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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The Holiday Card Project

I decided to take a part in the Deviant Art Holiday Card Project because I think its simple idea is great. Who wouldn’t like to please those who have not enough luck, pleasure or even health? Additionally, you can do that, which also enjoys you and what you consider to be your hobby.

The word charity usually involves donating money or things needed for life, more precisely for the physical part of life. But doesn’t soul feel hungry?

At school, I learned that there is a pyramid of values, the basis of which is just physical needs – food, drink, clothing, shelter. And if these are not saturated, you probably do not care about what is on the higher floors of the pyramid – values like love, belonging or self-esteem.

Traveling and aging brought me a little different experience.  With my own eyes, I saw huge number of people who were really poor, yet they lived in love and with supporting community, and I don’t think they had the problem of respect or self-esteem.

And of course, I saw and see a lot of people, who have their basic needs more than saturated, yet they didn’t open their hearts either for love or for the support of others.

I believe that donating money helps to change the physical reality of many people, which is great. But I also believe that giving joy feeds their souls and helps them accept what cannot be changed or paid for money.

And so I put my love and positive energy into a simple drawing, hoping to send pleasure and joy even across the ocean.

Thanks to the creative people in Deviant Art for inspiration and their excellent work.

Ivana

Sleeping summer

There are people who come to life with the sun and have almost no limits. On the contrary, my body switches to hibernation as soon as it’s too hot or hot for too long. And it has been so over the past few weeks!

I was paralyzed by the weather and worked only on autopilot as if I was drugged. Feeling sleepy, but without possibility of true sleep at night. Who would call it cooling when the daytime temperature in the shade is the same as the temperature of human body, and at midnight it is only ten degrees less? For weeks! And they forecast the hot hell will continue…

Luckily, some rain came today and brought happiness to my soul. I walked (not danced) in the rain and absorbed the drops by the whole surface of my body. It was so different from common shower. Although the shower was more comfortable, the rain today was more cleansing because it touched not only the body but also the soul, perhaps because I was so thirsty for it.

Later I noticed that the portion of today’s rain was nothing for the nature around. The soil remained dry and cracked, the fallen water somehow disappeared. Berries stay dried on the bush, sadly announcing low to zero harvest. And the leaves on the trees become yellow and start to fall as if autumn was already there.

One must be happy for a little thing and I’m looking forward to a nice sleep today, if possible without thinking of tomorrow’s hell.

Wishing you a pleasant summer,

Ivana

From Hate to Love

As I have already mentioned, drawing is for me a matter of emotions, something between prayer and therapy. The picture above is 5 years old, but its story is still alive and here it is.

Once upon a time I woke up with a strong feeling of hate. There was no reason, I barely opened my eyes from sleep, but the emotion was there and I had a full throat of it. The hate almost choked me up even though it had no specification. It was a pure hate without direction, the feeling itself.

I had no time to think how strange it is or why it’s happening to me. I needed to give it away quickly otherwise that emotion could destroy my whole day. So I took the color pencils into my hand and tried to vomit the hate on the paper.

There was no intention to create a drawing, nothing to say about a beautiful drawing, it was a blind and wild scribble in the beginning. But as time passed, my soul and hand calmed down, and suddenly the first hearts appeared on the paper. It was a 100% automatic drawing, so I watched with surprise what my hand was creating. It took time, but I wanted to be sure that the hate had gone.

I would say that the original scribble is no more visible under waves of beauty and love. But I know how the picture was developed and appreciate the very personal experience that love is really everywhere, even on the bottom of hate.

Ivana

To be connected

Following my last advice, I turn attention to the faith. Although I’m not a part of any religion officially, my heart speaks Hebrew.

I have no preconditions to it from the family, it came to me in dreams many years ago and since that I’ve confirmed a strong response of my soul and heart to the sound of the Hebrew language in various circumstances, even though I didn’t understand a single word in the beginning.

I’m still on the way of searching how to implement this fact into my daily life and not to pretend anything. Maybe I’m not fast enough and this is why the violet color sits deep in the wardrobe full of dust.

So I returned to the picture I drew a few years ago, when I was trying to catch my vision of the commandments inside of the tree of life.

I have meditated over this drawing last days and it seems to me, that each of us is a kind of smart-phone with the spiritual crown instead of antenna, constantly sending messages about true personal stuff to the whole universe with stars as transmitters.

It doesn’t matter how colorful and funny things are displayed to other people, the truth is preciously mined and sent to the attention of HaShem.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe when you get no direct answer, but the point is to keep trying and stay connected, right?

With love and apology for my Hebrew handwriting,

Ivana

Reading colors

There is no doubt, that colors affect our lives. We are surrounded by colors, and even if we do not realize it, their selection mirrors our personality and even our mood.

Last time I gave you a game with associations, which is pretty easy to play and read. And before I tell you about more sophisticated method of reading colors, I owe you a solution of my associations.

Looking at the picture, I always look for the weakest point first. At the moment, it is the orange for sure. The sun occupies just a little space and has no companion. So I would guess for a little joy.

To be sure, look at the opposite side, at the level of the complementary color, which is blue. Despite of the blue nature, this part of the color pie is smiling or it seems to me like it. It means that some deep topics of blue take a part of joy away. I would recommend to be less focused on sadness and more to be surrounded by orange in any form (even as a fragrance), which could help to light the darkness.

In general, the axis orange – blue is nicknamed the axis of relationships. So you can assume that the field of relationships belongs to the weak points of the author and it probably brings a portion of deep or sad emotions currently.

It calls for transformation, and this is nickname of the axis yellow – violet. Looking at these colors, we learn how much is the author ready to make or accept change.

And I don’t see much hope. Although I feel a lot of yellow available, it means there are tools to break the darkness, there is a dust on violet side. So I would recommend thinking less (which is the yellow part) and be more focused to the faith (which is the violet part). The picture says, that the current problem couldn’t be fully solved by logical brain. On the other hand, the honest faith of heart could do it.

Last, but not least is the axis red – green, which is nicknamed the axis of the balance of life. The words and picture reveal that the author is somehow afraid of the life fragility, but it is balanced by the love to trees and nature. Despite of the problems in relationships there is a stabilizing element that helps to overcome it. Anyway I would recommend to be more braved and take more risk.

So, it was a short example how to easily read associations of colors including mutual context. Comments and questions are welcomed.

But there is another way how to read your inner self through colors and it is illustrated on the main picture. The method is called Aura-Soma, comes from Great Britain of the late 1980s. I’ve been in touch with the color bottles of magic since 2004 and still they can surprise me with accurate and deep messages.

I believe there are many who have already met the Aura-Soma bottles. There are more than 100 of them already, so the picture above is a small example only. Would you like to share your experience?

With supporting love of colors,

Ivana

Kissing under blossoms

My knowledge of traditions isn’t great, and I’m also not sure where the tradition ends and the superstition starts. But they say that May is the month of love and a kiss under blooming tree confirms the love of two. And maybe that’s why the wedding ceremony sometimes takes place under the blooming gate.

The truth is, that blooming trees in May bring splendid beauty that takes breath and touches heart. The blossoms are mostly white or pale pink which corresponds to purity and love. All together promise juicy fruit in the future and what else can we desire for our love.

From that point I understand the habit of kissing lover under blooming tree and the romantic part of my soul likes the idea. But it seems that everything is subject to evolution. And I met a shocking evidence of it yesterday.

At that time my heart and soul were filled with the beauty of nature, I was returning from the walk through the blooming landscape where butterflies of many kinds accompanied my steps and the herbalist inside me had a full bag of hawthorn flowers, pine sprouts, nettles, etc.

And then, on the parking place near my home, a car stopped and two young people stepped out, engine running. There was nothing but concrete and a thin tree with few blossoms that had been planted a week ago. The young lovers quickly kissed each other and left immediately. It took about 2 minutes, but I am still in shock.

It looked like a duty, as if they checked an item on their “to do list”: to buy a bread, to kiss a partner, to make exercise. Hurry to get it all. Suddenly I felt sad and old.

Is this picture of time? Is the life so accelerated that there is not enough time for beauty and love? Do we need to make important events up to 5 steps from the car?

Yet I wish to the two young people that their love would be stronger than the tree they chose.

Ivana

Frozen Snowdrops

Unlike other parts of the world we have a mild winter this year. In my place I have seen snow rarely, but I live at the altitude of 250 meters above sea level (about 800 feet), so this is the last place in the country where the snow arrives.

Until last week there was almost no frost, and my body was slowly preparing for spring. The same signals I saw in nature, among others a great number of beautiful snowdrops.

I love and admire these hardy flowers that pop up their white heads even under snow when their time comes. Year after year they assure us that darkness of the winter ends and sunny hope of spring starts soon.

I felt so happy to see the snowdrops a week ago, and I didn’t pay enough attention to weather forecast that reported strong frost. Unfortunately, meteorologists were right and the frost destroyed the living splendor.

Snowdrops are still in the place, white and green on colors, but you somehow know that there is a dry emptiness inside instead of juicy enthusiasm. I wondered how many of us did the same. Meeting crisis and still looking healthy, even though grief, regret or sadness are eating our soul.

And like the frozen snowdrops we need time to recover. A year could be just right.

With love, Ivana