Life is a sparkle we are the LIGHT

Hugs From Heaven

I woke up this morning and I was a bit chilly since all our windows were wide open to let the fresh air in.  I reached in the closet and grabbed grandpa's sweater that I have kept for sentimental reasons.  It hangs in our foyer closet as if he continues to exist and lives among us. It is one of the only material items such as a piece of clothing we have of him.  Kids came down the stairs to eat breakfast and Kendra immediately walked over and gave me a big hug.  She inhaled deep and smiled.  "Grandpa's sweater" she said, stroking it for a moment and reflecting.  Then Jake came down and he was smirking why I was wearing such old sweater and then even he realized.  "Grandpa's sweater" he said and re-hugged me even tighter with a bigger smile.

I then walked over to my hubby making breakfast for the kids and hugged him.  "Dad wanted to give you a hug today" and he just hugged me for a brief moment.  I could tell he got a bit emotional.

Even though it was a simple thing and gesture on my part.... it made me feel good that I made everyone around me feel good and gave hugs with grandpa's sweater.  Hugs from heaven.

As everyone scattered off to school and work I began cleaning the house knowing I have more work lined up once the house is clean.  As I stood there washing dishes, I was thinking about those hugs I gave today wearing grandpa's sweater and I wished for one big hug from my grandma.  I wished I had a piece of clothing I could put on, a scarf or something material.  I don't.

My thoughts wondered for a bit and then it happened again.  I got a call and the call display said Magdalena. That is my grandma's name.  How many people have this name in town?  What are the chances I get a call from such person?  It was a wrong number and the lady had a heavy accent.  I had goosebumps but good ones. I think it was my grandma sending me a hug across the land line wishing she could hug me too.  I got my material item.  A phone call from heaven because I wanted to give hugs from heaven using grandpa's sweater.  It's a full circle of heavenly hugs.  This is the 2nd time I had this happened to me.  Some time last year I woke up with a very heavy sad feeling missing my grandma and nearly 5 minutes later I received a phone call with the call display "Magdalena" and I nearly dropped the phone.  I know in my heart that our loved ones are with us.  They are just as real as if in flesh except we cannot see them.  They have the power to do great things and give us messages from beyond.

Tomorrow will be 3 years since my grandma's passing.  May is the month that I lost the most dearest to me. First dad (my amazing father-in-law) and he's been gone for 4 years on May 17th.  Then a year later I lost my grandma & tomorrow is her 3 year anniversary.  And this year I lost my good friend Tara.  I'd say that in those last 4 years I have undergone some of the most difficult times of my life.  The struggles and daily trials were so unfair and the burden of dealing with some unforeseen situations was so toxic to my health.  I've realized that the more difficult and heaviest of hardships are the biggest learning experiences of our life.  I cannot imagine not undergoing anything I ever have because I always take something positive out of it. Although surviving all of it is another story all together.  I count my blessings and never take things fore-granted.  

I truly feel that this 4 year cycle of a great learning curve is over.  I am so glad too.  It has put a different perspective onto my life and in every way with all that has happened I am still so very thankful I have undergone what I did.  Thankful for my lessons and thankful I was able to survive and overcome some very big hurdles and crawl out of some very deep and dark places. Which ever way I look at it, I'm a survivor.

Loving life and looking forward to the next chapter in my life.  Grandpa's sweater will always remain my metaphor for what it represents in this family.  "Fibers of great knowledge"  It was his favorite sweater & he will continue to give us his hugs from heaven.

You live in the Light.....

Albert, 4 years ago today you closed your eyes for the last time and opened up your soul to the heavens to be with our loving God .... You lit up the sky with your eternal light & became an angel to all of us.  Your knowledge with genuine adore for mankind will continue to prosper inside your grandchildren.  I can see your gentle eyes inside their faces as they sparkle full of life and joy.  We miss you every day that goes by, we have our moments when the pain gets too much...missing you.  We mostly laugh at your stories you left behind & silly things you have said or done.  The sound of your laughter and singing still echos in the walls of your home & in our hearts .  We cherish all the memories of 13 years you have been with us under one roof & we were so fortunate to have had you share those amazing years.  You were the greatest dad & grandpa.... and you will never be forgotten. Today we celebrate your death as a rebirth into the glorious light. We Love you always.  ♡

FB Connection

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He has made everything beautiful in its time

Tara, You have inspired me above and beyond.  I have never looked at the bible the same way since your funeral.  Something lit up inside me & the beautiful verses pop up & light up in the pages literally unfolding themselves. We have had our discussions of the bible & IF this is you showing me something much more profound then my mind can even comprehend right now, thank you. I have made my very first image with a bible verse incorporated into the feeling I got and I made it thinking of you.  It is dedicated to you. These were my mother's day flowers which are so stunning and sum up life & existence but only like a grain of the sands on an endless beach.  My photo doesn't even do it justice how marvelous & fragile life is & how the words "live your life to the fullest, because tomorrow may never come" have taken on a new meaning in my life.  It is you that has altered that in me & made me realize something very sacred.  I was thinking of you and your children missing you on this special day dedicated to all mothers & your babies missing you so much... 

Ecclesiastes 3:2-8 gives us a representation of different life experiences: “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace”  This sums up this next one which has such a deeper meaning then the words can convey.  

Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end"  God, I wish we could just chat for five minutes...... Loooove you! <3

Be still and trust that I AM....

Heartache and sorrow are the most soulfully painful experiences a human can feel.  Although death is not our final destination, our physicality relies so much on the tangible of holding & touch flesh, hug and kiss or a silent connection made with eyes... there is such pleasure to be in the presence of a genuine loving person. We require human contact to laugh, dance, experience joy & sorrow equally, in order to fully Live.

I will never forget certain key moments I have had in life that shaped me into the human that I am.  Special key people who made an impact on my life with their friendships.  Even if it was just one thing that stands out that helps you get through a day by remembering. I will never forget the moment I realized that there is more to me then just my body, the day I realized I have a soul and the day I realized I could sometimes even see Auras.  There are no words to describe how magical we are, superior beings of such magnificence and poise.  Our purpose is to Live and touch lives by our existence.

I will never forget the day I felt the presence of God and Jesus enter my life... and at a later date enter my body to heal my sorrow.  The angelic glorious realm of goodness, our Lord & holy spirit is so very real.  I find comfort in prayer all the time.  Just when I feel nothing can lift me, when all hope seems to be gone and when the pain feels like thousand knives at your heart, I turn to HIM.  He heals me each time, embraces me in his glorious incandescent light and I feel comforted.

There are days I wish so much I could be with God, and not on Earth anymore but I have responsibilities as a mom to my kids to remain present in their lives as they need my love, nurturing and to be a positive role-model in their life & teach them what I am here to do.  I don't know why life is so unfair sometimes and why it hurts so much to simply live.  All I can pray to is that when life feels so heavy at times, I try to be still in my thoughts and trust that HE IS GOD.  ♡  Psalm 46:10

Angels

♡ ♡ ♡

I was talking to my friend Robyn yesterday about so many emotional things and at one point I said I was just so tired of always being a messenger... while I wish that sometimes I would get my questions answered by messengers.  Well I was truly shown again as I always am in certain key moments in life, that this is indeed my destiny and what a beautiful unveiling for me to comprehend to continue my journey with head up.

Shortly after we were finished talking I went into my cabinet and grabbed the angel wings my daughter Kendra gave me for Christmas.  I have taken my wings off for few weeks wearing other costume jewelry for work.  It felt so good to put them back on.  I admired them for a while, how special they are.  A gift.  The wings.  Entire concept from birth to death and how amazing life is.  How fragile yet powerful our impacts are on people and their presence in our life matters.  My beautiful daughter is my amazing Earth angel and transforming presence in my life & so is my son Jake.  It all feels so surreal some days.

Tara always admired my work and she knew how attached I am to my camera and how I love taking shots of absolutely everything, including water droplets.  She not only believed I would quickly capture the short lived rainbow, she knew I would share with everyone her beautiful message & I wouldn't shy from it. The rainbow only lasted about 30 seconds and I wished for all of her family and friends to be seeing it at that moment.  Then I thought, but heck I just captured it and I am meant to share this with them.  This is one of those profound moments when you realize it's a message yet you have to be a messenger to deliver.  It felt pretty amazing actually.

I think this how certain special souls can really do magic and help us see beyond our own vision.  I have been seeking a sign for me to continue on a path I find withdrawing from where I just don't have the time to pursue lately.  I have been wishing and praying for a miracle for my friend Tara while she was laying in the hospital, not knowing what the outcome would be.  I prayed and cried so much over the past weeks.

Oh, I saw so much more in one simple beautiful rainbow today through my tears flowing down my cheeks.... then I have seen in years.  A beautiful little miracle.

The presence of angels and their power is so real.  Rainbows are angelic messages from heaven above. It is so true and so very real.  We are Earth angels to some and many continue this special gift in the afterlife.  Tara was an angel to so many of her amazing friends and not to mention her children who she adores above and beyond.  She wants her kids to know she will always watch over them and protect them, shelter them with her rainbows and her angel wings.

If Tara could speak she would be beyond herself amazed and so happy to know she has so many friends loving her so deeply and care for her so much.

I love you so much my friend T.  You are truly an angel. ♡

The Presence of Love

For my friend Tara Sauciukas ♡

And in Life's noisiest hour,

There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,

The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.

You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within;

And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart

Thro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat;

You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,

Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve

On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.

And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,

How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.

The Presence of Love

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Tara:  You were simply one of a kind spirit.  Your life journey touched & changed so many lives.  I will never forget our conversations & I will treasure your knowledge and gift of making me see beyond my sight.  

I love you  ♡

Happy 15th Anniversary

♡ ♡ ♡

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

What is...

Artist and a beautiful mind

I was recently asked who I am inspired by.  To name a specific style or few artists and to be honest I didn't know how to answer that, in order for my answer to have a full impact on the person receiving the message and also for me to have a complete visual I am answering it to the fullest potential of who I am as an artist.  I didn't even know where and with who to begin.

I have searched inside myself that question for weeks, yet I knew that the answer I originally given was short and precise.  I keep coming up with the same conclusion.  I don't have one, two or even few specific people that inspire me.  I am truly inspired by so many different genres, styles, textures, elements and artists where not one specific stands out.  It would be unfair to name only a handful and neglect to mention all.  It's a collage of importance and the unimportant, the brilliant, foul, gray, black & white equally.

My inspirations can come unexpected to me from a simple homeless man on the street that captures the light and the image of this human imprints into my mind forever until the day I attempt to recreate the feeling it has left me with, by painting him/her or capture something similar with photography.  Either way I'd work to expose a negative of the image in my memory & bring it forth to make it alive.  It could be a feather, floating in the air on a busy jammed pack noisy street... where this feather can literally stop time for few moments as it floats ever so gently back & forth until it reaches it's gravital destination and lands gently on a wet paved sidewalk disappearing in an instance on the bottom of the shoe of one ten-thousandth foot that walked by me in those few seconds.

Inspirations can be as complex as Einstein with his brilliant mind and all his theories to Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci the renaissance men who have left an extraordinary impact on our evolutionary leap, etc..  I am an information hound & in constant awe when I research or discover a new artist I've never heard of.  A computer nerd that seeks out the information for no specific purpose other then to learn something new.  When I can't sleep I often search the web and find links that lead me onto mini journeys.  I'm never bored.

I was once accused of being a copy cat.  I found that to be such an insult.  However, I now know that it was only an evolutionary leap and acceptance of their own artistry without any merit to their accusations, the person who blamed me for such thing was indeed a full fledged copy cat themselves. And now I look at their accusation as a compliment that they felt threatened by me in any way.

My spectrum has no limits.  I was always artistic, even when I didn't know it nor believed it.  My focus is always broad and multi-sourced.  I am never working on one project but dozens at a time.  I don't always use my hands to create things.  Things are born in my thoughts and often that is the only place they exist.  I have an unlimited archive of art created but nobody has ever seen it.  It has never been born.  My mind simply never stops, hardly ever even at night during the time to sleep & rest, I am in a constant noise of silent thoughts.

To some maybe my conversations would be boring or totally wacky as to I have the vocabulary to use by means of communicating but my thought process is complex and slower in terms of being able to voice it and construct it appropriately for it to make sense visually to me, before I allow it to come out of my mouth.  Does this make sense?  To me it does.  I am a great conversationalist and often my communications are lengthy and deep.  Perhaps it takes a like minded individual to understand me or be willing to lend an ear.

And some days I am totally tongue tied & I cannot even form a sentence even if my life depended on it.

I am an extremist.  A very visual person but one who has to have senses fed into the impressions and visions. Nothing without feeling is worth expressing.

When I was a little girl age 4, the circumstances of our life had me in a boarding school and I only came home on the weekends.  Not many people know this story.  It is a story that most don't understand when I talk about it but it was a way in my country with two parents working to sustain a living with nobody else to watch me.  In those fundamental years, something inside me changed.  I had to learn a process of being, feeling, suppressing, heightening, loving even as little as a 4 year old girl.  Loving myself and believing in myself had to have a priority as I felt unloved & rejected.  Protecting my own inner thoughts and not allowing them to be heard by the caretakers, has left imprints of so many emotions I now tap into as an adult, slowly unlocking doors to my past, with the countless keys I discover on my journey of living.  Some are fearful but always intriguing even the scary ones.  I find discovering and unlocking my past makes me stronger.

Some of my youngest memories go back to being 4-6 months old.  I have full details of my clothing, building structures around me, people's faces, tastes, surrounding areas and my memories are vivid and real.  I communicated with my invisible friends who I now know were angels and spirit guides.  I find it amazing how the process of a child's mind changes over the years of becoming a teen, then adolescent and finally an adult.
Visions of beings as a child are light, awesome and filled with superior amazement.  As we age, these same beings can become feared by us all together and many times rejected.  As we age, we loose our ability to hear but this is only an illusion.  Everything is still all the same, we only have to unlearn all learned.

When I was nearly 5 I was kidnapped and missing for about 30 minutes. A neighbor saw me leaving with a stranger while playing outside and soon I had the neighborhood looking for me and I was found safe by my mother who ripped me out of the tight grip of this stranger.  I often wondered if this story was real as it seems so unreal to me to have survived this but the memories are very real to me.  It is in fact a real story as confirmed by my mother, as are all the stories I have shared with her of my very early childhood and she confirmed clothing, homes, furniture, people and items that may have been present as I described them to her.  I'm not totally nuts & this brings me some comfort.

I thank the fact I could read a books as young as 6 years old, I was able to read to myself visualizing and fantasizing the story itself as I was literally in it.  My imagination and my prayers and love for God has always been my saving grace.  In the art of a child'd mind everything is real just as life.  I was a young child who feared her father the most but I feared, respected and loved God more.  He was the only one who saved me on daily basis.  He is the only one who saves me still.  Over time my fear of God grew to absolute unconditional love, until there isn't bigger love to feel then the love for God, equally loving for your children and people you'd die for.

My abilities were always suppressed and hidden however, I sometimes used it as child's play to entertain myself.  I knew things that would frighten a kid and things I shouldn't know or see.  There were so many other forces at work and now when I look back on my life, it is to me often unfathomable how I am able to still be here surviving all I have and not be locked up in a padded room over-medicated.  But then I think about other people's hardships and I understand everyone lives a different story and endures their own share of hard times, sufferings and even horror.

Escaping my country into Austria, was an extra-ordinary developmental step for me.  I was 12.  Being in a refugee camp is a memory so frightening yet so dear to me.  It was at this time I became a real kid and exposed so raw to other nationality, culture, and various different types of people who influenced me so deeply.  I think living in fear from my bio father for 12 years has kept me from expanding fully my thought process and my journey ultimately transitioned into a heightened and enlightened path I didn't know yet.  It is at this age I cocooned unknowingly & began growing my secret butterfly wings, that were invisible for so long even to me.

Finally away from my abusive father (who I have learned to forgive and accept as a somewhat brilliant mind) my entire life changed.  My wings grew over the course of few hard years learning a new language and re-learning how to walk the new soil across the ocean.  Loosing all my friends wasn't easy but wasn't as hard I thought it would be.  People's faces literally changed and the way I learned to understand English was reading lips and the language unheard from behind the eyes.   It's amazing how much you can learn about a person from silence just by listening to the untold story of their eyes and what life lives behind them.

I always look into people's eyes but my eyes always travel to the lips too where I find comfort in the visual of watching them speak so I clearly understand each word.  I often wonder how the mind processes those words.  Do I hear them in English and transfer them into Slovak my native tongue only to transfer them back into English to comprehend?

To this day all my childhood friend are all alive and they are all 12 years old.  They will always be 12, it's such a perfect innocent age to be.  It brings me comfort to go back to being 12 a time of when I saw them last, and revisiting that chapter I left behind so long ago.  Without goodbyes, I love and miss them all so much.  To them individually, I must have just died disappearing into this country, but to me collectively they all live and are remembered.  Even to this day, I try to recollect their names at least their first names but my mind and memories are slowly showing their age.

My challenges are deeply rooted in the acceptance of myself as a great artist even though I am told very positive things about my art and talents on a regular basis.  I don't think it is fully about confidence and acceptance.  I have that modesty that humbles me and knowing that I am only a grain in the endless sands makes me feel small in the artistic field.  I think it is about never ever settling to accept myself as a great artist because I am constantly changing, learning, expanding and altering my styles and talents.  The word great is related to a size and or dimension.  To accept I am great would be limiting myself to a certain size or dimension, large or small and I am neither.  I am multi-dimensional, well at least my thought process is anyways.  My decisions, your decisions and every second alters the results of life and I think about that daily and in the choices I make.

I do have a beautiful mind, my thoughts always travel into the depths of existence and I seek the knowledge and truth that which is not seen nor felt.  I am equally dark and have my deep dark moments that allow me to feel profound sorrow and pain.  My soul always quivers to be anything but human even though I know it is a gift to be human and exist on this plain at this very present.  I try every day to accept and appreciate my human abilities and gifts.  I am very grateful.  I have an ability to sense fully the physical, yet feel so limited in this unlimited universe to be in flesh.  I wish I would have full control of what my mind is capable of - and do it in flesh.  It is constantly wavering and seeking to pinpoint yet it is hindered by the only thing it can be.  Me.  Until I find a way to unlearn all that I have learned, I am influenced by all that is humanly related.

So what makes an artist?

We are all artists.  Every single soul on this planet is an artist just as he/she is beautiful.  Some are just more in the highlight and/or are able to express themselves in a way that influences the objector on some level. Weather you are the creator or the viewer of art, you are equally creative.  It takes a process to internalize art and let the mind communicate it to the soul.  It takes a beautiful mind to appreciate an artist.

Love,
Janette

I AM....

I’m ordinary.  I get weak, I bleed & I cry too.  Not a superwoman, not a hero, nor a doctor, lawyer, dentist, teacher or politician.  But I am a mother & a wife.  I shout, I spank, my house is very messy at times & I have very lazy days.  I love to dance.  I understand peace as much as I do hell.  I believe in the unbelievable.  I am unique yet indifferent.  I am loyal yet have cheated.  I do everything I set my mind to do - except how to fix what really matters.  I don’t have money but I work hard every single day. I value moments of life.  I'm a foodie.  I appreciate pleasure & pain equally.  I don't know how to lie but I have done it.  I understand balance yet I live in a crooked world.  I am kind yet ruthless.  I see the unseen.  I am jaded but I have faith.  I see the light & blackest darkness.  I have debts & doubts.  I love laughing.  I make mistakes and even lost a friendship.  I am not a material girl yet I drink & gamble.  I don’t believe in perfection yet I find myself aim for the unreachable.  I have God.  I hate money & liars.  I love colour yet I live black or white.  I feel invincible just as much as invisible.  I am driven by extra ordinary force.  I see beauty in things people overlook & throw away. I love living but I'd die for my kids.  I know how to keep a secret but I don't like them.  I am crazy but I blend in.  I explore things that scare me the most.  I don’t brag but I am proud.  I don’t try things, I do them.  My actions must have a purpose.  I am real.  I am human.  I AM EXPOSED.