October Birthstones: Opal and Tourmaline

OPAL SYMBOLISM AND MEANING

Arabic legend attests that opals fell from the sky during lightning storms, while Australian aborigines thought the creator visited the earth in a rainbow and imparted opals as a colorful gift.

Nearly 100 B.C., a Roman scholar by the name of Pliny compared opal gemstones to volcanoes and colorful artwork, realizing that opals have the ability to reflect the hues of any gem. Because of these colorful reflective qualities, during the Middle Ages, it was thought that opals harnessed immense power and luck.

Throughout time, opals have been regarded as a gem full of good luck and fortune, especially for those with October birth months.

OPAL COLOR

Opals have a primary color of either white or black, and many people find both appealing. The opal’s most defining quality is its kaleidoscope character that radiates all the colors of the rainbow. Microscopic silica, a crucial component to…

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Ozark Encyclopedia – L – Lady’s Slipper

Ozark Encyclopedia – K – Knives

introducing Zero and a cover reveal

By Natalie J. Case

I meant to introduce you all to Zero last week, but I completely spaced it. I’ll blame it on the combination of pain and pain meds. So today, I want to do that, but yesterday my publisher emailed me with the cover for In Gathering Shade, and as an added bonus, he included the re-designed cover for Through Shade and Shadow.

Through Shade and Shadow It’s gorgeous, don’t you think? I’m in love with it!

Okay, let’s talk about Zero. I started writing Zero’s character originally thinking she was the start of something new. Then I discovered that she was a part of Shades and Shadows.

We first meet her as a prisoner of sorts, the subject of some mysterious experimentation. Zero is sixteen, the daughter of a Chinese Sage who was seduced and eventually controlled by an American Shadow with questionable ambitions.

Zero is something of an escape artist, an adept thief, and particularly good with glamors. She doesn’t trust easily, so when she throws in with Raven and Evan she’s also got one foot out the door, and her eye on all the exits.

Even she doesn’t fully know what the experiments did to her, but she knows she doesn’t want to wait to find out. She has seen first hand what the man behind her captivity could do to the minds of others and she’s scared that he might have done the same to her.

Zero is both Sage and Shadow, and no one knows the full extent of what she can do. In many ways, Zero is a broken glass held together with duct tape.

I know, I know…what you really want is to see the cover for In Gathering Shade, right?

With no further ado…This cover is beautiful! I can’t stop staring at the two of them together!

BLM National Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board meeting in Grand Junction, CO, on Oct. 17-19

Straight from the Horse's Heart

NOTE: The BLM hasn’t yet updated a photo of their National Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board yet (the old one on their website is shared below). The BLM must’ve been too busy taking photos of oil fields and mines for their main BLM website page. It’s like playing “Where’s Waldo?” to try to find anything on the new BLM website, and I can’t seem to find the names and bios of the members of its National Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board. Can you? While the BLM has busy erasing data from the internet and throwing out data that used to be easily available to the public, it has added useless youtube videos on the Wild Horse & Burro Program website pages. See the BLM’s website page on the National Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board HERE.

Source: Federal Register

The Advisory Board will hold a…

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First Full Moon of Autumn

Grim Reaper

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Cleansing Your Aura with Crystals

by Kat Michaels

Cleansing-Auras-with-Crystals

Have you ever tried cleansing your aura after a rough day? An aura cleanse is a great way to remove harmful energy using crystals.

For an aura cleanse, start with your favorite cleansed piece of selenite, black obsidian, clear quartz, smoky quartz, or labradorite. It’s best to use a carved massage wand or a natural wand with a single or double termination, but any shape will work.

After choosing your stone, trace it through your aura about 4-6 inches away from your body, using your intuition to guide you. If you’re using a carved massage wand or a natural wand with a single termination, make sure that the blunt end is facing toward your body and that the termination is facing outward. That will ensure that the energy you remove will exit the wand through the termination instead of getting stuck in your auric field. Trace the front and back of yourself as well as your sides, under your arms, and between your legs, as energy can get stuck in any area of your aura. Energy is particularly likely to be stuck in areas where you have pain or have previously been injured, so pay extra attention to those spots.

Once you’re done cleansing your aura, make sure to cleanse your stone well again so that the harmful energy doesn’t affect the stone’s healing properties. To keep your aura in tip-top shape, try to do this three to four times a week.

If you liked this article, visit Kat Michael’s website.

Ecoregional Druidry: Adapting and Localizing Symbolism

The Druid's Garden

To follow up from two posts a month or so ago on ecoregional druidry and the wheel of the year and celebrating rituals, observances, and activities, I want to continue thinking about how druids can adapt basic practices of druidry to their local ecosystems. This is particularly important for those of us in diverse ecosystems around the world: part of nature spirituality is being with nature as she is in your region. Thus far in this series, we’ve explored a druid’s wheel of the year that is seasonally-focused on a local ecosystem as well as the different ways we might celebrate this wheel of the year with rituals, observances, and activities. Also tied to these spiritual practices are symbolism associated with the elements and directions; framing symbolism that weaves its way into our practices in a variety of different contexts. And so, in this post, we’ll delve into thinking…

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Fabulous Fake Facts About American’s Wild Horses and Burros

Straight from the Horse's Heart

By Charlotte Roe

“PLEASE call your Senator and share this Misinformation with them before they vote on the Appropriation Bill. Let them know that you will NOT tolerate the murder of federally protected wild horses and burros. AND if money is the issue, why in the hell are horses being rounded-up as I type. It is pure insanity.!” ~ R.T.

http://wildhorsefreedomfederation.org/white-paper/

3 HMAs destroyed, wild horses gone forever ~ photo of Antelope Complex taken by Terry Fitch of Wild Horse Freedom Federation

FAKE: Wild horses and burro populations are exploding on the range.

The BLM’s claims that free-roaming equine populations double every four years is not backed by evidence (even their own version of such). Real world population rates are context-specific. They vary widely depending on management techniques, climate, forage, water resources and predation. The BLM’s population estimates are notoriously sketchy, often contradictory, and in many cases biologically impossible. It…

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