The fence of mourning

At the moment, I feel to live behind the fence of mourning. My father passed a week ago and since then I’ve been moving in kind of parallel reality.  Even though I can’t cry yet, I would say it’s the beginning of a mourning phase.

There is no guaranteed recipe for mourning, because it’s an immersion into deep layers of heart and soul, which are highly individual. Of course, it will help if you are part of some religious family, that have funeral and mourning rituals rooted for millennia.

But this is not the case. I was born in the sixties in that part of the world, where believing in God automatically meant being against the ruling regime. My dad kept the unbelief until the day he passed. I found my own spiritual path, which I need to follow in my mourning, even though I feel that my father does not agree. So, I am trying to find “neutral” ways of mourning, which makes the situation worse.

Drawing and painting help me release trapped emotions. I grab the purple and green all the time, perhaps they mostly fit to my grieving mood. The mystery of purple accompanies my inner voyage to the realm of souls, the green somehow contains the earthy truth about the cycle of life. There are neither fans nor enemies, only pure truth that one has to deal with.

When I painted the barbed wire fence above, knitting rows of memories back and forward, I realized, that what looks like painful thorns today may appear like a blooming shrub in a few years. And what looks like a heavy burden today may become the seed of a future treasure.

Mourning cannot be skipped or cheated, I’m sure of that. We can choose the way, including the hope and light in the end of the mourning tunnel.

Thanks for reading, I needed to share my heart with you.

Love, Ivana

P.S. The picture is watercolor based, with final touch of black liner and colored pencils.

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Mirror, mirror, tell me…

Recently I have noticed how many trees of Larch (Larix decidua) are fresh and green as in early spring unlike the others that proofed passing tropical summer by falling yellow leaves. Looking down I saw the finest hay instead of grass under every Larch on my way, while the isles of new green appeared on other places after few rains in last days.

It almost looked that Larch had a unique ability to keep water for its solo needs and not to share it with its close neighbors. At that moment I saw the evil Queen from Snow White, because especially this summer a drop of water was a step to survive. But Her Majesty Larch didn’t care about survival of the others but only about her own beauty and freshness.

From strange reasons I felt disappointed. It hurt my naive fair-play attitude and broke the current idea of larch as a fragile individual to be protected. Even as a little girl I touched the soft larch needle rather than plush toys. I admired the courage for being different from other conifers because children knew how classmates could punish otherness. I loved this extraordinary tree as well as walks around the river in my hometown, where they grew much and witnessed my teenage years and dates.

I still love the scent of larch that is similar to pine, but slightly softer. I love the exclusive homemade “honey” from the young cones full of tasty resin, and I love the beauty of larch wood in shades of red. But from now, I will never believe that Larch is weak.

Thinking about it I realized that Larch in the system of Bach flower remedies helps to increase our self-esteem and self-confidence. So, there must be some, right?

Later I also had to admit that during my lifetime I often wanted to protect those who had demonstrated weakness but didn’t really need my support. This was a bitter pill to learn from Larch, but thanks for it!

With love, Ivana