Message bottle

I was in the mood of a castaway and had a painting on the same subject in process. After the situation in Ukraine became terrible, I had to change perspective and gain a little hope.

I felt anxious because of all the people who were in the middle of the shooting, which was destroying their peaceful life and future. At a distance of less than a thousand miles from my home. How is it possible?

I prayed for peace, and if possible together with a democracy option. Then I put my prayer into the bottle, asking the whole Universe for help.

Love and peace for all of you!

Ivana

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From the moon to the galaxy

In recent days, my painting has been somehow attracted directly to the night sky. I was thrilled with the challenge, but worried about the result. So I needed more attempts.

In addition, I am not a landscape lover and I promised in summer that I wasn’t going to paint any. Half year later, I wished to combine the night sky with the silhouette of wooded landscape!

We have a proverb, which I cannot translate well, but which exactly corresponds to that situation. It’s something like “You always get the biggest slice of the rejected bread”.

It’s exactly me, and such situation is repeated again and again. Whenever in my life I said with full conviction “No, thanks, this is not my way”, sooner or later I just wanted to do it. Does it happen to you too? If yes, how often?

I think about the source of it, while the last layer of my watercolor galaxy is drying. Looking at the painting, I see the endless possibilities that are stupid to limit by frightened beliefs. And that leads me to realize that the problem is not that I don’t know myself enough and still don’t know what is and isn’t my path.

The whole galaxy says that we create boundaries in our lives and usually make them much tighter than they are given to us. Not only me, but many.

I wish for all of us that the catcher from the first painting would capture our fears and nightmares, and we could open the door to a wide galaxy of possibilities.

Feel free, stay safe and happy holidays!

Ivana

Always watched

Recently I felt lonely, so I was looking for relaxation in drawing. Putting confidence into my intuition and the ally of colored pencils, I was curious about the outcome.

And voila! Soon it became clear that I was drawing an eye. Why? I didn’t care at that time. I just kept drawing and stopped feeling lonely. Something new was being born and it gave me company.

As the drawing grew more and more precise, the more relaxed I felt. As if the eye knew all my pain and sadness, as if it contained all understanding and wisdom.

Although the drawing isn’t proportionally perfect, it has become my beloved friend and supporter in difficult times. Although my human friends call it sad, stressed or even chaotic, I still love it.

Hope you’d feel some impact as well. Double hope it’s positive!
Love, Ivana

Happy birthday, late Aquarius!

I love the light tone of their creative mind, strong intuition, sense for freedom and friendship at the same time, and of course their unique style of living, in any case original.

I admire many specific features of Aquarius, knowing that it’s not easy to live with all of them.

The natural tendency to independence might help in the career but it doesn’t help in keeping comfortable family life except the partner is mega-tolerant.

The same can be said about the playfulness that attracts a lot of people who want a good entertainment at any time.

To the group you can count the strong intellect and extensive imagination that create bold theories and visions and also attract enemies and opposition.

Having Sun in Aquarius doesn’t mean that your personality cannot be serious or partner-oriented. All of us are mosaic of planets and nobody is ruled by a single zodiac sign.

For example, I have Saturn in Aquarius in my native chart and works there in the area of my beliefs and philosophy. Considering that Saturn represents the inner order, we could say that my order of basic beliefs sounds pretty liberal because of Aquarius.

Love, Ivana

P.S. Sending special birthday greeting to Lydia from Canada.

Quo vadis?

The end of the calendar year is coming quickly. It’s time of balancing and planning. We look back to analyze mistakes, recall successes and compile list of resolutions to make following year even better.

How far does the influence of our will go? I have no doubt that will and determination are essential but not absolute. For example, I experienced how one infected tick bite ruined my plans for many months. I had to slow down my lifestyle, change priorities and focus my will in new directions.

And you know what? As soon as the body began to recover, the most difficult part was to stop fighting with destiny. I lost other months by trying to get myself back instead of going forward and accepting the change of course.

I wish to be more flexible and less proud, so I drew the picture to remind me, that limitations exist and some of them must be accepted.

And maybe in the future I will even understand that the small infected tick was an important tool of destiny, leading to happiness and prosperity. Who knows?

So I would like to wish all of us what somebody wise has already said before. Keep courage to change things that can be changed, keep humility to accept things that cannot be changed, and be wise enough to recognize the difference between.

Happy New Year!
Ivana

The evolution of parenthood

I had a chat with my friend about the public discussion whether homosexual couples can adopt or educate children. All speakers seem to be guided by the future prosperity of the children, having arguments about missing patterns, confusion in traditional values and a wide range of potential risks.

One part of my self understands such debates as manifestation of democracy and a gateway to liberal legislation. The second part considers such debates to be useless or even waste of time.

In my opinion, sexual orientation has such influence on the quality of parenthood as a place of birth. Neither of which we can change. But regardless of place of birth or sexual orientation, each one of us can have enough love and ability to take care of another human being. And this is, again in my personal opinion, the only meaningful optics to read the issue.

Perhaps the same discussion was led by the representatives of the plant kingdom a few million years ago. For a long time, they couldn’t agree on the rights of male and female plants, about competencies and responsibilities for offspring. Perhaps even a war has occurred and most of the plants with declared sexuality have been destroyed. Only a few resistant species remained like nettle, and since then it has been said that nettle couldn’t be burn even by frost.

A large group of peaceful plants that considered offspring higher than ego went through an admirable transformation. In order to avoid fighting of genders, they began to create both – male and female organs in the same flower. And this concept is dominant in the plant kingdom today.

I am afraid, that humankind is far behind the plants in evolution. But I still hope in healthy mind and loving heart.

Ivana

The sign of Scorpio

I was born in Scorpio and I’ve never liked the animal picture related to it. Nothing to say about trillion people repeating that Scorpio is the worst sign of zodiac and that it’s better to keep far from it.

Long ago, I created an easy visual tool for astrological beginners. The chart was divided in 12 areas like Olympic arena, Himalaya, Amazon rainforest, etc. Then I personified the planets and put them down to the relevant areas. It was like a funny desk board game.

All of us have the whole circle, but we differ in what areas the population is and what they do there, or how they interact. As soon as I simplified and visualized the chart, people understood their potential and pitfalls much easier.

Recently, I decided to renew the old board with more precious drawings. And here we have the Scorpio area!

Imagine rainforest deep in Amazon, wet and dark, colorful wilderness around you. There is breathtaking beauty combined with mortal danger at every turn. Half instinct calls to fall into forever, because all previous experience was empty gray in comparison. But the second half calls for caution. You watch the life and death so close each to other, both so intensive.

And there, hidden from civilization, the native people live with their traditions and ancient wisdom. They know the secret of living on the border between life and death. Their shamans know the healing rituals and potions above which modern medicine can shake the head with disbelief.

Daily life might be simple, golden chains or shiny cars have no meaning there. Life might be short, so it’s better to live intensively. And the powerful are those who know how to heal and protect life from death.

And how about the great sexual appetite of Scorpio, you have certainly heard about it? How does it fit into the Amazon jungle? Sex is magic from many reasons. At least it is connection, leading to creation of a new being, which is a miracle for sure! And from the long-time perspective, creation of new generations is a tool how to deal with death, perhaps the only one.

Having Sun in the Scorpio sign means the inner King lives in Amazon. And that’s nothing easy. Each king likes power and comfort of his palace, wide range of servants and plenty of fun. He needs to be important but how to manage it in the middle of rainforest, where death could be so close? Before anything else could be done, the king must assimilate on the jungle territory. Keeping too much pride could even kill him.

Looking at the other planets on board makes the whole story, or better to say the complete picture. I believe to finish my updated version soon.

Today, I wish all the best to all Scorpios worldwide, either in the Amazon or anywhere else.

Happy birthday!

Ivana

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

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