screens, and sometimes into the homes, of people on all the continents of the globe except (as far as I know) Antarctica. They’ve been on book covers, websites, used as logos, and even hung, as posters, on the streets of Frankfurt, Germany.

Now they’re going to transport me to Hong Kong. Literally.

A couple of months ago, I received an email from a graphic designer asking if he could use one of my images as the logo, on the website, and in all promotions for a yoga conference that will take place in Hong Kong this summer. I looked up the conference, saw that it was attended by thousands of people, had something like 50 instructors, and had been held in Hong Kong for the past 10 years, so I priced it accordingly. This kind of image use generally commands a licensing fee of several thousand dollars.

Usually, when someone asks me to use an image and doesn’t mention money, they want me to donate it. Occasionally, I do, but part of my income comes from licensing images, so more often I don’t. Usually, when I get a message like the one from the yoga conference and I come back with a licensing fee, that’s the last I hear from them.

This time was different.

The next day, the conference organizer emailed me and asked if we could talk. She said she’d looked through my website, read my bio and some of my blog posts, and wanted to talk with me about other ways I could work with the conference. I was intrigued. She was on her way to a wedding in the Philippines, she said, but she could talk once she got there.

She called me shortly after she got off the plane. She was almost gushingly excited about the image you can see in the poster mockup above. She explained that their budget for images was low, and added that, although they are not incorporated as a nonprofit, “We don’t make much money from the conference.”

The outcome of the call was that in exchange for a very large discount on the image licensing fee, they will be sponsoring me to fly to Hong Kong and give two workshops and a public talk. One workshop will be loosely based on one I did in Santa Fe on cultivating creativity. The other will be the system for restoring and maintaining life balance described in my book The Art of Balance: Staying Sane in an Insane World. They also offered to introduce me to people at a yoga equipment manufacturer located in Hong Kong while I’m there.

So I’m going!

I don’t know a word of Chinese (they asked me if I would be bringing a Mandarin translator), and I’ll be a creaky old(er) guy among the youthful, lithe instructors and participants, a stranger in a strange land. But, in my years as a therapist, I’ve worked with many young yoga instructors and practitioners, and although they all were far more flexible and balanced, physically, that I ever was, I seemed to have something they needed. Hopefully, this will also be true of the participants at the yoga conference in Hong Kong.

Here are some links to the conference and to the pages they’ve devoted to my workshops and mandalas:

2018 Evolution Asia Yoga Conference

About this Year’s Mandala

Faculty – David J. Bookbinder

Cool, huh?

If you happen to know anyone in Hong Kong, it would be fun to look them up while I’m there. I am presenting on two days, but I plan to spend several more days exploring the area.

See you in cyberspace (and maybe in Hong Kong?),

David

Books
The Art of Balance: Staying Sane in an Insane World

The Art of Balance Addictions Cheat Sheet (new!)
The Art of Balance Cheat Sheet (free eBook)
Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas
52 (more) Flower Mandalas: An Adult Coloring Book for Inspiration and Stress Relief
52 Flower Mandalas: An Adult Coloring Book for Inspiration and Stress Relief
Paths to Wholeness: Selections
 (free eBook)

Copyright 2018, David J. Bookbinder

15 thoughts on “
Hong Kong or Bust!

  1. See you in Hong Kong! I will attend your lecture. You will have a blast being here at the same time as all of these like-minded teachers.

  2. So excited for you! A well deserved adventure. All that blogging is paying off. You put ypur heart out there and it flowed thru the digital universe. Lots of people speak english in HK as a former british colony. I found. It still is a special territory of china, not considerd mainland china. Less nutz! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

  3. Great to hear this news, buddy. You’re gonna have fun!

    It so naturally flows out of your own need to heal…so you turned to art…the art of creating this spiritual images…the visual icons intriguing to others interested in healing…and there you go to Hong Kong. Zoiks!

    I bet you’ll get a good stretch while you’re out there, loosen up the old bones. It’ll be good for you!

  4. 祝你好运! (Best of Luck!)

    So inspired by this “flowering” of your journey, David!

    More and more cultures will be the recipients of all of your gifts,
    and looking forward to “virtual journeys” to Hong Kong for all of your readers
    and people whose lives you continue to enhance!

  5. They couldn’t have made a better choice in all the world for their logo — and for a presenter to bring the elements of balance and creativity to an important new level. I wish you well in your personal, professional — and global — adventure! Looking forward to future posts about this extraordinary experience as it unfolds.

  6. Congratulations! I recognized one of your mandalas(the white one used in the cover above) in a mantra I listen too.I will have to find it and send. Lj*

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