Alaska Dreamin On Such a Winters Day

It's been along time since I sold my 102 year old Victorian home in SLC packed up my paired down belongings, grabbed my boys Joel and Porter, took my Mercury Topaz and drove the Alcan Highway to my new home. People especially family and friends ask; why did you move so far away? Why? I often ask myself the same question and then I remember why, the decision was made because I began to feel this inexplicable pull to move to Alaska. I found myself longing for my Alaskan cabin, solitude, new beginnings, a chance to paint and create to my hearts content and I wanted a wonderful relationship (men in Alaska outnumber the women 10 to 1 or so they say).. Like my header said: As with all great notions it started with a daydream.Yet it was more like a pull in my soul, I couldn't explain it because it didn't make sense; sell everything, leave your job, leave your friends and family and move 3,000 miles north where you do not know anyone and start over at 40 + years old. Crazy! Yet the call of the wild was too strong to ignore, my pioneer spirit was excited unknown frontiers. So being true to myself I came to Alaska.

The reason for this story is a coincide-God, I noticed today while tidying up my studio. This is a painting/assemblage' that I created in 1994 in SLC. This work of art contains the seeds of my current artistic style.  My artistic skills has improved quite a bit, still I love this piece. It contains my mission statement I made: Through my passion, power, and beauty. I create a world where others recognize their unique spirits and all live in joy and a celebration of life.

The interesting coincidence is this painting exactly duplicates this scenic outlook of the Matanuska River in Palmer. Sharen and went out late, late one summer evening to sketch this scene. Sheren is my crazy doppelganger artist/friend http://sakharris.blogspot.com/ she also moved to Alaska from Massachusetts with a similar story.

The first one came totally from my imagination and the other one is the chalk sketch I make that night. They are the same! Is that weird or what! My dream existed in my imagination and was brought to a painting before it was a reality literally. My minds eye saw it first, this is my coinci-God.

Coincidences Coinci-Gods or Karma Costa Rica Style

Adventure: An exciting and very unusual experience. I have always told myself, be careful what you ask for because the universe always provides. Now my definition might be a zip line or extreme bungee jumping, not the kind we got. However it all turned out.

Here is my story: We were going to the Hotel Aranjuez http://www.hotelaranjuez.com/ to shower and relax before we were to fly out at 6:00 a.m the next morning. I was planning to go visit Emilia Fung's Gallery: Galeria 11-12 Arte http://www.galeria11-12.com/ (she specializes in purely Costa Rican art past to present). That was not to be. After my shower I realized that I had left my backpack on the taxi, computer, cellphones, cameras, passports and money etc.! Fortunately, because my friend Martha Sanchez had called the cab for us, we had the name of the taxi company and the cab number. Panic and disbelief set in, the cab company began to give us the run-around so we went to the Organismo di Investigation Judicial (cop shop) that night and they said no crime had been committed. No Satisfaction.

Judy Vars and Martha E Sanchez

The next morning our friend Martha http://marthaesanchez.blogspot.com/ showed up to help us out, because we were scared and frustrated there was some loud arguments and bruised feelings. Thank you my dear friend  and Sebastian for everything! your warm home for three nights, your good cooking, yogi, showing us San Jose, introducing us to your friends and having a party, showing us a Hopi ceremony and most important, keeping with us even when things got difficult and crazy! Friendship is stronger than fighting. I love you!

We all went to the police, it was like an old episode of Hill Street Blues, the cops made some calls and put some pressure on the taxi company, next we all got into the squad car and drove to the taxi company. The driver checked the taxi, no backpack. Then the police detectives took us to the American Embassy to get our new passports. They gave us VIP treatment according to Martha.

That night, the night of the second day something unbelievable happened: The woman who had gotten into the taxi next noticed my backpack and decided to keep it instead of telling the cab driver, she looked inside and found my name and got onto Facebook. From there she contacted my friends in Alaska, Kimberly Bustillos http://artdebustillos.com/ she contacted my other friend Sharen AK Harris http://sharenakharris.com/about.html who called my son Porter and he called my daughter Nicole who reached me that night at the hotel. She said; Someone found your backpack and gave me Edith's name and phone number.

Edith Campos also contacted Martha and Sebastian Sanchez http://marthaesanchez.blogspot.com/ in Costa Rica. Martha and I jumped in the taxi and went to an older barrio and got the pack back. Everything was still there, computer, cameras, cell phones, money, passports!!! Edith Campos is my Facebook Angel. Facebook should give her an award.

Edith Campos, Judy and her MoM

Later that night Martha and I went to an Internet Cafe to try and change our airline reservations but I got nowhere with the airlines or Price Line (Alaska Airlines are shits) they told me that we needed to pay an additional $4,366 just to get home. The next day after we walked all over downtown San Jose, CR trying to make international phone calls, in defeat we returned to the American Embassy. HELP we cried! The phones at the embassy worked no problemo, they spoke English, and renegotiated the airline ticket. In a couple of hours we had our tickets home thanks to another angel Charmaine my daughter.

That is not the end of my story: We had only been eating the complimentary breakfast at the Hotel Aranjuez to save money. After things were sorted out and we knew we were going to be leaving the next morning we went to a soda (restaurant) called Isabel’s to enjoy our last meal in Costa Rica.

The next day in the Houston Airport aka George Bush International, after the first leg of our journey home. I was sitting by the internet port charging my computer when an older woman asked me for help, she asked me to send an e-mail informing her party in Boston she had missed her flight. I e-mailed her party the time and flight number of her arrival. I noticed her name was Isabel, so I said funny, we ate at a place called Isabel’s last night in San Jose, Costa Rica. She said; so did I, in San Jose by the hospital? I said: Yes, we must have missed each other by just 30 minutes .We both said; What are the odds of that? I ask; Are you Costa Rican? She said; Yes. I ask; Where do you live? She said: Golfito. I ask; Do you know Reymundo, our friend who owns DolphinQuest http://www.dolphinquestcostarica.com/Dolphin_Quest_Costa_Rica/About.html She said; Yes! and has known him since Raymar his oldest son was born in the ocean about 19 years ago. Everyone we met in Golfito think the world of Reymundo who is originally from Detroit. We begin to have a conversation,she says she has started the process to open a bilingual school in Golfito to teach English to children and adults. Coincidentally, Peter's and I have this dream for retirement to do just that.

We are asking ourselves what kind of crazy coincidences in the universe made this happen? We were all feeling goosebumps and praising DIOS!

The story gets even stranger if you think about it. Had we not missed our flight like Isabel, we would not have met in Houston at all. Suddenly I said; You are going to Boston, Isabel! and we are flying to Seattle! We looked at the ticket and we should have been at gate C-18 not C-14 where we were sitting with Isabel. We hugged took a picture and ran to our gate to get on our flight in the nick of time.

Judy Vars and Isabel Arias

I do not know the significance of this meeting but something tells me that there are forces larger than we know at work for our good and our protection if we can just get out of the way and let it happen. Thank you to the people of Costa Rica you have strengthened my faith in Humanity! Thank you Great Spirit!

I LOVE COSTA RICA and I love the people of Costa Rica! Thank You Dios!

Spirit Messengers and the Ghosts from Christmasses Past

Messengers

Encaustic Beeswax

12" X 9"

Judy Vars

painted for Mary Barrett

This commission was just completed for Mary Barrett. This is a woman from my days of yore, we didn't know each other on a personal level but we had commonalities; we were married to the same man for a time, she took care of my son every other weekend for awhile about 20 years ago and we share a fellowship.   OMG does that make us sister/wives that's the way Mark would have liked it all his X's under one roof and him the rooster. OK Judy get outa that place. Here is a part of Mary's communication that lead to this commission...............

Hi Judy,

Interesting experience tonight. I'm knocking around on Facebook, looking up people from my past and I looked for Mark Whitear, who I was once married to from 1992 to 2001. Didn't find him, but I found Ryan, Keri, Sarah and Porter. Then I saw you and out of curiosity did a search and found your website and blog. OMG! What an amazing woman and artist you are! Who knew??
What I found most interesting was that I went to Alaska in May, that I was born in Massachusetts (near Salem, in Danvers, which was where the witch trials actually took place anyway) and that while in Arizona a couple weeks ago I had some very unusual interaction with ravens and have been studying raven medicine since. I'm also an artist, but not nearly as accomplished and bold as you are. I still work in corporate America, because, truth be known, I like the money. But there's a part of me that is always the artist, the wild woman, the adventurer. Most recently I did a couple watercolors at Lake George, NY where Georgia O'Keeffe spent a few summers.
I moved back to New England in 2004 for a couple of different reasons: 1) it was a symbolic starting over 2) something inside told me to, and more and more I listen to that Something. Now I live on the other side of Massachusetts from Salem, in the Berkshires, near the New York border, in a 150 year old house across from a cemetery.
But I'm rarely home except on weekends because I do banking project management and I travel a lot. Right now I'm in a hotel in Rhode Island.
Anyway, I'm so blown away by your artwork and would absolutely love to buy a raven painting from you! Do you have anything for sale, not too large?
Also, if you could say hello to Porter for me. How is he doing? I haven't talked with Mark for at least 3 years now.
Thanks!
Mary Barrett

This is the next  e-mail I got, she gave me permission to reprint in my blog. I was going to edit it but her writing style is too good.  Parts of it are very personal and heartfelt.  This is the painting I created to go with her raven experience.

Hi Judy,
I would like you to paint a raven for me based on your artistic interpretation of my encounters in Arizona, in November.
I’ll tell you the story...
Although I was born in Massachusetts, my parents moved us to Arizona when I was 4 years old, so that’s where I grew up and lived until 1981, when I moved to Wyoming, then Utah, then back to Wyoming (back in the days when I was with Mark).As background to this story, my upbringing was rather dicey because my father sexually abused me and my mother was completely unable/unwilling to deal with the situation, even though I told her about it more than once. She was so completely repressed and shut down emotionally that the only way she could deal with it was to ignore it. My voice wasn’t heard and she had never developed one so she couldn’t protect me. I’ve been working to regain my voice and power for many years.
My mother died in 2004, the year I moved back to Massachusetts to begin my life again (for the umpteenth time) but this time owning my power and experiences. I flew back to Arizona to be with her and spent the last days of her life with her. I was with her at the moment of her physical death. (That experience is a whole other story!)
I was upset for some time afterward because I couldn’t feel my mother’s presence after her death. Maybe because she hadn’t really been “present” in my life all along? After the deaths of other family members and close friends I have had visitations and interactions of all sorts, so this was disturbing to me. Where was my mother? I felt abandoned yet again.
I have been working with a therapist for some years now on processing my childhood, and healing from all the fallout of my early misadventures in addiction and running away. In fact, I met my therapist in NA in Nebraska when Mark and I moved there in 1999. (That is yet another story…I’m full of them...I'm in the process of writing a book called “Zsa Zsa Whitaker, the Early Years”.)
Mark went out of his mind in the next year or two after that. He didn’t want me to do therapy, get involved with “woo-woo” (occult, etc.), become a vegetarian or practice Yoga; all of which I was led to do by the power greater than me that somehow is IN me, and somehow IS me.

Enough about that. Back to the Arizona story…
In September I found out my father has inoperable, terminal lung cancer with only months to live. I have been working with him to resolve the bullshit from childhood. I have confronted him twice and said what I needed to say. Once in 2001 and again in 2007. We have a relationship, but it’s not comfortable and I’ve wanted to run from it. Instead I face it, and use it, to continue to take back my power.
I’m working on forgiveness and love, but that is a journey, not an event. Now comes the end of his life, so I need to do what I need to do while I still have the chance. I don’t know how that will play out from now until he dies. (I will return to Arizona in early February, if not before.)
I have a sponsee I’ve been working with for over 4 years. She has a lot of the same background as I do. She came on my trip to Arizona with me last month. She had never been to the Southwest and has become interested in Native American spirituality lately (by attending Navajo sweat lodge ceremonies in New England led by someone who comes up periodically from Chinle, AZ) so she begged me to take her to Arizona, a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts. She stayed the first 4 days of the trip with me, then flew home. I stayed in Arizona an additional week after she left to visit my father and other family members.
The first 4 days while she was there we explored Northern Arizona…the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Jerome and some other out-of-the-way places I’ve been drawn to over the years. It is a powerful area for me and for many people. We went to these spiritual places to pray and meditate. I was preparing for my visit with my father and she was letting go of a relationship. We both asked for strength and healing.
There is a new Buddhist Stupa in Sedona that blows my socks off when I go there. The energy is phenomenal. My son brought me there last time it was in Arizona and I couldn’t wait to go back. The experience did not disappoint.
The ravens first came when we were at the Grand Canyon, two of them. They were amazing! They were huge and black and came close to us, very close, and landed. Then they would fly out over the canyon and soar for a while and then fly close to us and land again. It was breathtaking! They were definitely bringing a message to us, we both recognized that they were communicating something, but neither of us was familiar with raven medicine and weren’t sure what it meant. We were mesmerized by them and talked about the encounter for days afterward, and still do!
The rest of the trip we continued to get raven messages. We saw Native American raven fetishes in Sedona. I bought one for me that I now keep by my bedside, and one for her. We went to a psychic fortune teller in Sedona who mentioned that we should pay attention to the signs we had seen. We found raven art in Jerome, an old ghost town that is now mostly an artist colony. I bought a beautiful card depicting a raven (a print of an original painting) at a gallery there.
When we went to Prescott to have dinner with my son and daughter-in-law, they took us to a restaurant called “The Raven”. We had not told them of our raven experiences. There were murals of ravens on the walls.
Ravens everywhere!!
Another significant thing that happened while we were there…my mother came to me twice, finally…6 years after her death. The first time was at the Stupa in Sedona. My sponsee and I were meditating there and I suddenly felt my mother’s presence, very strong. It was unmistakable, and I hadn’t been thinking of her, or trying to contact her. The message isn’t clear to me yet. She showed me the box from her favorite kind of perfume “Red”. That was all. Not the bottle, not the frangrance, just the box. She was clearly there and sending me a message. I’m sure of that, even though, just like with the ravens, I’m not sure what the message is. Yet.
Later that same day, in Jerome, in an art gallery called Angels Inn Gallery (a different gallery than where we had found the raven art) a woman in the corner was making an angel out of clay. There were many of these angels in the gallery, different sizes. She called to us to come see what she was doing. We went over to her and she said she wanted us to see this particular angel, because the angel has a name. She said she never names her angels but this one was named “Grace”. That was my mother’s name! Again, I felt her presence. And I have felt it since coming back to New England. Not constantly, but off and on. Once I was changing channels on the television in the hotel, which I rarely turn on, but was looking for the weather channel. Suddenly there on the screen was the word “GRACE” in large scrolled letters taking up most of the screen. It was one of those religious shows…but it freaked me out. Hi, Mom!
So then last night I found your website and saw the ravens and knew I should contact you. I’m sure you’re supposed to paint the raven for me, but I have a feeling there is more to it than that. We shall see!
By the way, I remember when your mother was dying and Porter came to stay with us. The morning we found out she died, Porter and I planted tulips for her. He picked out the bulbs himself. They came up beautifully in the spring and I still have the pictures of them and the memory of that morning. They were called “Queen of the Night”. They are almost black, as close to black as the hybridists have been able to produce.
So, I will let you paint the raven however you think it should be painted. You will know how to do it. I really like the Gold Raven, perhaps you could adapt it, but I will leave that up to you. Please make the size about 12 inches square, or something close to that. It doesn’t need to be square, it can be rectangular. You decide, but nothing bigger than that. (I want it for a particular space in the house.)
I will send a deposit, or pay in advance if you want. Just let me know how you want to proceed.
It was wonderful to hear from you! Thanks for responding so quickly. I hope to hear from you again soon.
Mary
This is the e-mail I received after she got the painting!

Hi Judy,

Happy Holidays! I got "Messengers" in the mail on Thursday. I absolutely love it...thank you SO much! My husband, Sam, likes it too. I've bought a dozen paintings and pieces of art in the last couple years and he said your piece is his favorite. High praise indeed. I've bought some pretty good stuff. :)

I'm attaching another selection of my writing that I thought you might enjoy, inspired by the same trip to Northern Arizona, and past memories. It was immensely helpful to write it.

Hi to Porter.

The light is returning! Yay!!

Thanks again,

Mary