Laughter is the best medicine!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/biz-juice/2009/02/04/phenomenal-view-loretta-laroche

My meditation for today is synchronicity. I have trouble defining the term in words so I looked it up on Websters online dictionary.

"Synchronicity is a term used by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung to describe the alignment of universal forces with one's own life experience. Jung believed that some, but not all, coincidences were not mere chance, but instead a literal "co-inciding", or alignment of forces in the universe to create an event or circumstance. The process of becoming intuitively aware and acting in harmony with these forces is what Jung labelled "individuation." Jung said that an individuated person would actually shape events around them through the communication of their consciousness with the collective unconscious."

I am thinking about this today because yesterday I believe I experienced it first hand. I haven't experienced this in a very long time... or I might have but was not paying attention. This time it got my attention. Ok, here is what happened...

About 10 years ago I watched a funny woman speaker on PBS. I liked her so much I bought her book. In a nutshell it is basic stuff we all know... coping with life in a humorous way. I gave the book to someone else who I thought could use some good funny advice. Thinking I would always remember the name of the book and the author's name I didn't write it down. Not a smart move.

Fast forward to 2009, I started thinking about this woman again and I could not remember her name (darned menapause!) I searched the internet, asked people, looked in bookstores - but I turned up nothing. I decided to forget about it and hoped someday I would remember her name.

Last night I was on youtube watching one of Lilou Mace's vlogs and she was talking about "living juicy"... soooo I googled juicy living (I don't know why - I just did) and guess who was one of the sites that came up! Yes! The funny speaker I was looking for last year! Loretta LaRoche. That's synchronicity! I know it's also a song by Sting (someone else I admire).

I was soooo happy to find her! and just when I needed to hear her funny wise words again. Here is the link on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tffN2d_qU-k&NR=1&feature=fvwp.

Hope your day is juicy! And don't forget to laugh out loud!

xoxo Inge

Did I ever tell you ?

I was a massage therapist for nearly seven years? During that time I lived in San Francisco...a beautiful city, but living there day to day was quite stressful...even in my line of work. So I started educating myself about alternative medicine, yoga, meditation, and healing stones... at the time I was interested in crystals... even used them in my massage therapy sessions.

When I moved to Chico I unfortunately discontinued my massage work and stopped meditating... ( I plan to get back to that soon) but I still use alternative medicines for when I feel overwhelmed and yes one can feel overwhelmed even in Chico!

The other day I was surfing etsy.com and I discovered an etsy shop who makes healing stone jewelry! The owner and jewelry artist, Caroline Pinkney-Baird comes from a long line of artists and studied art in London and New York. She has been making jewelry for over eighteen years and studying and using alternative therapies for over twenty-two years, while living in Europe, South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

For thousands of years, individual gemstones have been associated with different healing and strengthening properties in the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual realms. Caroline was first inspired to use stones to heal by her study of the traditional healing properties of various gemstones, and by her first-hand observations of their effectiveness in healing both mental and physical conditions in herself, family members, and friends. These healing properties include improving focus and concentration, facilitating decision-making, aiding a positive outlook, promoting creativity, alleviating insomnia, and calming, motivating, and strengthening. Caroline currently works with over sixty different precious and semi-precious stones.

One area Caroline has particular enjoyed working in is making necklaces which can be worn by mamas and other caregivers when they are enjoying the company of babies, toddlers and children. As a mom, Caroline is concerned with the safety of jewelry she wears around her kids, so she has come up with a line of necklaces which are strong enough to withstand the tugs and pulls of a baby or toddler, yet elegant to wear at all times, and which contain no lead crystal or plastic/resin.

But what is this line of jewelry? Caroline refers to it as her "nursing necklaces" collection, but notes that the necklaces are NOT just for nursing. In fact, many customers don’t have little kids or any children at all - they just buy these necklaces for their elegance or healing properties! So what is a Nursing Necklace? For years, mothers around the world have benefitted from using nursing necklaces. At some point your baby's exploration of her world can interfere with nursing. When distraction, biting, pulling and pinching become part of the routine, a good way to distract your baby and focus on nursing is to offer a nursing necklace. A nursing necklace is designed to appeal to your baby's senses - vision, touch, hearing. Wearing a nursing necklace refocuses your baby during feeding time, encouraging her to explore the nursing necklace beads, rather than your hair, your clothing, or anything else near her. You can wear the Nursing Necklace or just hold it and let baby finger it. It's good to have a few so you can rotate and keep things new and exciting. Caroline's Nursing Necklaces are designed to be both tactile and visually-stimulating and help make breastfeeding or bottle-feeding a more pleasurable experience. These necklaces are not just for feeding, use them during diaper changes to keep your little one's hands occupied and out of the diaper. Wear during babywearing to keep your little one from tugging on your hair. The possibilities are endless!

Stones of Healing jewelry is featured in galleries and stores including:

BabyHawk Baby Carriers, California, USA; Bits For Bairns, Scotland; Kissui Baby, California, USA; Kisses 'N' Wishes, England; McKinley Kid, Alaska, USA; Nurtured Family, Texas, USA; Sling Jax, England; Tubac Center for the Arts, Tubac, Arizona, USA; Naturally Nurslings and Nurslings Boutique, Connecticut, USA; Next Generation Diapers, Tucson, Arizona.

You can also stop in her etsy shop www.stonesofhealing.etsy.com/ and her website address is

www.stonesofhealing.com/ Now it's time for me to do some meditating!