Re-stitching

On the weekend we camped at a holiday park for a couple of nights. It was part of a retreat organised by my partner's 'church group' (their Facebook group description reads: "A gathering of same-sex attracted Christian, Post-Christian, Not-Christian-but-not-opposed and etc. Womyn - for social, spiritual, educational, meaningful, nutritional, conversational and "otheral" stuff.").

So they're a pretty open and inclusive bunch, and calling them a 'church group' doesn't really seem to fit, but I don't know what else to call them. Whilst not being hugely religious these days (I've always identified more as 'spiritual' as I became more my own person) I decided to go with her as I'm friends with some of the others, and we both needed another short time-away.

A bonus was that the rural area was close to an old friend's area, and we were able to catch up with her for lunch in the nearby township. My friend occasionally can be reclusive and it meant a lot that she made the effort to meet with us. I love her and miss her often, and I hope to make our catch-ups more frequent after a couple years of 'estrangement'.
I managed to meet with another long lost friend after camping, and I'll touch on that later.

After lunch we walked around the small town and spoke with some of the local shopkeepers. Our favourite was perhaps a new age store offering readings, healings, crystals etc. It was the kind of store that I (ashamedly) would ridicule whilst I was a blind, over-zealous, religious teenager.

As I grew older and slowly began living my own life and making my own thoughts and belief-systems, I was fortunate enough to meet some wonderful people who opened my eyes to a more spiritual and holistic way of thinking. This is where my 'spiritual' identity was born, although in the recent past as I've struggled with these various mental barriers noted in this blog, I admit that my soul needs a refresher. I wish I could keep on studying Complementary Health on the other side of the city, the staff there were pretty in-tune and I liked their approach of the mind, body and soul being interlinked. Perhaps one day when I can commit to on-campus learning again, I will pick it up.
I also think this is why I like my psychologist and chiropractors - folks who understand energies and that I am sensitive to them.

Anyway I digress as usual...

It was a lovely store, and the ladies there were lovely and nearly made me cry a couple times with their kindness and intuition. We bought some gemstones (2 or 3 each) and my partner also picked up some spirit cards which sound nice too: I'm looking forward to flicking through them.

It got me thinking about stones again and how I haven't really picked up any of mine for some time (excluding when I put them on my windowsill amongst my piratey things which would have charged them nicely, but it wasn't really 'using' them). I remembered I had maybe 4 at home on my bookshelf.

When we got home from campy times I set about looking up how to cleanse our new stones of their energies (since folks handling them instore would leave residual energy. We were advised to hold them under running water) and thought I should do the same for the few I knew I still had.

After refreshing my memory from Crystal Gems I decided I would gather my old stones and do a deep cleanse in saltwater before rinsing in the running water and smudging, since I knew I had a couple stones somewhere and they'd been on a shelf for a long time.

I went around my study collecting my stones and found out that I actually have 14 in total!
So between my own buying, and giftage from 3 of my aforementioned in-tune friends, over the last 10years I actually have acquired a heap more than I thought!

Now to go about the task of re-learning what each stone is. I wanted to re-centre, but first I need to re-educate.

This is kinda a testament as to how by-the-wayside I've left my focus on spirit and soul. I've been so concentrated on the mind and occasionally the body that I've forgotten the importance of the whole package.

Even the fact that I was laying in a tent listening to the wind and the birds, warm with my partner beside me, I felt myself loosen and my chest a little less tight.

I've been feeling nostalgic for how things were within me in the past - whilst acknowledging my rose-coloured-glasses-memory could be working against me here. That said, I've been making an effort to make contact with some old friends again. Mostly those who don't have/use social-media often.

The morning we packed up the tent, we drove back into the city to meet with another friend whom I hadn't seen in quite a few years (2 rekindles in 2 days - booyeah!) and it was one of those wonderful moments where the time hasn't diluted your dynamic.

I feel like I'm very slowly re-stitching torn pieces of my tapestry back together.