Politically speaking….

On Saturday, 4 days ago, I walked to my polling place and voted in an early Democratic primary.

I was happy. I felt that I rode a political wave. But, as I tracked the election returns that evening I realized that I was not on the political wave that was building.

Today, 4 days later, I sat at my computer at work and snuck a look at the days headlines (I should learn not to do this, it alters the mood too greatly), I wanted to cry. My candidate, John Edwards, was dropping out.

It is not that I could not support the two candidates who remain. Barach Obama is an amazing speaker and I could always go for a woman president. Politically, I trend progressive and so my first choice was Kucinich; after he did not seem a possibility I chose Edwards. I would even love to see Mr. Gravel in the white house, but, dream on….

And that is the problem. It seems that popular culture squashes our dreams. Popular culture, defined by television and corporate media, dumbs us down so that we don’t believe in dreams anymore.

Enter Obama, who somehow makes us believe in dreams again (Yes, we can!!!!), but I was dreaming a dream that was a little more specific to broad changes in our society (health care for all, the end of poverty for all, etc), and I felt that Edwards best represented that dream.

Last night, I dreamed strange things. I had left my bedside radio on, tuned to Air America and this may have contributed…. On Saturday, I was leaving my polling place and a young man handed me a flyer for the John Edwards victory celebration to be held that evening in my home town. In my dream, I was at the celebration and I was speaking with Mr. Edwards privately and begging him not to quit….

The thing that confuses me is the nature of our reality that does not allow for free discussion and decision making. Candidates for office who are not deemed suitable are not given the opportunity to express themselves in the mass media. It seems that our candidates are being chosen for us (this is a problem on both sides, note the lack of attention given Ron Paul on the Republican side).

As a crafter, I know that some things take time. What is facing our country is far too serious to have decisions made based on money and influence. We need consensus and this will take time. But, as I look at my calendar, I realize it is still January. Why are we (the collective we) being rushed to such an important decision. Why are people so obviously being shut out. So much of the country has still to cast a vote and their choices are severely limited.
This is a campaign flyer that a nice young man left with me last Friday. He was happy when he heard I already intended to vote for Edwards. I laid a broken bracelet that I made across the flyer. It is made of green chalk turquoise (heart energy) and silver. I intended to wear the bracelet on Monday but when I was putting on my coat it caught on the bracelet and the stringing wire snapped. ….

Permission Slips

I keep a lot of little reminders around me: stones, jewelry, trinkets, little cards with affirmations written on them, journals that are only half used, books, cd’s, emails from people on internet lists, websites I support. I used to collect stuffed animals, they bring out my inner child. I have given most of the little furry things away but my world is filled with permission slips, reminders that the true me, the higher part of myself wants to express in many different ways. There is Vera the poet that hasn’t been heard from in a while. There is Vera the artist that expresses through making things: jewelry, scrapbooks, crocheted or knitted things. All of these pieces come together to form my unique point of view.

I learned the term Permission Slips through a mentor. I had formerly thought of all of this stuff I surround myself with as toys. My playthings in this game of physical being.

We are free to choose the permission slip that excite us. These are the things that bring joy into our experience.

Sometimes I look at a stone or a flower or a piece of jewelry that I have made and allow that to be the thing that brings joy into that moment. Its very simple. Our work of creating our reality is done in the single moment. We create in the now. The single moments form a chain of more and more positive energy being created in our little piece of reality.

I look around me and see that I am surrounded by permission slips: things I have been collecting to remind myself of some aspect of reality I want to explore.

Today I made a crystal bracelet to match the necklace I made on New Year’s Day. I want to sustain the energy I spoke of then. This is a permission slip to do just that.

As I made the bracelet I finished listening to the audio book of The Secret.

http://www.thesecret.tv/

This is a very powerful presentation. It encourages me onward to use the permission slips which seem to show up everywhere in my life.

Happy New Year!!

My grandmother used to say that on New Years Day one should do a bit of everything one would be doing for the rest of the year. Well, I hardly will do that. I want to sit at my computer and think of new directions. My idea of New Years day is that it is an excellent day to set intentions.

I learned an interesting thing about the numerology of this year. I am not sure where I first heard this. Add the digits in the year:

2 + 0 + 0 + 7 = 9

2 + 0 + 0 + 8 = 10 = 1

In the numerology that I am using one always adds digits together then if the sum is not a single digit, add those digits together. Keep repeating this until you have a single digit. I went back and played with adding the digits of years together to look at this progression:

1 + 9 + 9 + 8 = 27 = 9

1 + 9 + 9 + 9 = 28 = 10 = 1

2 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 2

It seems that adding the digits of years together gives us cycles of nine with no zero year. So, we go from a 9 year (2007) back to a 1 year (2008).

I thought about 1999, it was the year I left my x-husband at the beginning of the year. I was very much in touch with the idea of new beginnings. 1999 was the last 1 year. Now we are moving back to the beginning of a cycle with another 1 year!

What does this mean? Change, new beginnings? The beginning of a new cycle?

I certainly hope so. I want to see a more positive world emerge from all of the negativity that seems to be gripping it right now. Of course, one person has a rather limited sphere of influence, some more than others, but we all have some and we never really know how far it extends. We can only control the thoughts of our own minds which direct the energy that flows through that sphere of influence. We can choose to reflect negative energy (fear, anxiety, anger, resentment, pettiness) or positive (love, helpfulness, enthusiasm, passion in all of its many forms).

Last night, slightly under the influence, I decided on my New Years Resolution / intention for 2008:

I will make the effort to be enthusiastic.

I have been exposed to “new age” thinking for over twenty years. When I watched the movie The Secret all of the ideas it presented were already familiar to me. Nevertheless, I allowed myself to feel resistance.

For many years, I have been involved in a dialog with myself and others about the use of the principles of mind action. I truly believe that what we create in our thoughts manifests in our world. But then the questions come: What about people who are in unjust situations, what about pain, handicap, exploitation? What if one finds oneself in a reality in which one is severely limited. Do we create that?

After having this dialog in many forms I will say that it leads nowhere useful.

I have allowed myself to feel resentment against those that can so easily seem to manifest a beautiful life. Yet, I have become lazy about practicing the principles I know to be true. I have become lazy about meditation, reading, study, some kind of practice that would keep me plugged into the reality that I really want to be in. Arguments about whether we create our reality based on some horrific condition are only delaying tactics.

Whatever we find in our world we must work with, we really don’t have a choice.

I have also been very resistant to the work of Byron Katie (author of Loving What Is and A Thousand Names of Joy). She speaks strongly of loving the reality in which we find ourselves. A couple of weeks ago I listened to the audio book with Katie reading A Thousand Names of Joy. It was painful for me to listen to. I totally agree with her but was spending a great deal of my own life force resisting my own reality.

So, in this new year I want to at least try to address this tendency. What is, is, there is not much I can do about that. I can visualize a more desirable future and in doing so help to bring it about.

I am certain that many folks have been plugging away for a very long time, working in small and large ways to make their personal world a little better. I think in this new 1 year, and the new cycle it is bringing, it may be easier to do this. Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, I still believe that we are collectively bringing about a better world.

Shine On

Today I made this necklace of swarovski crystal to symbolize the shiny new year. I am continuing my love affair with crystals and I am convinced that it is time to let our intentions shine.

Crystal Blue

Judging

I grew up Christian so I relate to some of the stuff in the Bible about judging. Basically, I reduce the entire Christian thing down to the Old Testament “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, a rabbi in approximately the same time as Jesus said the same thing, and then Jesus said that it was the greatest commandment. Jesus taught about forgiveness and love… My tendency is to want to leave all of my Christian upbringing behind except the golden rule, and practices of forgiveness and love.

Forgiveness, is so important. It takes judging to a whole new level. With a little practice you can jump to the forgiveness step without going through judging, pretty convenient, pretty cool. But then, it seems to me that too many people get caught up in the judgment step without ever moving to forgiveness. Now, that is not a judgment, its an observation. Its beneficial (for me) to forgive them if I make this observation.

I am simply starting to buy into the following: I will not judge another’s reality because I do not want them to judge my own. I want to see a world that lives in peace and the best thing I can contribute is to live at peace, within myself.

Today I am a Crystal,
Shining,
One facet catching the light,
Then another

Everywhere around me,
Are other crystals
Shining.

I named this piece Crystal Blue
Its 17 1/2 incles and made of Swarovski Crystal components

Oversoul Seven

I spent a great deal of time yesterday rereading Jane Roberts book, Oversoul Seven. Jane was known as the person who channeled Seth in the 60s and early seventies. She died a very early death in the 70’s. .

I read the entire Oversoul trilogy six or seven years ago. I am noticing so much more depth now. Had I read all of this before, I do not often reread material, especially fiction.

This book is so funny, partly because its so dated!!! There are a lot of references from the sixties and seventies that seem hopelessly out of date now. The kids in the 23^rd century learned from microfilm, for example. But this gives the book a quaintness and since it is about multiple possible realities, well, this is just another example of a possible reality. I find the datedness very funny and Jane is oh, so sharp. I am planning to write more about this book in a later post.

Second Chakra

A subtext of this blog has to do with the meanings I find associated with the stones that I use. The chakra system is an ancient way of relating to the energies of the body and each chakra is associated with colors and stones. Together the colors of the chakras form a rainbow, beginning at the lowest, red and ending at the crown, indigo. The stones associated with the chakras vary. I am still a novice at this type of analysis and my observations are based on intuition and imagination as much as anything I have learned along the way.

In my previous post I used a necklace that I made a couple of years ago to represent the root chakra. I had always made this association and so when I began looking through my collection of jewelry to find something that represented the second chakra, the color orange, I noticed that most the orangey things looked like my choice for red. I began to wonder if I were subconsciously avoiding the second chakra.

A casual understanding of the second chakra is that it is the center of sexuality. Was this the reason I was avoiding it since that is not a focus for me? It was not something I cared to blog about. I began to look for other associations.

The second chakra is also said to be the center of movement. While the first chakra represents grounding, the second represents movement. The element associated with the second chakra is water which moves freely. Since the color is orange I thought of the movement of fire even through the element fire is associated with the third chakra.

I decided to create something new to represent the second chakra. I chose translucent red agate with an orange tint and amber chips which add sparkly movement.

Sometimes making a piece of jewelry is spontaneous and takes very little time. There are other times when nothing seems right or perfectionism begins to take over. The latter was the case with this piece. It did not seem to move freely. I seemed stuck. I wondered if this was a reflection of something in my life.

The second chakra is centered in the solar plexus and governs all of the surrounding organs. I thought of the womb; the place of nourishment for new life. For me, this was the most satisfying image for the second chakra. It is the place where movement begins and is nourished.

Among the pieces that I had already made the below necklace could also be said to represent the second chakra. It is made of peach aventurine (the flat ovals) with gold colored fresh water pearls, amber crystals, and tiger eye.

Fall Color

For Christmas, 2004, I made three necklaces that were very similar for my sister and two friends. I liked them so much that I later made one for myself. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

The necklace is composed of three kinds of stones:

The center flower is carnelian. Carnelian is the stone of the root charka and grounds one. It anchors you in the present reality. A stabilizing stone with high energy, it is excellent for restoring vitality and motivation, and for stimulating creativity. Psychologically, Carnelian imparts an acceptance of the cycle of life. Mentally, Carnelian improves analytic abilities and clarifies perception. It is full of the life force and vitality.

The somewhat transparent stones are red agate. These include the very small ones next to the flower and other larger stones throughout the necklace. Agate is said to have the power to harmonize yin and yang. It is a soothing and calming stone. Agate enhances mental functions as it improves concentration, perception and analytic abilities. Psychologically agate gently facilitates acceptance of one’s self. Agate stabilizes the aura, eliminating and transforming negative energies, its cleansing effect is powerful at the physical and emotional levels.

The more opaque stones are red aventurine. Aventurine is a very positive stone of prosperity. Psychologically, aventurine reinforces leadership qualities and decisiveness. It promotes compassion and empathy and encourages perseverance. Aventurine is said to benefit the thymus gland, connective tissue, and nervous system.

The above information about these stones is from The Crystal Bible by Judy Hall.

Fast forward to Sunday, September 30, 2007.

For me, Sunday morning is a time for regrouping. It is an unstructured time when I can reorganize myself gathering intentions for the coming week and perhaps completing a project that frees up energies.

It is helpful to be reminded of my connectedness to all that is physical as my carnelian/red agate/red aventurine necklace does so powerfully. I am also reminded that these are the colors of fall. I am in a location that barely exhibits fall color; nevertheless, we are in the season when the harvests are gathered and the old year begins to come to a close. The seasons remind us of the perennial cycle of death then rebirth. In the fall nature prunes so that new growth can come in the spring.

This morning I look for things in my life that I should let go of. What is in need of pruning? Focusing on the root chakra returns me to the most basic level as it is the level of survival and instincts; it represents the source of physicality. On this (finally) cool fall morning it seems appropriate to ask long-term questions about this life’s journey.

Purple Bracelet

The above three-strand bracelet is made of amethyst and freshwater pearls with a shell-shaped clasp. The center strand is a clear form of amethyst, the darker stones on the outside are a darker round amethyst, the lighter ones are freshwater pearls. I made this piece at least a year ago. It is a favorite.

I realized that I had not written a blog entry in a week. Many things can change one’s consciousness and point of view in a week so it was high time to get going.

One of the things that has touched my consciousness in the past couple of days is the idea of no complaints, signified by a purple bracelet which one moves from wrist to wrist when one finds oneself complaining. One attempts to wear the bracelet on one wrist for 21 days, the number of days needed to establish a habit. These bracelets and more info can be obtained from (see www.acomplaintfreeworld.org )

Complaining? Sometimes I think that may be one of the only ways I know how to express myself.

After I analyzed everything I have written here thus far and realized a great deal of it could be considered complaining; and after consulting with my sister and deciding that a large portion of what is written on blogs could be considered complaints in one form or another; I asked myself, can I make this a complaint-free blog?

We discussed the idea for a while. We decided that there are positive complaints, as in, someone is being mistreated and you complain to someone that can do something about it. On the other hand, if you just complain to your friends who are not in the position to do anything then maybe you should move the bracelet to the other wrist.

Positive complaints may be defined as something intended to improve a situation and that does not cause ill feelings in others. On the other hand, most complaints do cause negative emotions in others and do not do anything other than perpetuate the complaint.

Complaining may also clear the air. Sometimes I just need to vent and when I finish I can move on.

Wearing a “complaint free world” bracelet does make one mindful of these issues. I was given one yesterday at lunch and wore it until I got home from work. Then, after taking it off to get the website that was printed on it, I left it sitting beside my computer.

Negative complaining and victim consciousness go hand in hand. This is probably the thing that is best addressed by the “Complaint Free World” movement.

It would be very nice if everyone would stop complaining, I don’t want to go around moving a rubber band bracelet from one wrist to the other (maybe I am some kind of new-age snob). However, a very real benefit is to habitually look at one’s responses in order to evaluate whether they are negative or positive and what impact they have on others.

I believe the discipline of monitoring one’s emotions, thoughts, and actions can be aided immensely by mementos. I have used jewelry and stones for just that purpose. For many months I carried a rose quartz stone with the word “Trust” printed on it in my pocket. Just touching the stone would remind me of my higher purposes. I think the spirit behind the complaint free world bracelet is similar, it teaches one to remember a more spiritually attuned way of being.

I applaud the folks wearing the complaint free world bracelets. I join with the spirit of the endeavor by focusing today on the color purple, the color of the sixth chakra and of the higher self.