Monthly Archives: September 2012

A Trip Through The Petrified Forest

As I was thinking about this week’s blog, I was trying to decide what stone to feature, as the Stone People were asking to speak. As I was thinking about quartz, petrified wood pushed its way into my thoughts. It immediately reminded me of our trip to the Petrified Forest in Holbrook, AZ many years ago.

Petrified wood, Blue Mesa, Petrified Forest National Park

According to their website, over 200 million years ago, during the Triassic Period, the logs washed into the river and were buried quick enough and deep enough by massive amounts of sediment and debris, that oxygen was cut off and decay slowed. Minerals, including silica dissolved from volcanic ash, absorbed into the porous wood over hundreds and thousands of years and crystallized within the cellular structure, replacing the organic material. The wood structure was maintained, but the wood fibers slowly changed into stone. Sometimes the crushing or decay left cracks in the logs. Here large jewel-like crystals of clear quartz, purple amethyst, yellow citrine, and smoky quartz formed. Continue reading →

10 Billion Beats 2012 — Peace TO Earth ~ Goodwill ON Livingkind

It’s that time of year again, for the 10 Billion Beats global drum circle. Seems like it wasn’t that long ago. For the info on our Grants Pass, Oregon event, go to our calendar.

10 Billion Beats is a Global Event that uses drumming to focus a collective positive intention, then send it around the world in a continuous wave to improve our relationship with each other, with the living planet upon which we live, and “all our relations” . 10 Billion Beats started in Sept. 2009 with nearly 200,000 people participating around the globe, including a group at our house in Phoenix, AZ. Each year this grassroots movement grows even bigger. The focus is not to have the world’s largest drum circle, but to help us, as human beings, stand with each other around the globe through the uncertain times ahead. Continue reading →

A Healing Stone Ceremony

Wow, I can’t believe almost six weeks has gone by since I posted last. Where has the time gone?

Well, part of the time has gone into the face lift for the blog. Made some major changes so no more ugly Blogger blog. We now integrate with the website! It wasn’t a huge project except that last night, when everything was working beautifully, I moved it from the working file and BOOM, it all disappeared! And I mean disappeared! I had to start from scratch 🙁 Fortunately, it wasn’t such a project the second time around.

Besides the new look, you can now post comments on the blogs. HA! Now I’ll know if you’re reading or I’m talking (blogging) to myself 🙂

Late summer at The Grove brings a flurry of activity with harvest and preserving the winter stores. Even though I didn’t get my garden in this year, we have wonderful farms and markets here to purchase my goodies from the local farmers. My cupboards are filling with pickles, corn, tomatoes, relish, peaches, tuna from the coast and more. Needless to say we don’t go hungry around here! And, we get to eat mostly local all year round.

I had a different blog planned for today, but I received the September newsletter from Healing Drummer and it contained a great healing stone ceremony. Toby said I could share it with you, so here it is, courtesy of Toby Christensen via www.healingdrummer.com. Enjoy and subscribe to his great newsletter. Continue reading →

Squirrels – Mother Nature’s Boy Scouts

I have been out of sync with my blogging lately. Our son came from Arizona and paid us a visit for a week and so we got out and enjoyed our time together playing on the river and visiting the coast. He was so glad to be “home”, he found a job and arrives next week with his moving truck!

For the past month, I have been busy getting the winter stores put up. We live in a wonderful area for growing and have luscious fruit and veggie harvests during the late summer and fall. I have always canned food during the summer. I remember it as a child, helping Mom and Grandma, and the taste of the yummy sweet fruit mid winter. So, I have been canning up a storm.

As I sit at my computer every day, looking out into the forest, I can’t help noticing the squirrels gathering acorns and other seeds, putting away their winter stores. And as many of us begin to prepare for winter and the slowing of our energies, I thought squirrel would be a good topic for today’s blog.

Squirrel medicine comes in a couple of different forms. Continue reading →