Cupcake Day Signs, Gifts, Giggles, and Blessings

 

Magic by Elli Groninger

Cupcake Day, for those of you who know me, happens twice a year - every year. Once on my beloved daughter Jessica's Earth Birthday when she was born, which was April 29, (1988), and once again on her Celestial Birthday, also known by some as the "death day" on January 9th, (2015). So on these two days my husband and I buy or make a cupcake which we share together, and drink a celebratory glass of Cupcake wine (yep it's a real brand and it's not bad!), cheering her on her accomplishments, adventures, and journeys near and far.

These days can feel a little and sometimes a LOT serious and heavy and heartwrenching, and after 10 years of her passing I can say I am better at navigating the emotion than I was for the several years. So this year I said to my husband, was feeling especially heavy because a little over a year ago my beloved sister, Melinda passed, and not even nine months later, my 90-year-old mother passed. All three had lengthy and alarming and painful illnesses, so with each came true challenges with finding balance in my heart and mind.

On top of that, this very weekend my mother's home sold, and that was feeling extremely emotional, mixed with all those feelings of her pain, which I couldn't control, memories flooding in both good and not so good, and feeling the absence of my sister so acutely I found myself having nightmares and sometimes crying (when nobody would see) and I was feeling rather devastated and alone.

ENTER ELLI GRONINGER! I ADORE this woman! I adore her work and we have several pieces I've collected over the years, plus I thoroughly enjoyed giving some of them to my Lovies when they were here. Shortly before my birthday, which falls also in April, I fell in LOVE with this Monarch Moose figure Elli created because when I saw it in the State College Framing Company and Gallery it made me giggle right out loud. And I said to Rob, my hubby, "You know what? I think I'd love to have this in our home to remind me to lighten up and not be so serious!" He likes to make me happy so he bought it for me, and I can't tell you how many times I walk by and tap its little nose or even give it a kiss right on its nose for the joy it brings in reminding me how blessed I am to have these Lovies in my life, both while they were on Earth and now when they have the whole Universe to play in. It reminds me that LIFE is the important thing. That death is just a split second transition, that the suffering is temporary, thank goodness, and many sweet and loving things happen between us all not only while they were here but now too!

I love the signs and gifts that they're with us in spirit. For example, my hubby and I were listening to a playlist we've listened to a thousand times, when we ask Alexa to play Frank Sinatra. She loops through a fairly familiar playlist that's pretty long and thoroughly enjoyable, but THIS weekend, what happened? I don't know, but a new song came onto that playlist and we had nothing to do with it but I suspect my Lovies in their heavens did. We were in the kitchen cooking dinner, and in the middle of this familiar playlist along came Andrea Bocelli's GORGEOUS rendition of Time to Say Goodbye and for some reason this piece of music captured my heart with such beauty and soul and oh my gosh, gave me the best kind of goosebumps (always a sign of spiritual presence with me). I vaguely knew that my sister's beloved hubby had played it at her funeral service, but at that time I was home in bed sick as a dog, (probably pneumonia, ack it was so bad...) and her husband was kind enough to set up the service streaming so I could watch it from my bed. 

So THIS weekend, when it played out of the clear blue sky and captured my attention I wanted to know more about who was singing and who this person was. Welp. It was a gift. Because there are so few people you run across who are such that you would want to be like them. I googled all I could find out about him and was enchanted to find that his whole family is talented and refined and beautiful beyond compare, AND that his mother was advised not to allow her pregnancy to continue because the docs knew he would suffer some physical challenges. Well God bless her in the best way, she didn't listen to them and she had this special baby, and she was also wise and compassionate, and in raising him with his surgeries and various physical challenges she noticed that music was the very best thing that soothed him when he felt sad or frustrated, so she gave him all the exposure she could, which he asked for, and as he grew up, he eventually learned to play a million different instruments, speak several languages, sing like magic, and love without reservation, which led to his children becoming some really amazing and talented people too! AND led to the whole wide world loving him and his family and the gifts and magic they share so generously with us.

So this tiny gift of a song which I absolutely believe was my sis in spirit lifting my heart when it felt so crushed missing her, led me to a discovery that now brings me hours of joy in listening to him - and his family sing, and such joy in just knowing there are people like this on the planet. How lucky we are. Thanks Mellie. No wonder she loved him. She used to blast his music along with many others when she was here, and she's still helping us to share in the joy. True joy. It sure felt like magic to me, give it a listen.

So that led me to contemplate LIFE and what my Lovies created and shared. They were all very different from each other, but each exquisite in their own way for their own reasons. I thought about the beautiful rocking chair my mother gave me shortly before she passed. It's so precious in our home. Every member of my family going back to her mother and father and quite probably her mother's mother has sat in it, AND my beautiful son and his wife and the newest member of our family, my granddaughter, so it's a very special chair. It had seen some wear, being over 100 years old, and even though my mother recovered it once, it was time to do it again, so I invested and now it's just such a special piece of family history that I love to rock in sometimes, remembering all the good times, when it lived in my grandmother's home, then my mother and father's home, then her home, then ours. Sigh. It's like being wrapped in a big hug to sit in it. 

The lovely rocking chair XO
Now recovered in soft forest green velvet.

Mom gave us something else that I a l m o s t didn't bring home. It was the grandmother clock that had belonged to her mother. I remember hearing it chime when we visited my Gammy's home, which was my favorite place to be because she loved me so well. The reason I almost didn't take it was because our town is fairly small and we do not have anything to choose from for people who know how to repair clocks and get them working. I understand that mom's clock was working when she moved here, but when it stopped, nobody helped her get it fixed (I'd have done it but I didn't know it wasn't working cause I didn't see her during Covid and not much after because we were both so sick). But again, my hubby was so wonderful he went online and found a wondrous clock man called Walt Mack, who came and took the clock back to his place of business about an hour and a half away, replaced some parts, serviced it, and got it working, and TA DA! We now have that beeeeeeeeeautiful sound in our home what I remember from when I was a kid and what it says to me is: Time is special, use it wisely and let it sing to you. I stopped wearing watches a long time ago and I do not run my life by the clock since I retired - my schedule is crazy artist stay up all night working and sleep a lot of the day, because I'm a project person and I'll stop when the work tells me it's a stopping point, not the clock. But THIS clock is like a grandmother herself, reminding me to BE in the moment and to LOVE how I spend my time. So it is most precious to have, thanks mom for the gift, and thanks Rob for making it work.

Grandmother clock sings her song so beautifully XO

Then I thought of my sister and all she gave to me while she was here. Lucky am I to have her with me. She was my person and I'm pretty sure she still is. She was everybody's person because she was a nurturer from a very early age. My sis was different from me, very much so, since I, being an artist from the tender age of about 6, didn't care a hoot about people, I cared only about being alone and creating. Florence Nightingale I would never be, though I was and am fierce about supporting my children emotionally, and trying to protect them from any who might hurt them, I want them to spread their wings and fly, where my sis was just always cooking and phoning and listening and talking and connecting and teaching and loving so very well. I do love with all of myself but it's quite different. So we were very close and loved each other unequivocally, having a sort of symbiotic relationship. We loved giving each other presents and knew each other fairly well, and there are things in my home, just so many that I have around me that she gave me, one of which is a beautiful stained glass mobile that hangs above my desk in my studio, turning gently in the breezes that flow through, flashing light here and there, like she did. I love it. I think of her when I see it and it makes my heart sing. Thanks Mellie, for all of your gifts, which were many, and for being my person, then and now XO

The beautiful stained glass mobile XO

She also gave me such fun birthday presents. She'd say about a week or two ahead of time, on the phone or if we were visiting, "Somebody I know has a birthday coming up! What would you like?" And that's how I got the lovely rainbow candle holder she gave me which is kind of like a little piece of God or Creator sitting in my studio because, rainbows you know....

My sister's magical rainbows are with me whenever the sun is out,
I don't even have to light the tealight inside!

And next to my sis's rainbows are the camels I inherited from my mother and the kaleidascope I gave my Dad one year. Lovely reminders of things they loved and things we enjoyed together. XO

And my Sweet Jess. I have so many things she gave me, though she didn't believe in holidays per se, she just liked to give me special things when she felt like it. I love them all but perhaps most of all I love the photos she took as a professional photographer. There are literally hundreds and hundreds and I have them on my computer, but one she framed for me and I've never seen anything like it. Lots of photographers go to Antelope Canyon and take pics, but hers is like nothing I've ever seen before. It holds worlds upon worlds and I remember asking her when she gave it to me how it came about and she said she had to wait until the other tourists had gone through, and she went up to this crevasse and touched the sand with her fingers, then stepped back and snapped this shot. Wow. I just adore it. Thank you my lovely for your artistic eye and your road trips and sharing your talents with me XO

Jessie's experience of Antelope Canyon.
Bet you'll never see another like this one, it's amazing.

Because it's framed it doesn't really photograph well at this point, though you can pop by and see it in person anytime, along with several additional amazing photos she captured - magical moments in time.

So when I was feeling a bit lonely with nobody to talk to as my mother's home was closing out an era, and I was so missing my sis and daughter, and most especially my son and his lovely wife and my baby granddaughter, (who live a bit far away to visit as often as I'd like what with work and all) the music and Elli's lovely creation reminded me to think of my beautiful blessings and keep my heart light.

And you know what happened? Welp, sometimes when the Universe is busy loving you it tends to keep on coming, and that's what happened.

Hubby and I were sitting on the porch and he went into the house for something or other and right then the doorbell rang. (This was on the hard Saturday.) We wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't gone into the house right then. Lo and behold, it was our DARLING little neighbor from across the street. She's very young, I think around 7 or so. And she has the BEST EVER parents I've ever seen. They take their kids outside every day no matter what the weather and they have lots of other kids over all the time and they're so patient and kind and take great care of their yard and home, and the kids are always adorable. Well she was skating around the neighborhood on her whatever you call those single wheel roller blades with a basket over her arm distributing butterfly drawings just because. So WE GOT A BUTTERFLY DRAWING, and I'm telling you it made my heart sing, cause if you can't have your littles with you sometimes there are others who share that special innocence and joy and it's so special. So look what we got to put on our fridge, yep, THAT icky sticky hard day...

Baby artist sharing her joy, yay!

She has no idea how much we just love it! So I searched through my art supplies, always one to encourage the littles in creativity and found a lovely butterfly coloring book that was yet untouched and we ran it over there and gave it to them with a note (written in super glitter marker that she'll enjoy) letting her know how much we love it. When Rob dropped off the coloring book and card, her Dad said she was so proud of her drawings and rightly she should be! 

And here's the thing. I realize it's been a heck of a tough year. But I also realize how much my Loves have given and still give, here, there, everywhere, and so this year, for Cupcake Day, I've decided it needs to be a democratic year. Because almost all my girls are in Heaven now (except of course baby granddaughter who high fived them on the way up/down I'm sure, and her beautiful Mama who is here with us) it's not going to be "only" a Sweet Jess cupcake. And there won't just be one. 

We're making a batch of from scratch carrot cake cupcakes with yummy cream cheese icing, and we're sharing with our little artist and her family across the street, with my sister's husband, and if there's anyone else who wants one, pop over and get it quick cause they won't last long. Hubby printed out the most gorgeous recipe, and tomorrow I'll upload a photo of our shared "democratic" cupcake, which I'm sure Sweet Jess would approve of, cause she was always a very sociable gigglepuss who loved to share her joy.

Happy Celestial journeys to Sweet Jess
and Mellie, and Mom.

I love you my sweet daughter, forever and a day, as you know. Thank you for your gifts, for your ongoing presence, and for being you XO

Mama

Never be afraid to love with all of yourself. When you're loving, love finds ways to come to you when you least expect it and what a joy that is.

If you'd like to read more of our story, you can access my books at Coming Alive After Death: Recovery from Grief and Letters from Celestial Jess: Afterlife Messages from My Daughter

Namaste. 

~Jen

Going to a Very High Place

 

New neurographic drawing, yay!

I've been spending a lot of time learning, processing, and comforting myself with books and movies after the passing of my beloved sister and mother less than a year apart. When I'm processing that much emotion I tend not to work because thoughts and memories come frequently and I find myself sort of staring and just looking at things like trees and birds and the rainbows my crystal in the window decorates my studio with on sunny afternoons.

So it is with relief and gratitude that I find myself finally able to focus on output rather than all that processing and putting painful things into a more comfortable context. Last night I found myself bored with television and reading and I didn't want to think - dishes were done and the kitchen was nice and clean, so I padded into my studio from the living room and grabbed a brand new block of watercolor paper and one of those gorgeous Pigma Graphic markers I love to use for neurographic drawing.

If you have an interest, there's lots of information available on neurographic work, and methods vary according to who is doing or teaching the concepts. I tend to like learning the rules about various subjects/techniques and lots of times I enjoy bending or breaking them, as I love to be creative in many ways without too many firm guidelines. So I'll share my process here, though it does deviate from the formal procedures developed and taught by Pavel Piskarev.

Once I had settled back into my comfy chair in the living room, I left the telly on but turned the sound down low so it would feel comforting but not distracting. I lit one small beeswax candle because I think having the elements around (fire, earth, air, water) invites inspiration. Generally I sit at my drafting table with its efficient task lighting and proper seating for most of my artwork, but the fun thing about neurographic drawing is that it can be done in very informal settings. So, using a pillow to prop my watercolor block upon my lap, I followed some of the rules as I began crossing the page with simple looping lines traveling in various directions.

Remember doing this as a kid?

I've been working on a series of paintings based on my own style of neurographic drawing and the series is called Love Prayers. Right now there are almost 10 paintings "finished" and about 20 more waiting to be done. I write the ideas for new Love Prayers in a text file and pick out whatever seems like it wants to fit once I've done about this much loose work (photo above). But last night I knew I wanted to do the one that says, "Sometimes I just wanna go to a very high place," so I deviously drew my starting lines with that in mind. I liked the subliminal message of rising above all the negative B.S. we're dealing with on our beautiful planet right now - so many of us are doing that any which way we can and I'm right there with ya. Well HA! HA! HA!

Ya see, this is the magic of art: it has a mind of its own! And the best laid plans, even those made with precision and knowledge based on the application of rules - are not completely predictable! So I continued, still thinking I would place objects as originally intended (a person standing with their hands folded and their head sort of tilted to the side, on top of her high place - the mountains). And the rule abiding part of this is of course, to round out the parts where the lines meet. So I did.

All points nicely rounded.

As I looked at it after rounding out the sharp corners, a different image implanted itself in my mind. The one shape that inspired this image is the central one that just begged to be the person's chest. And above it, the face, and it looked like the arms were spread out - no folded hands at all! So I worked on the chest first, then the face, then the outstretched arms.

She looks at this point like she's standing,
 looking down upon us, and I wondered
if she was asking me to draw her wearing a tutu.

My female figures nearly always have boobs. 

At this point I'm worried about that loop that interrupts the flow of her outstretched arm, but with art I've learned to play instead of worry, so I just let it tell me what it wanted to be, and TA DA, we got a gorgeous dragonfly up there in the sky with her!

She's becoming....

So now she's got hair, hands, legs, shoes, her dragonfly, and a voice she's using to let us know what she's thinking. At this point I didn't like the hands, but they didn't tell me what they wanted for finishing until the very last. And I was surprised that she's not standing at all, but sitting on top of her mountains.

Ah, her happy place is becoming populated.

Along with her friend the dragonfly, she now has her hometown among the mountains, and it includes a church with a graveyard. Why? Because she's meditating and getting in touch with her Higher Sources and Lovies in their Heavens! So she's in a high place in more ways than one. She's up on top of the mountains, but also way high up and in touch with the Celestial Beings. And what is in the sky up there with her? The sun of course! She's so happy she's radiating love from her heart out into the universe.

All the things!

And of course her universe includes the stars and moon and Celestial light from above, and love, and her hands finally told me what they wanted - that middle finger gently touching the thumb to indicate that she's meditating.

It'll "read" better when it's painted. And it'll be gorgeous. Can't wait to get started applying those irresistible colors! I'll post some more when it's done.

So I'm a project person rather than a "clock" person, and I tend to work until the work tells me it's at a stopping place. I knew the drawing for this one was done because it was ready for me to sign, and I always do that last. So at about 5 a.m. I decided to wind down and go to bed, but took a little extra time to download photos and crop them cause I knew I'd be sharing this with you on the blog today. 

I tucked myself into bed after the first birds started to sing the trees awake, and the first fingers of dawn snuck through the lace curtains in my room. Sweet sleeps came along with dreams of the colors I'll be playing with very soon, and I didn't get up until 1 p.m. If I'd gone to bed "on time" like a "civilized" person, I'm pretty sure this little gem would never have been born because the peace of the night is marvelous and I feel blessed to be able to enjoy it at last, with no clocks to do other than sing their chiming songs to me. Time, it is quite precious indeed.

But Lord, I'm grateful there will be no pop quizzes today, cause I'm tired! This kind of silly, fun, stylized artwork gives me so much good energy and I'm very grateful for that too! May you experience the good energies of creativity in your days no matter what you find yourself doing XO

Namaste,

~Jen

Cupcake Day and Time Travel

January 9th is my sweet daughter's transition day to True Home, her "death" day, her exit from this planet Earth in physical form, her metamorphosis into her Soul Self. I call it Cupcake Day because my husband and I always get a single cupcake which we share together before dinner in Sweet Jessie's honor, along with a glass of Cupcake wine (yep, it's a brand), because I made her cupcakes for her birthday and she loved them, so we honor her on both her Earth birthday and her Celestial birthday with a cupcake and her special wine. We light candles and wish her happy journeys and adventures in her Heaven. We celebrate all the things she can now experience and accomplish without the limitations of Earth. We celebrate all she experienced and created while she was here.

The beginning XO! My gigglepuss!

She exists. Yep she does, still lively and lovely and very much with me, perhaps in some ways closer than when we existed in this place at the same time. Though I am still here in my little old Earth body, and she no longer needs hers - I feel the missing of the ways we were, and for some years this was oh so painful I didn't think I could go on being here without her. But as time passed and I continued to learn, learn, learn from many sources, I found ways to connect with her so strongly that the missing is just plain gone for the time we're together and my heart becomes filled up completely with love and peace and joy.

Speaking of time, I have spent time watching various interesting movies and one of these is called Dimensions, which I was able to stream on YouTube. It is a poignant tale of a scientist's endeavor to build a time machine so that he can go back and change an accident that happened in his youth, costing the life of someone very dear to him. He struggles with all manner of cumbersome challenges, including the equipment itself as he tries to build his time machine, as well as political and social control of his endeavors. 

It occurs to me that it might be helpful to some to talk a bit about time travel and our inherent gifts as human beings, since I have found that we have already been given, by our Creator, the gift of time travel, and we do not need any heavy equipment to do it. We also have been given by our Creator the gift of the ability to play in a multitude of universes, also without heavy equipment, universes in which anything and everything we can imagine, we get to experience. It is worth noting that our physical brain does not know the difference between experiencing things in our imagination (also a Celestial gift - the imagination) and what actually happens in reality. This is why athletes are taught to use positive visualization before they attempt to achieve their goals, and why research shows that our scientists can measure the difference in results between those who do use visualization building confidence through positive belief in Self and abilities vs. those who do not, instead cultivating doubt within themselves, thereby creating little success in their endeavors. Personal belief is a powerful creative force, and we get to choose it!

In my book, which I was compelled to write after my daughter's passing, Coming Alive After Death: Recovery from Grief, I talk about what I learned about time travel, the ability we all have to connect with loved ones who have passed on, and how we can do that with no props, and no special education the minute we decide to use our inherent, "God-given" gifts. It's like sunshine for the soul.

In my book I talk about physics, quantum physics, quantum mechanics, and connecting with the Akasha, which are just big words and complex concepts for rather beautiful and to some, mysterious processes natural to life on Earth. Processes that belong to us all. Processes that have been hidden from us or misrepresented by those who wish to keep us from attaining authenticity and empowerment, as well as a great deal of peace, serenity, and autonomy, in order to further their power mongoring and control of masses of people to further their own abusive agendas. These four subjects, as well as others that have been reliably researched and documented, confirm that there is a gorgeous melding between what we define as "science," and what some cultures know (and we can all discover) as an accessible sacred reality with much power, freedom, satisfaction and love bigger than we've ever imagined here.

On this day, January 9th, each year, I like to use my inherent gifts to commune with the essence of my daughter, in the ways I talk about in my book, and it is so loving, healing, special, and uplifting, that I want to share it. I encourage you to check out the book - you can get it for nearly nothing on Kindle, but I would recommend the paperback because the design of the book itself is beautiful, and you might enjoy having it on hand to grab and flip to whatever page it wishes to share with you on any given day at any given time - you'll find it rather surprising how if you open it at random the passage on that particular page will address something that you may have been worrying about or something that you have wondered about and the information you encounter can feel very uplifting. The purpose of this blog post is in no way to make book sales though I care very much about people having the opportunity to add to their repertoire of tools to assimilate deep grief. I care very much that if even one single sentence brings even one single person from the brink of that very dark place where I found myself at first to the light and the beauty of ongoing life and love, then our hearts will sing and my job is done.

Sweet memories of good times XO!

I won't go into too much detail here because it's all in my books and other blog posts (access to the blog is completely free) on how to meditate, how to write and journal with your loved ones, and the ways we can learn to "time travel" through meditation, dreams and other ways. Our body is our equipment once we learn how to use it. Our body is a combination of physical mixed with spirit, and our loved ones who've transitioned are simply spirit without the limitation of the corporeal body, so that spirit-to-spirit connection (or soul-to-soul; mind/heart, etc. if you prefer to use different descriptions) is and always has been natural to the human condition. Connection with loved ones who've passed on can also come about while journaling or writing with them, and surprisingly, connection can happen spontaneously when we are simply being creative, with our focus on the moment, regardless of what we're actually doing, which is why music and art are very strong facilitators for engagement since when we are focused on the process of creation (music, art, or any other creative activity) we tend to shut down our "logical, thinking" minds and lean into intuition, or what I sometimes call "listening," which is the process of receiving guidance from higher (Celestial) sources.

What may hinder connection from happening is when we are in great distress and we lament and allow our doubts and fears to subsume all other emotion. The reason this hinders connection with our loved ones who have passed is because their natural vibration is very high, and when we experience negative emotions our own vibration becomes very low, so they have trouble creating the flow that happens when "like attracts like." The higher we make our vibration, (in peace, happiness, gratitude, etc.) the easier it is for them to join with us when we invite that special connection. If we're in distress, sometimes they'll flicker the lights to let us know they're near, or mess with our electronics in clearly unusual ways, because one of the first things they learn to play with to communicate with us is electricity since it has a high vibration, just like theirs so it is easiest for them to use electricity as a tool. These are what we call signs. In my books, I talk about the signs I received very shortly after my daughter's passing and for several months, even years after her passing, before I learned how to connect whenever I wanted to, as you can also do. 

I have found it is really healthy and good to feel this loving connection with my daughter and others I am close to who have passed. It makes me laugh. It helps me through challenges. It gives me strength. It helps me relax into a knowing that life does go on, yep it does, and it is so, so beautiful. For those who are more interested in the details of how I learned to connect with my daughter through journaling, you might enjoy Letters from Celestial Jess: Afterlife Messages from My Daughter.

So on this cupcake day, I celebrate not only the beautiful connection with my daughter and other loved ones wherever they may enjoy being in our Universe, but the gorgeous inherent gifts we all are born with that we can learn to use in ways that uplift us and keep us strong and very much connected to our loved ones, higher sources, and Celestial guidance, however we choose to define these things.

My beauty while she was here.
She's reading poetry aloud to us XO!

Cupcake Day 2025, with you my lovely,
thank you for being with us in love and light XO

Cheers my lovely Sweet Jess! I love you forever and a day. Thank you for loving me right back XO!

Mama

Namaste