In 1997 watercolor artist Jan Hart was rushed to a hospital in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for a sudden, life-threatening spinal infection, and she immediately underwent three surgeries over six weeks of hospitalization. She felt lucky to simply have survived.
During Hart's hospitalization she experienced a vivid emerald green and scarlet red vision of an entity who called himself Raphael. His message was to "Be Conscious."
Compelled to comprehend but with no idea how this directive would alter the course of her life, Hart's quest began first during her recovery then into her life as a single woman, watercolor artist, and teacher. When the US financial crisis of 2008 hit, Hart, on the eve of losing her livelihood, followed the signs-or rather, the colors.
As spirit guides and signposts of scarlet and emerald illuminated her journey, she embarked-at age sixty-six-on a new life in Costa Rica.
It was never a life she could have imagined, but it became a spiritual treasure hunt for meaning filled with deep love, heartbreaking loss, discovery, and self-renewal. Ultimately the growth toward consciousness opened a door into the Afterlife.
The book is presented in three parts according to dates and significant life events. Between the Chapters are Galleries that include some of Hart's paintings, journal entries and other writings.
Part 1: 1997 - 2008. New Mexico
Part 2: 2008 - 2014. Costa Rica
Part 3: 2014 - 2016. Costa Rica
About the Author: Born in 1942, Jan Hart's lifelong affinity for animals led her to a BA degree in zoology and a minor in chemistry. Passionate for art and inclined to teach, Hart instructed high school biology and later, art. After achieving a master of architecture degree, she taught media and watercolor at the Universities of Washington and Oregon.
Trained under prominent artists, she has taught watercolor privately for over thirty-five years. Known internationally for her book, The Watercolor Artist's Guide to Exceptional Color (2007), her dramatic and colorful paintings, and inspirational workshops and intensives, are balanced with her continuing studies in consciousness and soul work.
A single mother of three adult sons and one grandson, she lived in the United States until 2008 when she moved to Costa Rica, where she still resides-literally above the clouds-with a menagerie of animals in a simple Costa Rican house. Visit websites: janhart.com and awomanawakens.com for more.
