You can find additional content by clicking many of the images and underlined links below.

Psychic Medium Laura Lynne Jackson

Click here for a thought-provoking, long interview, given by podcaster Jay Shetty with one of my favorite people: Laura Lynne Jackson. She is both a psychic and a medium. (There is a difference by the way. According to the Cambridge English dictionary, a psychic is "a person who has a special mental ability, for example, being able to know what will happen in the future or what people are thinking." A medium, according to the Omega Institute, is a person "who has fine-tuned his or her extrasensory perception and can interface with the spirits in other dimensions").Some people are gifted with both powers.

Many of you know that I’ve became interested in all this kind of stuff about death and dying after I lost my husband, Gert Mathiesen, very suddenly in 2013. At first I was just grasping at straws, wanting to simply figure out what happened, where he went, how could someone just be here one minute and not the next. The night he died, I got a tap on my back that said--"it's alright." Not "he's alright" but that "everything is okay and will be okay..." I wonder about that nudge on my back to this day, since I was sitting up against the wall and no one was behind me. And since he died while on a trip to Denmark I have no real way of knowing whether that nudge came at the time he actually let go and died...but I have a feeling it might have.

From that day on, I started to research everything I could get my hands on related to death and dying... I wanted to believe but I was a skeptic, a big time skeptic. It took a lot of studying and reading and learning to get me to the point where I can now say with confidence that I really do not think this is all there is...

Laura Lynne Jackson was somebody I stumbled upon who seemed to really be the real thing. She was originally a very popular English teacher in Long Island and hid her abilities for a long time for fear of being mocked or fired from her job. Turns out that these abilities she had ran in her family and she noticed them ever since she was a little girl. She has it all spelled out in her first book The Light Between Us, which I highly recommend. It explains very clearly how mediumship works for her and how she processes the information she receives from people on the other side...Her second book, also a bestseller by the way, is called Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe, where she documents signs people have received from loved ones and how she believes we are all able to receive them if we just open ourselves up.

Laura Lynne is a highly respected psychic medium who has been through many scientific tests, most extensively with the Windbridge Institute and serves on the board of both the Forever Family Foundation and the Rhine Research Center in collaboration with Duke University, dedicated to research in PSI and the nature of human consciousness.

Have a listen and let me know what you think...

Artist Elise Margolis

When it comes to artists, Elise Margolis is the real thing. She is making art for all the right reasons: because she is compelled to do it, because she has no choice, because it is a form of self expression and she needs to get it out of her…

I have admired her work for a long time--it is small, poetic and embodies the concept of shibui, a Japanese word that has no English equivalent: a combination of simplicity and beauty is the way my Dad described it. Wikipedia's definition is "an enriched, subdued appearance or experience of intrinsically fine quality with economy of form, line, and effort, producing a timeless tranquility."

The two artists Elise admires the most are Stuart Davis and Alexander Calder. You can see the influence, especially with the former, but she has a style of her own. Her works on paper are small since she lives in a small apartment and produces the work on a small table. But I can't help but think some of them would also make amazing sculptures if done in 3-D.

California Song Playlist

I am on my way to San Diego, writing this blog on the plane. Only thought it appropriate to include some songs about this wonderful state that I love so much:

John Craigie: I am California

The Ramones: California Sun

Steve Goodman: California Promises

Arlo Guthrie: Coming into Los Angeles

The Mamas and The Papas: California Dreaming

Dionne Warwick: Do You Know the Way to San Jose

Tony Bennett: I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Concrete Blonde: Still in Hollywood

Natalie Merchant: San Andreas Fault

Painting of the Week

Pam Smilow, The Party, mixed media on canvas, 50" x 80" approx. This painting is being featured on the label of a bourbon and vodka bottle by Fierce and Kind, a wonderful small business based in California that donates 25 percent of their profits to charitable organizations.

Charity of the Week: Voters of Tomorrow

About The Author

New York City based contemporary artist, Pam Smilow, began writing the creative lifestyle blog “things we love” in an effort to foster a sense of community during times of isolation and reflection. To read more about her and her art, visit her website and check out the essay written by Frank Matheis entitled The Sophisticated Innocence of Pam Smilow.