Merry Christmas to all those of the Christian faith, most of my family included. I got a lot of wonderful presents from my parents and Santa, but there were a few in particular I wanted to share...
I received Llewellyn's 2014 Faerie calendar, with illustrations by Linda Ravenscroft, and
The Crystal Bible, by Judy Hall. The former included this great picture:
The label read "Titania and Puck". After playing Puck in our school production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream this year, I was especially appreciative thereof.
I spent most of my day reading my new book and marking the stones I already own with sticky notes. It gives a little bit of physiological information about the individual crystals, but most of the entries are delegated to explaining the metaphysical properties they have, and how they can be used in healing. The book also has an index with lots of great information, including zodiac associations, divinatory meanings, and more. Each stone is illustrated in full color.
Other than the obvious reason of "now I have a Pagan resource regarding minerals", I'm incredibly pleased with my gift because it enabled me to identify a very unusual stone of mine.
I was given one of these by my grandma earlier this year:
Neither of us had any idea what it was. Then, reading through the appropriately named
Bible today, I learned that it is what is called a Chrysanthemum Stone. Look it up! Or don't - now that I know what it is, I can do a proper post about its properties in the near future. I also decided to try one of the crystal layouts recommended in the back of the book. It was a chakra layout, and a reasonably simple one at that.
I took a lie down on the floor - my bed is really too soft for this sort of work - but a firm mattress or mat would work just as well. The book said to lay a brown stone in front of the feet, a red one at the base of the spine, an orange stone below the navel, a yellow one on the diaphragm, a pink one on the chest, a blue one on the throat (don't move around too much or it'll slide off), and an indigo one on the forehead. Then place a violet stone above where your head is laying, and a white or clear stone above that. I chose to use Andalusite, Red Jasper, Carnelian, Citrine, Rose Quartz, Turquoise, Lapis Lazuli, Lepidolite, and Clear Quartz, respectively. Then I put in my headphones and played some quiet New Age music while I meditated for about 20 minutes. It was ridiculously relaxing and insightful, and it seemed to clear up both my headache and the back pain I usually get from lying on the floor. I'm definitely going to have to get into the habit of working with my stones more frequently!
And then, finally, I figured out why I've been feeling somewhat off-balance all month. After Thanksgiving, I moved my mini shrine to make space for my Yule tree. Unfortunately, I never thought to change the orientation of the things on the shrine, so that my objects for water were pointed South instead of West, and so on. I about clapped myself on the forehead when I saw that, but it's all fixed now and the energy imbalance is corrected. What a day!
The holidays are a particularly exciting time of year, but the next few months thereafter still retain some of the gift-giving spirit as we get together with those we could not meet with at Yule. My high school's production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible ran Wednesday through Saturday of last week, and my dear Aunt C and her girlfriend came to see the show. We exchanged gifts with them at the same time, and I received a very fancy new camera (now maybe I can post pictures for all of you that aren't terrible) and a handmade "elf coat". She took pieces of old sweaters and created a somewhat Tim Burton-esque button-down piece. The hood is really long, almost down to the floor - that's it wrapped around my neck like a scarf.
