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The Truth About the Tucson Gem Show | A Journal Post

tucson2

~ Sunburnt and High on Life ~

This past February I went to the Tucson Gem Show for the first time ever in my life.

And it was great.

It was beyond great. It was one of the best things I’ve done thus far in my life.

I learned a lot, connected with many in new and interesting ways, I began my journey as a buyer and seller of minerals. I felt my soul melt and come back alive again. I felt at home and understood in a way that I feel rarely understood where I am not.

And its not that I am not surrounded by amazing people. I am. All the time.

This was something different. For a week and a half I was on a high. I was doing all the things that I love and none of the things I dread doing in the sunny desert of Arizona. The weather lifted my moods much in the same way cloudy Vancouver can lower them. I found myself going fast with people I love whom I felt so at home with.

Landing in Vancouver afterwards was a shock to my system. I was exhausted, sun tanned and quite happily sick. Mission accomplished. Sitting on the skytrain to the current housesit I felt a blast of energy go through my body. I didn’t know what it was, and I still don’t know what it was, but when it hit me I couldn’t stop crying.

Homesickness struck me. Not for my Blood Family or where I grew up. I wasn’t craving the Islands, or the friends I have there, in Winnipeg, or in other areas of Canada. I was craving the family I felt I had left in the States, at the Gem Show. I was craving the sense of home I had this previous summer in San Francisco, the first city I have fallen in love with and written love letters to and all the people in that area I felt so at home with.

I realized with a force where my home is – an intention I had set almost one year ago.

Then I couldn’t stop crying for a good nine days.

It was as if each session of tears let something fall away. For those nine days my body was racked with emotional turmoil of mainly fear. The fear showed up in different ways with many different stories and versions of the fears that came up for me. I witnessed myself and creating stress as I dealt with finding a new place to live, receiving the minerals from the States, and money.

My emotions on a daily basis would swing within hours from regret to anger to low self-esteem to grief to straight up fear. Stories went on in my head as I contracted from the world, and decided to do what I needed to do and nothing more than that until my emotions stopped spinning me around in whatever transition or transformation this was.

As I came out of the experience I began to feel my cheery self coming a live again and able to be more fully present. I have slowly, day by day, felt much more able to handle the world and physicality again. I feel like I can be okay with the unknown – and there are so many unknowns and probabilities. I feel like I can be okay with the waxing and waning of life again. I feel like I can stand strong on my feet again.

Words haunt me from the mouths of others as I exit this process, whatever that was: You are beautiful. You are a Goddess. You are intimidating. You are powerful.

I practice now to feel my power, feel my aura, feel my impact on others. The better I can feel it the more awareness and consciousness I can bring to my interactions with others. I’ve only glimpsed my power twice in my life, stories for another day, and now I want to humbly know it so I can use it better to serve each person I encounter in my life.

My own words haunt me, the words I said to perhaps one or two good friends of mine: “I feel like when I come back from Tucson my whole life is going to be at a different frequency. Everything is going to shift and change.”

And it is. Fast. I witness the changes within myself, a gentle smile on my face in the most mundane moments of life, and feel so blessed to be where I am doing what I am.

There are many factors to the changes I see in me and one of them is the Kundalini Yoga course I’ve been doing since October. It has truly been transformational. I am honored and humble at the power of this technology, this world, the power of being a soul in a human being, and with just… everything in this moment and the last few days. I find myself spending more and more moments in that space – shifting, twirling, moving between human and soul and the many faces of each. <3

How to Balance Your Chakras

chakrasMany people are curious about the best ways to balance their chakra system. It’s a good idea to balance your chakras because when they are operating properly and in balance your life is in alignment with the Universal Flow and everything seems a lot more graceful.

There are a lot of factors that go into whether a chakra is open and functioning properly. It can be blocked from operating in a balanced way due to traumas, or a build up of negative thought forms. It can be over active from too much focus there, or its swung from being too under functioning to being overly functioning.

To guarantee that your chakras are in balance it would be recommended that you do one of the following exercises everyday. For some people this works and they love it. Other people like to change it up a bit (like me!).

Personally, I tend to focus on filling my life with various exercises based on the chakras that I want to work on or the quality that I desire to have in my life. For instance, I do a lot of yoga that focuses on the solar plexus and the heart. My meditation practices tend to be based on the sacral and third eye chakras right now. But it shifts depending what I’m working on.

The Crystal Method

The crystal method is a really simple laying on of stones healing practice that most people find hugely effective. First you gather seven minerals together. You can usually find chakra sets for sale for around $25 including taxes at your local metaphysical stores, or even online maybe. You can also pick out your own stones for your chakra set, which is my preferred method.

Typical choices might include for each chakra the following. You only need one mineral per chakra!

Root Chakra: Black tourmaline, hematite, obsidian, smokey quartz, tiger’s eyes, jasper, garnet and ruby.

Sacral Chakra: Bloodstone, carnelian, red garnet, red jasper, ruby, orange calcite, fire opal.

Solar Plexus Chakra: Aragonite, citrine, golden calcite, malachite, rhodochrosite, ritulated quartz, pyrite, tiger’s eye, unakite, imperial topaz.

kit-chakra-balancing-300Heart Chakra: Aventurine, emerald, green calcite, green tourmaline, lepidolite, malachite, pink calcite, thodocrosite, Rhodonite, rose quartz, malachite, kunzite.

Throat Chakra: Angelite, aqua aura, blue lace agate, blue topaz, celestite, chrysocolia, larimar, turquoise, sodalite, aquamarine.

Third Eye Chakra: Amethyst, azurite, charolite, hawk’s eye, kyanite, lapiz lazuli, sodalite, moss agate, sugilite, sapphire.

Crown Chakra: Clear calcite, clear quartz, danburite, herkimer diamond, selenite, amethyst, diamond.

Once you have your minerals and have charged them by either keeping them in a bag with citrine (my favorite solar plexus mineral when doing a chakra balance) or running them under cool running water find a comfortable spot to lie down.

Place the applicable minerals on the chakra and visualize a gold/white light from Source entering the crown chakra, and going through the mineral on the crown chakra. See the gold/white light flowing through the third eye and its mineral and so on, until you get to the root chakra. When you are at the root chakra visualize the energy flowing down your legs through your feet connecting to the Earth. The energy goes deep, deep down into the ground, connecting you firmly.

Then see the Earth’s energy rise up, following the flow of energy all the way back into your body, up through the chakras, connecting through the crown chakra to Source.

You’ve now created a powerful flow of energy that is circulating Source Energy with Earth Energy, providing sustenance from the two most important energy sources we have as humans on the planet. We are feeding both our soul and our human body with this flow of energy.

Allow yourself to relax, focusing on your breath and the feeling of the minerals if you feel anything. Allow the minerals to guide your consciousness. In about twenty minutes you will have more balanced chakras than before you began!

In my experience it takes several sessions to have fully balanced chakras. Also the sessions may last longer than twenty minutes, however, the minerals will tell you when your session is done. You will know – sometimes it feels like you’ve been dropped back into your body, or you are suddenly wide awake, etc.

The Meditation Method

This is the method I use on myself more frequently than with the minerals. I just find this method to be faster for me, and it typically is faster for people who are doing this meditation as upkeep to already fairly in balance chakras. I tend to use this method in combination with specific exercises for chakras I have challenges in.

This method is really good at developing your clairvoyance (ability of clear sight) and clairsentience (clear feeling) too!

Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down. Take a few deep breaths, and then systematically go through your body using your breath to relax tensed muscles as best you can. Start at either your toes or the crown of your head working your way up or down your body respectively.

When you are complete, take a moment to visualize your chakras as best you can. Now see white/gold energy coming through your crown chakra, balancing and clearing it as it travels to down to the third eye. At the third eye, wash that chakra with this white/gold light before continuing down to the next chakra and continue the process all the way down to the root chakra.

At the root chakra see the energy move down into the Earth, deep down, connecting and grounding you to the Earth. Once you feel firm in the Earth see energy move up from the planet, washing and clearing each chakra all the way back up out of the crown chakra connecting to Source.

Do this a few times. You may notice that you feel the energy not moving as much in certain spots, or that you see a black spot. Those are blockages/traumas/imbalances. During the meditation you can ask about them to find out more information. You can also focus a lot of energy on them which sometimes will clear it away. Other times you will need to do outside work to dissolve the blockage or rectify the imbalance.

This meditation will take only about ten to fifteen minutes at most. I maybe spend five minutes a day on it however, I’ve done this meditation for over five years. Feel free to adapt it and change it to what suits your mind and method of intuition. 🙂

How To Make Everyday GemStone Elixirs

It’s super, super easy. Anyone can do it. Let me tell you how! With pictures!

There are two types of elixirs that I make. The first elixir is the one that I make in my every day life for drinking, which this article will be focused on. Most of the time my water is infused with some type of mineral when I’m not travelling (and whenever possible when travelling). The second are the type that I make for Willow’s Lavender.

The every day elixirs that I drink are made for quick consumption and are less time consuming to make. They usually have just one or two minerals in them due to fast turnover. I don’t keep extra’s of any of the elixir around because if I want rose quartz water instead of amethyst water I’ll simply make it that day, whereas the elixirs in the store a combination of gemstones to maximize the potency of the mineral kingdom for a specific usage created in ceremony. The process is detailed here. 

Before we start lets talk about why on Mother Earth would you want to infuse your water with gemstones? I’ll give you three reasons:

1. Every time you drink water you could be sipping magickal crystal frequencies that heal your body effortlessly, with no thought on your part!

2. It’s a simple, easy, effective way to help attain or maintain the level of consciousness you desire.

3. You bless your water, and when you bless your water you change what the water holds. This means that the unwanted chemicals that don’t serve your body are filtered out, and you are drinking “clean” water.

Let’s get you started on making your own everyday gemstone elixirs!

IMG_9941Step One: The first thing to do is research. Ask yourself, what do you want the elixir to do? What qualities do you want to draw into your life? What do you want to become more of? What do you want to release/heal?

Then check out the crystals and minerals that will help you with that.

I usually use a combination of resources when I do my research. They are good ol’google, The Book of Stones: Who They Are & What They Teach and Love Is in the Earth: A Kaleidoscope of Crystals. Sometimes I’ll use the Liquid Crystal Oracle cards too. After a while you’ll get to know the minerals better and will begin to trust when you intuitively pick out the crystals. Often I’ll just ask my minerals “Who would serve me best in my water?” and go from there.

At this point in the journey its important to double check two things: Does the mineral you’ve chosen dissolve in water? Is the mineral you’ve chosen poisonous?

This is the list that I use.

If you find that your crystals is either water dissoluble or poisonous you can still use it, don’t worry, there’s just a couple extra steps involved because you have to use the double jar method instead of just one jar. The double jar method requires a small jar with a lid that easily fits inside the large jar you are using.

I’m a bit picky so I use glass only when making gemstone elixirs. I never touch the water with metals (caps excluded – I haven’t been able to find glass lids yet) or plastics (the worst!). The water will absorb materials from whatever you put it in and glass tends to be the cleanest so I use glass as much as possible.

You may want to make sure you are in a quiet space to better focus until you are well practised. This part of the process takes a maximum of ten minutes.

You are ready to begin when you’ve assembled the following: 

One mason jar (or two if you are doing the double jar method as detailed above)
Your chosen mineral(s)
Water (preferably distilled, however, I often use tap/filtered water – do the best with what you have.)

IMG_9944Step Two: Fill the large jar with water and bless it.

If you are doing the double jar method make sure there is enough room for the small jar to fit without overflowing the large jar.

After the water is inside the jar take a moment to pray over it and to it. Thank it for the wonderful blessings it gives our bodies, thank it for healing our bodies, thank it for flushing toxins out of our body. Thank it for the love it gives us, for the nourishment it provides it. Tell it how wonderful it is and how grateful you are to drink it.

Imagine you are sending love to the water. I will typically stand with my feet firmly planted on the ground, head bowed, both my palms on either side of the jar. I spend a few minutes just pouring out love and gratitude for the water. Then I ask it to bless my body and all who drink this water. I ask for it to accept the mineral I’m about to put in for healing, love and light. I will often visualize matching scenes or symbols as I pray over the water like the Violet Flame or Cho Ko Rei.

This changes the entire structure of the water. 

Step Three: Activate & program your mineral.

Then take the mineral, or one mineral at a time if you are using more than one, and place it in the palm of your hands. Either roll it between your palms or simply hold it if its fragile. And begin to program your mineral.

1. Connect to the mineral.
2. Ask the mineral to work with your intention, bringing the qualities you want to the water, infusing the water with with its Divine Unconditional love and healing.
3. Thank the mineral.

IMG_9947Step Four: Place the mineral(s) in the water in the large jar.

If you are using the double jar method place the mineral(s) inside the small jar with the lid on tightly and put the small jar in the big jar.

Step Five: Pray over the water again (optional).

At this point I place both my hands on either side and do a quick prayer asking that the water be infused with properities of this mineral, and state my intention. I say thank you, and relax.

Step Six: You have gemstone infused water!

Enjoy it! Make a refill any time you want!

Experiment too! I’ve had some crazy experiences with certain minerals, but sometimes that’s the best way to learn. I will say that its definitely a lot of fun with the mineral kingdom.

P.S.

If you decide to make an elixir with moldavite, unless you are the 10% of the population that feels grounded with moldavite, please, please, please use a more grounding stone, too, like amethyst and black obsidian. A pure moldavite elixir should pop up with a “Do not drive after drinking or operate heavy machinery or use sharp objects.”

 

Five Crystal Must-Haves (For Beginners)

Many people ask me what kind of crystal they should get for their crystal collection when they are first starting out. It always surprises me and I’m never sure what to say because where I operate from now is that each mineral is so individualized to give a generic list seems almost impossible.

The more I thought about it though, the more that I realized that I do have minerals in my collection that I view as a must-have in order for a personal crystal collection to be complete. Many of them are just so versatile that to be without would be foolish, in my opinion!

Here’s the list for those of you new to the crystal realms!

Citrine-0051. Citrine ~ works with the solar plexus

This is one of the minerals I probably use the most. Its one of the few minerals that all humans agree doesn’t need cleansing or clearing ever, and it will cleanse/clear your other minerals. It has a focus on abundance, clarity and harnessing your inner power as it works with the solar plexus. It cleanses and purifies the spaces that its in as well. I’ve kept a small piece of citrine in my wallet for years to help clear the energy in my life around finances.

I have a piece on my alter that I regularly use to clear my crystals. The particular piece I use was gifted to me to be used in clearing of spaces ceremony, and it has attended every single house clearing I have done since. It is invaluable to me, travelling in bags with other minerals clearing them as we move to our next destination. In meditations it has brought healing and clearing to my solar plexus.

This mineral isn’t the fastest working mineral. Effects can be amplified with herkimer or quartz, or by placing it in a grid. Otherwise this mineral works slow and steady. Its persistent and determined with a steady pace, and will raise your frequency to be the same.

I recently decided I was going to work more with citrine on an abundance level. In the Liquid Oracle Crystal book (that comes with the cards) there is an exercise I’ve just prepared for: Take one orange candle and place it above the citrine card (in a candle holder). In between place a piece of paper with what you desire written on it. Burn the candle and meditate on what you want for 7 minutes each day for 21 days. What you want will either have manifested or you will know why not.

I’ll let you know how it goes when I try it!

amethyst02a2. Amethyst ~ works with the third eye

A multi-dimensional purple stone that clears spaces. Amethyst is one of the great transmutation stones and has been found in several different variations over the last fifty years or so. Any of the variations from auralite to super seven are great and powerful. Amethyst is a great mineral to have around because of its transmutation properties: it clears spaces, and helps keep everything at a rather high frequency.

It also works with the third eye, the intuitive center. Meditation with a piece of amethyst at your third eye will activate and open the chakra, if it isn’t already. Meditating simply holding the mineral in your hands and visualizing your energy filtering through the amethyst is an effective meditation of changing, healing, shifting your auric field. If your third eye is overactive meditating with amethyst will bring it into balance.

I have clusters, tumbled, and raw pieces of amethyst and its variations that litter my room and crystal collection. They are invaluable to me, and I usually rotate between the different ones which travel with me.

rosequartz3. Rose Quartz ~ works with the heart

This one is a must have, especially for our Western Culture. This is a mineral that helps us to learn to love ourselves. When meditating with this mineral one can feel the pure love it emanates. It heals us by allowing us to receive love from ourselves and from others. It softly and gently leads us to a place where we can take care of ourselves first, and understanding that it’s okay to be selfish sometimes if that means you are taking care of yourself.

I worked with a big rose quartz ball for two years that was gifted to me. This past summer I gifted it to a wonderful woman. Rosie and I slept together almost every night during the period we were working with each other. I began a practice of asking myself when making decisions: Is this an act of self-love?

I learned to be okay releasing that which wasn’t serving me, which was challenging at times due to my own neurosis. I learned to recognize and be okay with the neurosis that I carry, seeing that it isn’t me. And the neurosis when expressed by others aren’t them either. It became easier to see the soul of others and myself. It became easier to not identify with my feelings.

And during that two years I really got to know myself well. And accept most of me.

Rose quartz is such a gentle, loving presence that subtly works on your energetic fields you will hardly feel it. If you do it will feel like you’ve fallen into a soft love cloud.

selenitetumbled4. Selenite ~ works with the aura & all chakras

This is a soft white mineral who’s energy is equally as soft. It is a self clearing mineral as well, and I’ve worked with it in various forms, but mostly wands. This is an epic aura cleanser, and balancer of the energies in your chakras. It is the mineral to grab for healing work if you are unsure which one to use because its so versatile.

I’ve used this mineral to extract and reduce pain, to clear the aura, to clear the chakras, in dream work, to open up my intuition and to faciliate communication with my guides. I keep a selenite wand beside my bed always to clear the dream space to allow me to have good dreams, similar to a dream catcher.

5. A grounding mineral ~ works with the root/sacral depending on mineral

I couldn’t decide what to make the fifth mineral. There are so many amazing ones, so I tried to imagine that I had a back of these four minerals, what would make it feel complete? A mineral for grounding! But which one? That depends on the person’s frequencies!

This last mineral I would say would need to be one of the following: Hematite, Black Obsidian, Black Tourmaline or Carnelian. All of these minerals can be used for grounding from a different frequency and a different way. It’s up to you to use the one that is most effective for you.

Some minerals I find too heavy for me and get headaches, slow and a lack of clarity. Other minerals don’t seem to affect me, while some minerals are just perfect for me, like carnelian.

So if I were to give you or sell you a bag of minerals as a starter set to the mineral kingdom that’s what I would put in the bag, with whichever grounding crystal you would prefer. This gives you ample minerals to explore and get you used to their energies and the way they work without overwhelming you. The minerals are powerful and versatile but gentle, so its a beautiful introduction to the mineral kingdom in my opinion.

Raising Funds for Tuscon Gem Show Adventure!!

Hey there,

I’m pretty excited to be telling you that I’m going to be at the Tuscon Gem Show this year! I’m raising funds through an Indiegogo Campaign, and would love it if you could donate and/or share the campaign with your friends and family!

You can find out all about it at the Indiegogo website. Thanks for your support! YAY!

5 Ways to Cleanse Your Crystals

So you have a shiny new friend and you are wondering what to do with it. Well, one of the first things that I used to recommend to all people is to cleanse the new crystal or gemstone that you have so its clean and shiny when you play with it.

Used to?

Through my continuous work with the mineral kingdom I’ve discovered that no crystal or gemstone or mineral needs to be cleansed or cleared. All of the minerals are little pockets of unconditional love, and nothing negative can live in unconditional love just as no virus can live in an alkaline environment. What this means is that each crystal contains the vibration of unconditional love and is always transmuting any energy lower than that which it encounters. Consistently. It never stops.

However when the mineral gets an overload of energy to transmute they do tend to break. So if you are doing a lot of work with a particular crystal (wearing it each day, using it daily, etc.) I recommend you take the time to cleanse it so your crystal stays in one piece! They tend to do their best work when they are feeling shiny, clean and loved, just like us. Remember, the mineral that your  holding contains a consciousness that is very different from ours. The mineral still enjoys being treated like the sacred being it is, just as we do.

This means that when we take the time to cleanse or clear our mineral we are doing a service to that mineral and helping it do its job more effectively and faster. We are showing the love and gratitude we have for the mineral giving its service here. The way minerals have described being left out under the moonlight is like a human going for a day at the spa. They feel loved, pampered, joyful, and ready to be of service again with a renewed zest.

MoonlightAnd that leads us to the first and most common way to clear minerals: By the light of the full moon.

The light of the full moon contains a particular energy that has been harnesssed for centuries by all sorts of mystics, alchemists, witches, yogis, and pretty much anyone who is in tune with natural cycles. The moon’s energy controls most of life on the planet, from the tides, to the cycles of each woman on the planet. The full moon is known as the time to release all that binds us and all that no longer serves us. Crystals are commonly left outside on the night of the full moon in a ritual type way so that the light can clear them. Minerals can also be left on a window’s ledge if you don’t trust the raccoons and crows. 🙂

By moonlight is the way to give your minerals the VIP treatment.

The second common way to clear minerals is with cold water. 

This is the process of washing the mineral under running cold water. Water has a cleansing effect and with the intention to release any energies that are not serving from the crystal most people find this to be an effective way of clearing a crystal. This method can be a bit dangerous if you don’t know about the crystal you are washing as there are minerals that will dissolve in water. You do not want to put selenite nor halite in water. For a full list of highly soluble minerals click here. For common somewhat soluble minerals click here.

This method is a good quick method that I’ve commonly used between crystal healing sessions.

Another common way to clear minerals is energetically. 

This is one of my personal favourite ways because it is easy, simple, and doesn’t require anything so it is ideal while travelling. For this one you hold the mineral in your hand and close your eyes. Imagine white light cleaning and clearing the crystal, travelling from Source into the middle of the mineral expanding outward. Continue to imagine this until you feel or know that the mineral is clean. For me I will see wolves running from the crystal. When there are no more wolves I know the mineral is clean. What happens for you may be different and is just as true.

This method may take some practice but comes in handy when travelling or when there is a lack of time to cleanse the minerals. The exercise can be expanded to include several minerals at once.

There is a method of leaving your minerals in the sun. This is a good way to clear minerals but there are some minerals that will actually loose their colour or shine with this method including amethyst, rose quartz, flourite, aquamarine, kunzite, smokey quartz, hiddenite, and spudumene. If you’ve done this already you may be able to bring out the colour again by rubbing a small amount of mineral oil into the mineral.

sageThe fifth way I will mention here to cleanse your minerals is to smudge them. 

This is an easy way of taking whatever your preferred smudge method is, and smudging the minerals you want clean. As per most methods it is up to you and your intuitive feelings to know when your minerals are clean. This is a subtle feeling or knowing, or just simply guessing when your first learning to listen and trust your intuition, that will tell you the mineral is clean.

You can’t “over-clean” a  mineral, nor can you “not clean it enough”. This is an additional step you can take to help the mineral be of more service to you. Even a little help is better than nothing.

These methods are the ones that I feel are easiest and most effective ways of clearing crystals. There are many more ways that you can cleanse your minerals that are much more ritual based including the use of herbs, burying the crystals, and using other minerals to cleanse minerals that you could research.

Keep in mind that there are three minerals that it is said never need to be cleansed. They are kyanite, citrine and selenite. These minerals can be placed touching other minerals and will clear them overnight.

Bonus Methods: Rice and Sea Salt. 

Placing the minerals in a bowl with rice or sea salt will clear minerals but in a different way than the ways mentioned above. Rice has a neutralizing effect. The mineral will feel more “in-balance” and often cleaner after sitting in rice (preferably submerged) for a few hours. With sea salt the crystals definitely feel clear after a few hours. The sea salt absorbs quickly any negative energy and rebalances, while often charging the mineral as well. I do not recommend eating the rice or salt afterwards as I’ve noticed that the rice often will change colour.

Happy Clearing!