If you are going to have a story, have a big story….  ~ Joseph Campbell

We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. ~ Joseph Campbell

The object [my necklace] becomes aesthetically signifiant when it becomes metaphysically significant. ~ Joseph Campbell

GROUND: physical, linear, semi-precious stones, geometry, numbers, partnership with Mother Earth
LIGHT: metaphysical, nonlinear, receiving, designing, playing, partnership with the Larger Whole

It was one of those times when things fall apart. I had never strung a bead before in my life except perhaps at summer camp between third and fourth grade. I made this first necklace as sustenance and support for myself during the time. I chose the semi-precious stones – round like the earth – with great care: pink chalcedony, garnet, watermelon tourmaline, rose quartz, serpentine. Someone at the bead store told me what tools I needed and she was kind enough to give me a quick lesson in crimping.

Wearing my new necklace, I went to a shop I’d been to about six months earlier with a specific purppose I didn’t find what I was looking for. But since I was there, I decided to have my picture taken with their aura camera. I asked the woman working there whether I needed to take my necklace off. She said, “No, it won’t make any difference.” But it did make a difference….

The photo on the left was taken on my visit six months earlier. I had been asked to do so by someone working with water (ala Masaru Emoto’s original work, The Message from Water). The center photo is of me wearing my new necklace. The brilliant orange energy of second chakra creativity! Given the brilliance of the middle photo, I decided to have another one taken…this time without the necklace. The photo on the right…just two minutes later…is how I looked without my new necklace.

Some of the interpretation for these photos is that the energy we are receiving is on the left, the energy we’re expressing is on the right, and the energy we’re experiencing in this moment shows itself around the head and body. The colors align with the chakras. The intensity is about degree of vitality and receptivity.

Together, the woman who took the photos and I sat in awe. She held my necklace. And, while admiring it, she said…rather tentatively and in passing, “You know, it’s beautiful. Perhaps you could write its story? And design more and write their stories as well?”

That day changed my life. In The Book of Runes, Rune 22, Dagaz / Breakthrough / Transformation / Day begins this way: “Drawing [this rune] marks a major shift or breakthrough in the process of self-change, a complete transformation in attitude – a 180-degree turn. For some, the transition is so radical that they no longer continue to live the ordinary life in the ordinary way. Because the timing is right, the outcome is assured although not, from the present vantage point, predictable. Rely, therefore, on radical trust, even though the moment may call for you to leap, emptyhanded, into the void.”

Over the next few years a large body of work with semi-precious stones emerged – more than 100 designs in several different collections. Each of the designs has a story and each of the collections is associated with a different aspect of the cosmos. A common thread for all of the designs is that all are a physical way to hold the metaphysical. Together they create a whole that has revealed a profound a global story.

The designs are not ‘mine’ is the ego sense of creativity. And I could not have imagined, let alone planned, this experience. It was just so far beyond all of my previous experience in this lifetime. Instead, I listened and received from a metaphorical deep river of nonlinear, universal knowledge and wisdom that is full of music, miracles and mystery. More to come.

About the Stones

This necklace, one of the 44 StoneCircles, is named Healingently. It sits in Avebury Stone Circle in England. It is designed to support personal healing and joy on all levels through experiences of tenderness  and kindheartedness. Read more about Healingently. It emerged in 2002.