When we were up in Napa Valley a couple of weekends ago, Mr. W and I had wandered into a small shop that sold metaphysical items, trinkets from peaceful religions, various energy stones, etc. I had been looking for black tourmaline for years (for protection) but could never find one I could put on a pendant or somehow get on my solar plexis, which is where it needs to be. This shop had a large hunk of natural black tourmaline, but it really worked better as a paperweight. The salesgirl said apologetically that they rarely get a black tourmaline pendant in, and when they do, it sells out almost immediately. I guess a lot of people need protection out there. I left empty-handed, but Mr. W bought a Coexist bumper sticker that he’d always admired on other cars.

About a week ago, Mr. W and I decided to go to San Juan Capistrano after work to watch the movie Eclipse. Since we were there well before showtime, we explored the cute little train town. He pointed out another little metaphysical store, and I excitedly went in. Not only did this shop carry small pieces of black tourmaline, but tons of other loose stones, many of which I’d never heard of, and they also sold wire coils that you would pop the stone in to turn the stone into a pendant. I happily selected my piece of black tourmaline. And then I walked by another stone. I can’t recall what it is, but it’s irridescently speckled with browns and blacks and its use is ideal for acting like a mirror to reflect back negative energy someone puts to you so that whatever they send your way goes exactly back to them. I spent quite a bit of time trying to find the right stone, altho I had my piece of black tourmaline picked out right away. None of the brown stones felt right, like they’re too small or the wrong shape to fit right in the coil, and none of them jumped out at me or “felt” right in my hand. I didn’t connect with any of them. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I usually know when something is “mine” the way people pick pets at a pound. It’s how I knew both houses I own are “mine.” Mr. W read the powers of this stone and sort of scoffed at me, saying something like, “You don’t need that! What do you need THAT for? When’s the last time you felt attacked, like YEARS ago?” I felt instantly indignant because I was considering this stone for the exact same reason I wanted the black tourmaline, and he was well aware of my long-time search for black tourmaline. It felt to me like it was okay with him if I protect myself, as long as I don’t hurt the person attacking me, which given who the person is, brings up a not-new issue between us. It was my ego that pushed me to buy that second stone. With Mr. W at the other side of the store when I paid for the stones, I felt enough doubt to ask the salesperson’s advice on karmic backlash from a stone with passive-aggressive powers. Before I could formulate a question, however, Mr. W came by the register and I instead picked out two leather ropes to put the stone amulets on.

I didn’t wear the stones or even take them out of the bag, until yesterday morning. Until then, I’d thought about them and wondered why I’d bothered getting them if I didn’t feel the need to have them on or around me, but that was about it. After I dressed for work yesterday, however, I reached into the bag and put the brown reflection stone onto the brown leather cord. It took me awhile to even figure out how the clasp unscrewed. Then I was unable to screw it on behind my neck. It screwed together easily enough in front of me, but I couldn’t get it to go on when it was being worn. I finally gave up and hung it up with other necklaces on my jewelry case, and went to work. After work, I was sitting in the car in the front parking lot texting Ann, and saw out of the corner of my eye the torso and hips of someone walking by. Normally I wouldn’t care, but this time my brain scrambled madly to attach an identity to the torso. Was it a coworker? No, this torso was too thick (heavyset) to be the torso of the coworker I was thinking of. I turned and looked out the back window just as the torso turned and looked straight at me. It was THE reason I needed the protection, whom I hadn’t seen for MONTHS. I understood my battle that morning with the stone. My intuition and ego said I would need it, but my higher self or maybe my guides were against a stone that would retaliate negativity.

Luckily, I had plans to visit our clairvoyant Rebecca in the evening. Mr. W dropped me off at Ann’s after work, where Claudio drove all the way out from San Diego to meet with us, and Ann drove the three of us to Seal Beach to the coffee house where Rebecca was hosting another informal workshop. As we got there early, we stopped around the corner at a bar and Claudio treated us to some drinks — margarita for him, mai tai for me, Gibson martini (dirty) for Ann. Claudio had never heard of a Gibson and asked what that was, and cringed when she got to the part about the onion. As Ann and I finished our drinks, Claudio had a Patron Silver shot. If drinks were I.D. badges, our drinks would say that Claudio’s Mexican, I’ve got island vacation on the brain, and Ann is too sophisticated to hang with either of us. She may have been too sophisticated for the bartender, too, who made her a Gimlet and then got confused when she asked why he was putting lime juice in her vodka martini. Then we were off to the coffee shop to meet up with Maggie, grab coffee, and see Rebecca. I got a round of coffee for these friends, as I’d promised on this very blog. 🙂

The only question I asked of Rebecca this time was about my internal conflict about the second stone. She said that a stone is not essential for protection except to the extent that I wanted it for comfort, but that the most powerful protection is prayer and God’s light, which I could access through visualizations and meditations. She said it was wonderful of me that despite psychic attacks (I specifically refrained from using that term because I didn’t want to freak out the newbies there, but of course Rebecca knew exactly what I was talking about without my having to get much into it), I did not want to send negativity back to my attacker(s). She said that the guilt I felt is an unnecessary human convention and is not real in the spiritual realm, but that karma is real. If I felt uncomfortable or “wrong” about reflecting back to my attacker, then return the stone or give it away; there were other things I could do for protection that did not involve contributing to negative energy. She suggested visualization of surrounding myself in a white or gold light (which I’d utilized before), and even to visualize the attacker encapsulated in a white bubble or sphere of light. The purpose of the shield is so that only positive energy can permeate my seal and enter to my aura, and it’d keep negative energy out for the universe to utilize as reformed energy for whatever it needed. She used the metaphor of a dog pooping onto grass. It’s gross and we don’t want to deal with it, but the earth will absorb it and turn it into fertilizer and next thing we know, pretty flowers grow because of it. As for the attacker’s bubble, the purpose is so that only positive energy will escape from her and come out to touch others, and negative energy stays inside with her to force her to deal with it and resolve her own issues within herself and between her and God, and not dumped on others around her (I certainly have heard enough testimonials from many others to know she craps on everyone). Rebecca suggested another meditation, which I also really liked. She said to picture my earth self and the attacker’s earth self, then to picture our spirtual light selves floating up and out of our earth bodies. See the spiritual umbilical chord connecting me to her, and visualize cutting that. What’s mine comes back to me, what’s hers goes back to her, and we’re still connected to the godsource above us, but we are no longer associated with each other. My only concern is that I am not actively seeking her out so I have no problem not connecting with her (and I’ve already cut my connections wherever possible), but she has shown herself to actively seek out people around me, even my family. Rebecca said to visualize these family members in a protective light bubble, too. Her suggestions put me a lot more at ease and flow better with my energy.

On the drive back to Ann’s, the three of us chatted about other stuff going on in our lives. One touched a sensitive button I only briefly tried to dodge, and with encouragement from Ann, I spewed some venom. Later when it was just me and Ann by ourselves, Ann said that in this short amount of time, I have become one of the best friends she’s ever had and that she truly believes I’m a good person, especially given the sage advice I’d give people and my own take on living and life, but that when she occasionally sees such anger from me, she’s always taken aback and confused by the level of it because she doesn’t understand how that kind of emotion could be consistent with the person she knows me otherwise to be. I understood that, there’s always been an Earth Cindy subject to human ego, hurt, jealousy, stubbornness, in opposition to a more evolved Spiritual Cindy who watches Earth Cindy’s tantrums but is silenced by the volume of Earth Cindy’s passions. Because Spiritual Cindy is a big-picture pacifist who believes it will all be all right and could SEE that it will all be all right, she indulges and lets Earth Cindy have her little fits here and there. Not that I explained this juxtaposed existence to Ann. But it is Spiritual Cindy who gives all the advice, in case Ann’s reading this now. Spiritual Cindy’s the one who tells people to not bloody their own hands in the wasted effort of revenge, but to let karma take care of things like it is meant to imminently. Time and energy should be spent untying one’s own knots and not in trying to tie someone else’s knots.

My enemies are lucky to have me. =P