When I Speak of Myself 3

I think it is somehow fitting that I tell this part of the story on the Summer Solstice...the longest day of the year. We are drenched in light and heat (well, out here in the desert we are) and there aren't many shadows. Thank you all for stopping by.

You guys remember where we left off, right? So, I was Pagan (or was I?), I had a new understanding of ethics with which to view the world and my movement through it, and even if I didn't completely like my life, things were better and that was ok.

This next part will probably make more sense if I explain a couple more things from my childhood...cue the flashback music...

Somewhere in a history or religion class, I was taught that there was a natural evolution of religion. The primitive people of the past were polytheistic, meaning they had lots of gods, but the modern, enlightened people were monotheistic, and had only one god. In my young brain (the same one that thought the Moon was more powerful than the Sun, because She could go where He could not...) didn't like this concept. For one thing, thinking that one being could take care of *everything*, every single little thing...just didn't make sense. Heck, even at home there were things my Mother did, and other things my Father did. I also didn't care for the feeling that we were supposed to look down our noses at those poor, poor people who still thought there were multiple gods.

No matter how many times I ran across this concept during my school years, I never liked it. It wasn't like going from stone to metal...a natural technological change. Why couldn't people have more than one god? Specially since the other gods I was learning about seemed way cooler than the robed, bearded duder who seemed so far away.

((Just a side note here...it's not my intention to insult those who have a relationship with Jehova, or Yahweh...this is simply how I felt about Him at the time.))

...and end flashback...

Alrighty, so it was somewhere around this time that I learned about Deism. From the Wikipedia page it says, "Deism can be a belief in a deity absent of any doctrinal governance or precise definition of the nature of such a deity." I realize that this only one facet to Deism, but this is the one that I gravitated to and it ended up forming the core of my eventual belief system. It made sense to me that if there was a intelligence or intelligences out there that were capable of envisioning the entirety of the universe as we know it (and perhaps all the rest we haven't discovered too...), then it would be something so beyond our experience as a human being that we couldn't possibly be able to connect to it.

Enter Joseph Campbell. Through studying at home, and seeing his lectures in a couple anthropology classes, Joe has become one of the most influential people I have ever studied, right up there with ol' Aristotle.

From Joe I learned what a religion is, and what a system of belief needs to do in order to be considered a religion. I learned what a metaphor is, separate from the literary device, and how it applies to a belief system. It was the first time I'd heard the phrase, "petrified religion", and it changed the way I looked at the Abrahamic faiths.

He said that believing the words of a book to be the absolute word of any deity was like going to a restaurant and eating the menu, instead of using it as a metaphor for the food you could order.

Woah...wait, let's see if I have this straight...

Ok, so on one hand, I have the idea that the nature of deity is undefinable. And on the other, I have the idea that metaphor is the language with which we communicate to deity.

Which deity? I dunno, it seems that it doesn't really matter...since the intelligence that created the universe is so much more vast than my human understanding.

What metaphors? Well, it also seems that there are so many out there, and most of them have some really good points, so it seems like it doesn't quite matter.

Now hold on a minute here, this is sounding like you're saying that because the nature of deity is unnamed and unknown, the metaphors that we use to communicate with it can be our choice?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Oh...woah...really?

Yup.

And that's exactly what I did.

With that, I think I'm going to stop here today. I have a feeling that I raised more questions than I answered, and I really want to be able to go into my epiphany that I have been promising for like a month now, without feeling like you guys are gunna get to the point where it's all "tl:dr".

So I wish each of you a blessed Solstice, and as always, thank you for reading.

Till next time, be well,

Red

When I Speak of Myself 2

Well hello there! I'm finally getting to the next part of my story, and I'm glad you're here.

So to recap a little, we've covered my religious upbringing, the death of my Mother and how that shaped my ideas of the afterlife, and my transition into Paganism. Now today, I'm going to talk a little bit about magick, ethics and that promised epiphany that took a year. You guys all buckled in? Alrighty then, let's get to it!

I think it's important to note that three years or so before my Mother died I started studying magick. Ardriana was studying (she said it was research for a book...*snickergiggles*...a book...*ahem* that's her story tell anyway...) ...and she was bringing it home to us. The reason this is important is because from the very beginning, magick was the practice of the manipulation of energy to a desired result, and had nothing to do with religion. So yes, in this system, you could be a "good Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/Athiest" and practice magick.

Even today the "work" of magick, while tied into my spirituality and belief system, can easily be separated from it completely. Though to be fair, the step from magick to Paganism isn't very far, and it was a contributing factor in my transformation...specially since magick is generally frowned upon in the Catholic Church. (Hi Red...understatement much?)

So then, I was Pagan...now what? My life pretty much still sucked, but I felt better about it, I guess. Or perhaps I had better tools with which to survive it. In any case, once I'd graduated High School, I was given the option of college or a job. I took college. And promptly withdrew from most of my classes and generally did nothing. This went on for a couple three years until one day I decided to stop wasting my Dad's money. I stopped signing up for morning classes, because I just slept through them. I stopped taking five at a time, because I am generally lazy and wouldn't focus on the ones I didn't like. In short, I tricked myself into actually getting an education in college, and found the class that changed my life.

Since I was picking my classes by time frame, I took whatever professors came up that fit my criteria...class didn't start before 11AM. I was *very* lucky, and met several professors that challenged me in ways that still inform my life. But I think that it was my Philosophy prof that had the most profound impact...

It was an Introduction into Ethics class, using a brand new translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as the text book. Good gods...I finally understood the phrase, "blew my mind wide open", I could literally feel my consciousness expanding, my internals shifting and my view of the world around me changing.

I understood for the first time what being a good person meant and entailed. I was given a step by step process that I could internalize and begin using as a metric for my daily life. Good and bad had real world definitions, and were no longer divinely inspired abstracts that I just simply had to accept. I learned that circumstance changed the amount of blame or praise you lay on someone for their actions. I understood responsibility, accountability and what it meant to be a person living in a civilization with laws.

And even as I stared uphill at the path that lay before me. A path with no handrails, no safety net, and no divinely inspired forgiveness should I mess up, I knew I'd go anyway. I couldn't not. The rewards, freedom, responsibility (how is that a reward?) and understanding far outweighed the work and other costs that this system of behavior came with.

That class was an oasis for three hours, twice a week, and I gulped down the concepts like a starving man gulps down food. I was fundamentally changed by the class...and then Aristotle said that the gods had no place in a system of ethics...

A bolt of lightning speared me through the head. I know that sounds overly dramatic, but that's what it felt like. My whole view of the world and how to move through it *shifted*. I was a different person after I read that line, and the world was never the same. If the responsibility ethical behavior lay with me because I wanted to live within the society I found myself in, and I did good because it was simply the right thing to do, and not because of some hope of reward or fear of punishment...then why did I need religion at all?

I didn't.

Oh, but that opened a can of worms didn't it? And I think this is where I'm going to leave this post for now. I suppose I was overly ambitious when I thought I could tell this story in only two chunks. I really should know better...I am Irish after all.

Thank you for continuing to read, and I promise to try to have the next installment sooner rather than later.

Till next time, be well,

Red

Adventures in Jewelry Wearing

Ok, first...having a day job is the sux. I did not miss it at all. Those of you working lame day jobs, you have my sympathy and admiration. ./salute

Second, I blame the above mentioned day job for my lack of updates! I've been so tired in the evenings when I get done, I just haven't had the brains for much of anything but messing around on the intarwebs. However, I'm gunna try to get back into some sort of schedule here soon.

And now...on with the show!

Adventures in jewelry wearing? Yeah, that's right...something very funny happened last First Friday, and it needed to be set down to share.

So, the beautiful and insanely talented Teresa Maharaj-Williams, (and this site just has her graphite work...she's been working in oils and they're pretty amazing so far!), was wearing one of my new Chain style Desire bracelets...

Pretty huh? ^^

...and all night she was being followed around by men who appeared *totally* interested in her art work (as they should be!), but would rapidly lose interest after she would say something about her husband and kids. It was pretty comical. One elderly gentleman followed her across the street into another gallery, then came back to Damned Ink Studios with her! I watched them talk about art, and his place in Florida for about 20 mins. Then she mentioned she was married...he handed her his card and left. Just like that.

Now, First Friday is always super busy in DiS, always lots of bodies in the gallery. I stay at the back desk at the register, leaving other people free to wander the room, pimp the art and talk. So I don't alway see what's going on by the door, which is where Teresa spent most of the night, near her work.

About 9:30 or so, she comes charging up to me saying, "Take this thing off. Take it off!" She's agitated, though it looks like she wants to laugh too. "It's working to well!" she says, "I just had a guy show me his nipple!"

Wait...what?

After I was done laughing...apparently she was talking to a somewhat inebriated gentleman, and he was complimenting her on her ability to paint certain parts of the human anatomy (read: he liked how she pained nipples), and was offering her a model for her next work. This was the last in a line of about 6 or 8 guys who had seriously hit on her during the night...

So she puts her bracelet in her pocket, and I can see that she's still agitated, so I start looking through my box of supplies to see if I can't find a Water (Desire being a fire piece...) piece for her to borrow to help calm down. Luckily I had one, and she was able to keep it on, even though it was to big for her...she did immediately settled down, and didn't have any more trouble with strange guys the rest of the night.

My favorite part was when her husband stopped by, and we told him the story of the nipple flasher...his face...so priceless...she was so red! I wish I had had a camera!

In any case, Teresa is gorgeous, and it's not uncommon for her to be hit on by guys, specially on a First Friday, but that night was different. She was flustered because the guys were trying much harder than they usual. She's also usually somewhat oblivious to the attention, but that night she noticed! (Like, how could you miss the nipple thing...right?)

Hmm...the event's funnier in my memory than I've managed convey here, though still, it's worth noting that while she wore the Desire bracelet, she kept getting attention for things other than her art. Once she put the Water piece on, it stopped.

Interesting, no?

Anyroad, I'm going to try and get the next part of my personal story done this weekend, so if you made it this far through the post, thank you, and I hope you return to read my other ramblings.

Till next time, be well,

Red

When I Speak of Myself part 1

Oh, you thought I'd forgotten about this huh? Suckers...

I think it's about time to get a little more personal in this whole conversation, to give people an greater understanding on where I get some of my ideas from.

Let's start with the basics...I was raised Irish Catholic. The cultural modifier is important, because for as pagan as Roman Catholicism appears, it ain't got nothin' on the Irish. Mima got to actually visit Ireland when she was younger, and while on a train ride she asked another woman if she believed in the "Little People". The woman responded, "Tsk, I'm a modern woman I am! Of course I don't believe in the Little People...but they're there just the same."

This pretty much exemplifies the Irish, at least as far as I was raised. I went to Catholic school, and was given all the liturgy and dogma, I learned the "stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight" pattern to the mass, sang the songs, did the dance...blah, blah, blah...and at home, when I asked my parents if animals went to heaven, because teacher said they didn't, I was told, "Of course they do."

I was also taught to make a wish on the New Moon over my left shoulder, to throw spilled salt over my shoulder, and that my Godmother and Mima could do magick.

I loved Yahweh, as my child's mind separated him from Jehova (who was kinda a douche, with all the plagues and smiting...), and loved Jesus cuz he seemed a really cool guy. But then there was the Blessed Mother...(you can prolly see where this is goin'... ;) )

Then I was told that I couldn't be an alter girl, like my worshiped older brother. That was pretty much the beginning of the end. I got the High School and read the Epic of Gilgamesh (in my freshman religion class...no, I'm not sure how that works either, but that teacher only lasted a year...), and generally realized that I didn't much like the god of the bible. I was reading a lot of mythology and fantasy and was *really* liking this whole "goddess" idea.

And then my Mother died.

I say without exaggeration that this single event has more impact on my life than any other. The ramifications continue to inform my decisions and probably will for the rest of my days.

While I was struggling with the anger and grief of not only the event, but with how my family shattered because of it, I discovered that I did not like the idea of my Mother in some distant heaven, so far removed and untouchable to me. And I sure wasn't even going to imagine that there was *any* remote possibility of a hell. F' that.

It was right around that time I discovered some books on Celtic mythology and learned about Tir nAn Og, or the Summerlands, the Land of Youth. Souls would rest and review their lives, learning their lessons and awaiting their beloveds so they could be born again together. Something in me wanted this so badly that I simply couldn't conceive of anything else.

Being a teen, I was pretty angry. Being a teen that had lost a Mother, had a crazy Father and Sister...I was raging. It bothered me that I was so angry all the time, so when my school gave us an opportunity to go to confession, I went, hoping that the priest could give me some idea of how to deal with myself. Looking back, I can say that I feel sorry for the priest...he simply didn't know what to do with me. I hadn't sinned, and he wasn't a psychologist. I don't blame him for the lack of solace I received from confession.

Walking back to class I went through a grassy patch. It had been watered and the cool sprinkles tickled my ankles...and I felt better. I don't know how to explain it other than all the anger I carried at that moment wooshed out of me through my feet and into the ground. the back to back events and how reacted to them remain a turning point in the development of my spirituality.

Later that year I dedicated myself to the Goddess under a Full Moon. I was 15 and wanted something other than what I had been taught in church growing up. I wanted a place where woman were not only not discriminated against, but were held in high esteem. I wanted magick to not only be possible, but expected every day. I wanted the ground beneath my feet to be sacred and not something to just be dominated. I wanted animals to have souls, and babies not to have to worry about "original sin" (I poked a badger with a spoon!). I wanted joy and love and laughter again. These I all received, like gifts, along with all the cool toys! (I got rocks and candles, beautiful smelling oils and incense, a rockin' awesome dagger for my athame, cloaks and robes, goblets and eventually a teeny, tiny baby cauldron...and then the metric ton of beautiful jewelry.)

I also, finally, got the sense that there was something else out there. Something that loved me, looked out for me, and wanted me to be bigger than I was, as big as I could be. It connected me to the earth beneath my feet and the vast universe above. Connected me to every living thing on the planet. It was a very good start.

When I was 18, I went to my Baccalaureate Mass (the last Mass you go to before graduating High School and become an adult) conscious of the fact that I was no longer Christian. It was my formal good bye.

It's been 20 years now since that night under the Full Moon and I am more comfortable now within my spirit than I was so long ago. Everything that I looked for I am still finding, and I choose consciously, everyday, to continue down the moonlit path. I can only hope that everyone finds this same sense of peace and joy in their spirit...it is a wonder indeed.

Well, I think I've rambled about myself for long enough. Next time I'll talk about the evolution of my ethics, and how they tie into my spirituality, and the epiphany I had over the course of a year. And *then* I think I'll go back and respond to my good friend's response to my response to her response of my post which was a response to her response of my post...woah...dizzy...

Thank you for reading, I am honored.

Till next time...Goddess bless,

Red ;)

Stonewise: Amber

This is the original banner created for my first Myspace page. All of those pieces are mine, the photo was taken by Ardriana.

It's still April, which is my month (yes, all of it...), so for today's Stonewise, I want to look at the stone that intellectually is my favorite. I love it beyond reason, though it is not the same as with Rose Quartz. >.>

First we'll take a look at what Ardriana has to say:

Amber is fossilized tree sap. Colors are lemon yellow, honey gold, cognac, black, off white, green and blue (brzzt! Blue Amber?!? Why haven't I see this before?!?).

One quick Google search later and we have, Dominican Blue Amber, which is best seen against a black background (this is the same for Green Amber...without the background, light filters through the stone and you only see hints of the color inside).

Pretty cool, huh?

This stuff is rare, expensive and beautiful...should I ever be able to afford a real piece of this stuff...*le sigh* ^^

Anyroad...as I was saying...

The oldest deposit discovered to date was found in 260 million year old Permian limestone in Russia's Ural Mountains near the Chekarda River. Triassic Amber from the Mesozoic Era tends to have a dark red hue and ranges from 240 to 208 million years old. Tertiary Amber comes form the Cenozoic Era and is much younger at 66-1.6 million years old (younger...LOL!) In the U.S. Mesozoic Amber can be found along the eastern coast. More than 1000 extinct species of insects have been identified in amber.

History: Amber took on great value and significance to, among others, the Assyrians, Egyptians, Etruscans, Phoenicians and the Greeks. Amber resin contains aromatic chemicals called terpenes which make them volatile, or flammable. Burning Amber as incense has been done for thousands of years.

Folklore: Stone Age man imbued Amber with supernatural properties and used it to wear and to worship. One myth surrounding the origin of Amber is givin to use by Ovid. when Phaeton, a son of Phoebus (the Sun) convinced his father to allow him to drive the chariot of the sun across the sky for a day, he drove to close to the earth, setting it on fire. To save the earth, Jupiter struck him out of the sky with his thunderbolt and he died. His mother and sister turned into poplar trees in their grief but it did not end their mourning him. Their tears, dried by the sun, turned to Amber.

Another ancient writer, Nicias, said that Amber was from the setting sun congealed in the Baltic Sea and cast up on the shore where, "the sun takes a bath in the sea". In Eastern Europe, it is said that honey from the mountains of Ajan was melted by the sun and solidified into Amber by the sea. The Chinese think that Amber is the petrification of the soul of the dead Tiger, and so think that it gives strength and courage. Sacred to the Goddess Freya, who possessed the magic Amber necklace "Brisingamen". Emblem of the earth goddess. It is one of the two organic fossil stones (the other being Jet) used in a Wiccan High Priestess' necklace of rank.

Magick: The nature of Amber is tree bearing, organic, sun ruled, intellectual, liquid, flammable and attractive. Despite its yellow color and although influenced by its Solar affinities, Amber is an earth stone, a gift from ancient trees. (Pagan author Scott Cunningham says it's a fire stone due to its flammable quality and because it is yellow it is often called an air stone.)

Use this "Tiger blood" stone for courage and strength. Or choose the "Sun blessed" aspect of these honey stones to enhance beauty. When placed on the altar, it increases the effectiveness of your spells. because of its "electrostatic" attributes, use to increase attractiveness, both physically and intellectually. "The blood of the sun" aspect imbues the stone as both a good fortune and protective amulet. With Amber's ancient organic perspective, perhaps it can warm a cool heart and help one find joy and humor in life.

Woah...that's a lot of stuff...

How I use it in my jewelry...right now I use it mostly in my Sunset Anklet, which is three colors of Amber and two colors of Tiger's Eye. I do have plans to make a Sun design to compliment the Moon one I already have, mebbe in the next week or so, since I think I finally have the stones I want to use...

It's strange how I love Amber for it's organic metamorphosis (I love Petrified Wood for the same reason), but I have totally internalized the Sun qualities of the stone. In fact, I mostly don't care for Amber set in silver, as it is the lunar metal, and prefer it to be set in gold (one of the few times where my taste in jewelry gets expensive >.>). Liquid drops of the sun, crystallized fire...strength, beauty, the magick of transformation, these are the attributes I see the most when I think about Amber.

I love how light it is, and how it has a "plastic-y" feel to it, so unique in the stone world. I love that it is smooth, though always just a little bit tacky, like it's solidified honey, and with enough warmth it'll flow between your hands. When I discovered cognac Amber, I just about died, I thought the deep red wine color was so beautiful. It's still my favorite, though I have come to love all Amber to some degree or another. I love that green (and blue apparently) Amber has a magic trick to it to see the real colors (this is why you'll find green Amber with a coating of black on the backs of cabochons).

Despite how light it is, you can feel the weight of the years and history behind Amber, it's set apart from other semi-precious stones because of it. All of these things add up to make Amber one of my favorite stones of all time. In the first pic in this piece, there's a large nugget in the center. I got that at the New Pioneer, in West Yellowstone, MT, and after Richard let me take it out of the display case, I held it in my left hand, against my waist, while I looked at other stuff in the store. Even when I was going through the big tumbled stone bin, I did it one handed because I couldn't let go of the Amber. I growled at people who wanted to see it (jokingly...yeah... >.>) and didn't let it out of my sight till I had a receipt that said it was mine.

I do have to confess that I am still a bit snobby about Amber, and prefer the more clear pieces. I'm actually not a huge fan of the milky pieces, and I would rather not have a ton of the "sun spangles". The clarity of the color is what draws me to it.

Well, thank you for wading all the way through this long post. Amber isn't a stone you can just say a few words about, and I probably haven't even done it justice. But hopefully you still understand a little more about why I do what I do.

Till next time, be well,

Red

When I Speak of Religion 2

I have not forgotten the conversation that started with last month's "If Your Religion..." post, I've just let it percolate a bit more before responding...yeah, that's it. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

After the last installment, my friend responded,

The way you speak about religion/spirituality often seems to boil down to those last four words: "always meet your needs." This is the part that I can't quite get past. My whole faith revolves around God, not around me (or at least this is what I strive for). Of course I believe that God loves me more than any human ever could, and that God wants absolutely the best for me, and that God will take care of me and my needs. So my needs do end up being met by my religion/spirituality. But that's just not my starting point, nor is it my bottom line, nor is it the centre of what I believe. My faith is a response to something outside of myself, and to me it seems sad and small to imagine a spirituality that revolves around an individual human.

...

To the extent that I agree with your "if your religion" posts, it is always because I agree that what you're saying is also what God wants for us. I do disagree with the starting point/bottom line/core belief I am perceiving in your posts that a person's religion must serve their needs. I am theocentric in my beliefs, not anthropocentric. Our ends are often the same, but our means seem to be different, and I believe that the means do matter.

I can absolutely see the issue with the way I've been explaining things. She a good, kind, generous person, who I am lucky to count as a friend, and as such, is actually about the last person I would be talking to in these matters. She absolutely exemplify what I'm talking about when I say that a person's belief system should help them to be "happy and good". If we had about a billion more like her, the world would instantly and irrevocably be a better place.

Everything works out great if one believes that God's plan for them holds nothing more than kindness, generosity, love and joy. But what about those people who believe that God's plan for them is blowing up a train full of people? Or that they are compelled to stick their infant son full of needles? Or to shun someone because of the color of their skin, or because of who they love? What about the plans of a god who is jealous, vengeful, hateful, murderous and cruel?

When one lets an outside force tell them how to behave or think or live, they are at the mercy of that outside force. They could get lucky and have a completely benevolent model, or not. If instead we were to insist on being conscious of our behavior, active instead of passive. Insist on behavior that does the least harm possible and then model our spirituality to alleviate our fears and sorrows from there, the responsibility would then be in our hands and not at the whim of something/one else.

The concept of truth comes up a lot when talking about religion. Seems that one cannot talk about belief in a religion without linking it back to the truth. But if everyone's got it, how can we ever be certain who has the really real truth?

Set aside the desire for the truth for a moment, and consider the possibility of religion for spirit's sake, for wisdom's sake. Let them worship cross-eyed frogs (thanks Mima), and believe in the endless lily pad for an afterlife. Consider religion for no other purpose than to help someone live as good and happy a life as they can be. Understand that generosity, ethical behavior, participation, consideration, and awareness among other virtues, are all absolutely essential. Now, why does it matter that they don't believe the same as someone else, and are unconcerned with the truth?

When a system is set up to include concepts like true/false and right/wrong conflict is automatically included when dealing with those outside of the system. This to me is a fundamental flaw within most religions, and further proof that religion is politics and not spirituality. The means have become more important than the end, and very often the end that was supposed to be there just vanishes altogether.

With the equation, "Mine is right, yours is wrong," aggression is very often the response, because of the fear of being revealed a fraud or a fool. Any sort of resolution ends with someone losing and someone winning. This is counter productive. If instead it was, "Mine is mine, yours is yours," where's the aggression? There's no fear, but instead a connection to the end, rather than the means.

I hope this clarifies things. :)

Till next time, be well,

Red

Stonewise: Rose Quartz

First I have to say that I know I owe you guys quite a bit of writing. It's been sitting in the back of my head and I just need to take the time to get it down...I will, I promise.

So, on with the show...it's my birthday today! Which is why I'm doing this special Stonewise now. And no, it's not my birthstone, which is diamond, but rather the stone I have the deepest fascination with...Rose Quartz.

And now a word from our spons...er ...Ardriana!

The pink form of Quartz is created by iron or titanium impurities. Usually massive, uncut crystals are rare. The rare transparent Rose Quartz from Madagascar is called Rosaline. Star Rose Quartz is also uncommon. Presently the world's highest quality Rose Quartz is coming out of Madagascar (further proof that all things awesome come from Madagascar. Say it with me...Madagascar!).

Folklore: Traditionally, babies have been given Rose Quartz to help them during their transformation from the spirit world to their physical world. The gentle pink glow produces a nurturing, calming and gentling effect, which helps them adjust to their new environment.

History: Beads of Rose Quartz have been found in Mesopotamia that date back to 7000 BCE. Rose Quartz was used by the Assyrians as early as 800-600 BCE. In later times it was extremely popular with the Romans for making seals. These seals were used in clay or various dyes to show ownership or to identify authors.

Magick: One can't describe the attributes of this stone without using the adjective "gentle". Rose Quartz is the definitive stone for love and intimacy in all relationships. This stone is used to open one's heart and enhance generosity. It is love attracting and love enhancing. It promotes peace, happiness and fidelity in established relationships. It is *the* friendship stone. It soothes worry and anxiety with its gentling qualities. Heals emotional wounds. Comforts and heals the child within.

So why did I choose to write about Rose Quartz today? Because it is the stone I am most deeply fascinated by. I could own one meeelion pieces and still want the one that's over there. I have a large sphere with a natural star in it (very rare!) and every time I buy tumbled stones, one or two chunks find their way into my bag or tray.

But it's PINK! Argh! Why?? It's almost embarrassing how Rose Quartz sings to me, I can't help myself. I don't even *like* pink! I'm a redhead, I don't wear it, I *am* it! It's just...ooh, look at the subtle amber rose of this one...or how frosty this one is...see this inclusion here, it looks like a river...look at it under the light and you can see... *sigh*

It used to frustrate me that the stone I was most attracted to was so...sissy. There's others I love with more consciousness, like Rainbow Obsidian, Amber, Brecciated Jasper, Petrified Wood, I have reasons that I love them, and can tell them to you. Rose Quartz? You got me...

But then again, maybe it's not such a mystery. All of my life I have been told that I was a good friend. A best friend. A sister unlooked for. Generous to a fault. Trusting, loving, giving...kind and sweet, a living embodiment of the qualities of Rose Quartz.

When debating whether Rose Quartz is a Fire or a Water stone, Ardriana says:

The first level of Fire's passion is carnal, it's all blind head and thoughtless impulse. But that kind of passion burns hot and fizzles fast. That fleeting passion doesn't even come close to the white hot intensity of real love. A person may weep to hear that a good sex partner is no longer available, but the same person will jump in front of a train to save someone the love. The fire that will not die - that's passion! And that is how I love. That is why, Friendship, which is the core and true basis of all love, is my greatest passion.

I'd try to say this in my own words...but it's just a futile effort, hers are always better.

But it's true, the fierceness I feel about the people I love doesn't diminish with time or distance or silence. It remains the same today as it was yesterday, a month ago, a year, ten years...it'll be the same tomorrow. I don't know how to not to.

In my jewelry, I have a friendship piece. It's subtle, eloquent, just Rose Quartz with Crystal or Smokey Quartz for accent.

Wear to attract friends or give to someone you already love.

I also use it in my Desire design. The Rose Quartz offers something more than that fiery burst of passion that dissipates. No other stone I know has such a definite use magickally. There's really no argument, no other interpretation, only shades of the same intention.

I love this stone irrationally. I have *way* more pieces than any one person could ever want or need, and I will end up buying more...it'll just happen whether I want to or not. It is the stone that defines me, represents me, embarrassing or not. ;)

Blessings to each and every one of you, may all your days be full of Love, Light and Laughter!

Breithlá Sona! (Happy Birthday!)

Bhen Rudha