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It used to be that when I would see an article or a tv show about people who collect dolls or matchbooks or shot glasses I would think, “Huh.  I wonder what that’s like.”  And then one day I cast an eye around my own house and saw all the stones and rocks I have carefully placed on window sills and bookshelves.  I have some real beauties on our dining room table.  Ed’s friend once scoffed at my tablescape.  It’s called home décor, Alfred.  Home décor.

I come by my love of rocks honestly.  I remember my dad sitting in the yard, chipping away at the big stones that would become the sides of our house.  As kids it was our job to walk through the freshly plowed fields to pick out and haul away any big rocks that had been kicked up and sometimes we found some real nice quartz stones for our pockets. 

I have stones from my travels, my friends’ travels, my family’s travels.  My mother and I used to exchange rose quartz for years.  And I have tucked many little stones that were special to me by grave markers.

So it seemed natural to me that when I was considering my pretty ring that had some unpleasant associations with it that I ask my stones to help me out.  I put the ring on my biggest chunk of rose quartz, and covered it with small stones that I love from places I love (like my favorite tree in the woods).  It was like an ancient Celtic breastplate prayer: above and below, before and behind, to the right and the left.  I left it there for four days.  Then I took it out, put it on and went for a walk. 

Nearly immediately I came to understand that the ring itself was, unsurprisingly I suppose, exactly as it had always been: a thing of beauty.  But my feelings about the ring were what had been transformed and transmuted into great joy.  So now when I wear it I think of that small glory and am grateful.

Now for the art side of the story:

Like many artists I often revisit paintings and work into them, over them, sometimes even obliterate them.  I always take my work as far as I can go, but happily as time progresses so does the level of my work.  So if I think I can say more in a painting than I originally could I don’t hesitate to go back into it.  It too is like a kind of transmutation: a change into something more than before.

That’s what happened to the blue cat painting.  I liked its original form, but I knew I could say more now.  So in a way it was a year in the making.

We are coming to another winter solstice in a few days, and a myriad of holidays both of faith and secular.  I hope you too are working well, are continuing to do better even if it’s in the smallest of ways, the smallest of transmutations.  Be kind to yourself, my friends.  And I encourage you to reach out and be kind to others.

See you next year!

Love,

Jill