Have you ever felt sorry for inanimate objects? That last potato on your plate, that sad old teddy bear that has seen better days that no one wants anymore? Objects unable to fulfil their purpose in life? I certainly have, I was a child that was very attached to things and where they would go if I was not their guardian. I felt a lot of responsibility towards everyday items that other people seemed to find easy to discard. I have definitely had hoarding tendencies over the years, but ironically it was just as I was extricating myself from those tendencies that I discovered I might have been right all along.  My worn out dolls and unfinished sandwiches might well have wanted a different destiny than becoming landfill, it was very confusing! You see I had signed up to learn a bit of shamanic practice. Just a little you understand, there was no way I would be doing healings on other people and absolutely no possibility that I might consider teaching. I was just dipping my toe in the water to see what I found, and what I found was extremely helpful. I was recovering from a nervous breakdown at the time and literally anything I could do to feel better was welcomed, if suspiciously. Early on in the training we were given a little gem of information about talking to the stones and blowing our stories into the them to alleviate feeling down. I was amazed to find that such a simple thing could be so effective, I mean stones are everywhere. So I could just use these objects that are everywhere to make myself feel better? Incredible.

Ever since I learned about the healing power of stones I have wanted to share the teaching. However I had made a promise, a promise that I would not tell anyone about the sacred teachings until I myself had completed the teacher training, something that seemed unlikely at the time. So I have waited many years and bided my time, rather like the three billion year old stones that lie around everywhere, and seen many posts online that mention stones and that encourage us to talk to them and let them do their healing work. Its a funny thing, I had never considered talking to the stones, I spent over 40 years on this planet not knowing that there could be wisdom in what I assumed was an inanimate object.  The secret is out however, the late Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho Tutu recommend several exercises that use stones and talking to them to aid in a journey of forgiveness. Their The Book of Forgiving is a very beautiful testimony to forgiveness and peace in the face of great trauma.

It can be a tricky task finding the right stones to talk to. You have to start off slowly, pick up a rock or a pebble from the beach maybe and hold it in your hand, roll it over a few times and really feel it. Ask it if it will help you. The "yes"es are harder to hear but the "no"s are quite emphatic. Put the ones that say "no" back where you found them and you can thank them anyway just to be polite. The ones that want to help don't so much say "yes" as they do align with you and what you need and you can feel it when you talk to them. These ones will hold your pain and sorrows and help you heal. Take them home and give them wash and perhaps a little oil in gratitude and then you can use them to help you.

You can carry one with you and whenever you feel overwhelmed or are dealing with difficult emotions you can blow them into the stone. Hold the stone and bring it up to your mouth, feel the feeling you want to release and  blow it into the stone with a shhhhhh sound like you are telling someone to shush. Blow into the stone as many times as you wish in that moment. If you find you are using that stone quite a lot you may need bigger one to hold all that energy. Do what feels right, ask another larger stone to help you and keep asking until you find one that will. Every now and then the stone will need to release what it has been holding for you. You can bury it overnight so the earth will take the energy, or hold it in a stream of running water, or leave it outside on a windy day. In the same way we can feel refreshed by the ocean on a windy day that blows the cobwebs away so all the heavy energy held in the stone will be taken by the elements of earth, air, fire or water. Then you can start again, make sure to say thank you from time to time and blow in a little gratitude, these stones can can do quite a lot of work on our behalf.

So this is how we can indeed find ourselves the "Patients of Stones" they with their healing properties have waited with patience for many millennia to be here now when they are needed most. When we have all but lost touch with our planet, our Mother Earth, there are little pieces of her everywhere that will help hold space for us when we need it and help us connect back to her. They are not very talkative, these Stone People who have silently waited for us to notice them but there is wisdom to be had if we start to listen and wait and connect with peace and kind intentions. Be warned however...if you think this practice might make your life easier (and it will) it might also complicate it too. If you ever were really worried about the destiny of those everyday objects you felt sorry for try digging a garden over when you suddenly have to worry about what every stone is feeling! The mind boggles, or at least mine does.

The stones were just the start for me of a beautiful journey through the consciousnesses of many things on this earth and beyond that I had never thought to inquire after. Over the years I have come to be aware of the intention of water, the strength of trees, the hunger of fire, the mysterious fondness of the moon to name a few.  They have popped into my awareness gently but suddenly or seeped in over time but all are welcome. It sounds insane I know but it is not that much of a leap if you ever thought your toys had personality or you like some fantasy/sci-fi series with dragons and magic. You can join me on this journey any time you like, it all starts with a few stones, just start to notice them and they will notice you back.

A real word of warning- many of our beaches and natural habitats are protected and nothing can be removed from them, even stones and pebbles. It might seem ridiculous on a shore where there are obviously many millions of not billions of stones but who knows what species are dependent on the exact ratio of stones to creatures in that area. There are many places that are not protected where stones can be removed so always respect the signs in these areas. Be careful trying to take even small rocks or pebbles from other countries they are often removed at security and put in the bin which was not the intention of either me or the stones. If you would like to buy the little pouch with a couple of stones that can be used for this work please see the website page about Sacred Stones where you can buy a little bag like the one pictured below. Each little bag is £2.50 and pays for the planting of 3 trees with the charity Tree Sisters.