The Stone Reader

November 5, 2017 | St. Maarten, French West Indies

“They didn’t.”

A woman once asked why the Stones had chosen me.

“They didn’t,” I told her.

“They choose everyone.

Everyone.

But not everyone chooses them back.”

I, quite simply, did.

I happen to talk to rocks. Or more accurately, I listen to them. They do most of the talking.

All of Nature seeks a relationship with us. Literally. And it is one of the sweetest, purest relationships to cultivate. But it’s a relationship that requires us to not judge ourselves, and sustaining that can be a bit tricky sometimes. Especially in this crazy interesting world.

I grew up in a little town called Queens, New York. In a noisy house of wild Italian-Irish people squished together. Oh, the yelling from room to room. The talking over each other. And that was when we weren’t fighting. The non-stop and ever-pressing sounds of the endless news programs and the radio. This was not exactly a zone of tranquility.

So when our parents seated all 4 of us girls in the back of the Crown Victoria and ushered us to a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, I thought I had reached Heaven.

Silence. Silos. Grass. Animals. And what was that thing I was feeling inside myself...that thing as I ran around hills and smelled manure and hay...what was that? I wasn’t certain, but my body demanded more.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had fallen in love with the bare earth. Around her, I felt so alive.

This little 5’2 one finally felt massive and heard. Mother Earth was listening, so I kept talking. I would find anywhere and everywhere to be alone in nature. I always had this feeling that She not only understood me, but knew me, deep in my bones.

And so began my first long-lasting relationship of no-judgement. Of trust. Of pure, inconceivable expansion and clarity, like the ringing of the bell of water as she falls from a high peak.

And my desire to experience that crystal clarity of Earth has brought me all over the planet, and into a deep space of connection with some of the oldest creatures of the Earth: the Stones.

When I was in my early 20s and living in the heart of Washington, DC, I finally put these glorious Stones into a fishbowl. Over the years I had collected them, and God they looked so beautiful when they were in water. Why not keep them in this perfect glass bowl, and stare at them? It sounded to me like a perfectly natural thing to do. My roommates, utterly baffled (one an attorney and the other a teacher) looked at me like I was a rather unusual species (I also introduced them to the joy of candles and baths, for that matter. This is how I roll).

Silent whispers and nudges in my awareness would tell me what to do with the Stones. And years later, when working in a wellness center as an Energy Healer, I began to actually use them. Throw them. Place them. Listen to them. When you finally get over yourself, (yes there were plenty of times I doubted what I was doing) and actually do it, the Stones start to give you more and more, like an anxious new best friend.

“Oh, you’re listening? Here. Have this...and this...and this…”

They tell me of diseases, of messages from loved ones past as well as alive. They take the shape of people’s spines and bones and show me someone’s child’s capacities. They are active and engage dynamically with the energy present.

Each time we throw them, the dynamic changes. Because they are the oldest creatures on the planet, they seem to hold and share the wisdom and sight with pure generosity of spirit and possibility. They are both fierce, and beautiful.

They roll off tables and pop into people’s laps. There are no coincidences which ones fall repeatedly when I try to gather them into my hands. They are so alive, playful, powerful, serious, colorful. In one moment a shade will darken or a new line will suddenly become visible in a stone.

The lines they fall into, the shapes they take...there is no pattern. They are the unbridled energy of pure creation. And if my mind could get out of the way, they might finally dance in the air.

As time passed, I began to hear an unusual language as well. Afraid to appear a bit strange, I kept it to myself, until finally it became like a dam preparing to break in me. The energy it actually takes to not be ourselves is overwhelming. It can be rather exhausting to hold ourselves back from who we truly be.

Finally, I just couldn’t hold it in anymore. And when I began to speak it, and honor what I was hearing, HOW THINGS CHANGED. Dramatically. And Fast.

During sessions, I would hear the sounds clearly and speak them, aware of the energy they contained and how it was directly connecting through and communicating with the person. After time, I began to speak the sounds I heard, then speak English. Speak the sounds. Speak English. A client finally pointed out: “You know, you are translating for me.”

I hadn’t even noticed. I was so given over to the energy and the experience,

Listening.

At the time, for some reason I could never find any information on the internet about what I was doing. Curiously, I never found a name for the practice. For years. And how prospective clients would look at me like a wild child and ask: “You mean, you don’t read tarot? Or Angel Cards? What about my palm? Can you at least read my palm?”

I would rarely respond to their questions, and just shrug my shoulders in silence. Either they knew this was for them, or not. If they couldn’t hear their knowing telling them yes or no, they certainly wouldn’t hear the Stones.

So on we went. My great companions and I. Over time, the Stones developed archetypes and names. New ones were added to the pouch, either from the Earth or from individuals. The collection grew and so did our relationship.

The Black Madonna was a gift from a man who had returned from Iceland. He did not know I was a Stone Reader. We had met briefly at a Buddhist retreat we were both attending. At the closing dinner, he was inspired to offer me the choice of one sweet black smooth Stone, typical of the region from his travels.

“The Stones there are known for the faces in them. It is believed you look into them and see a thousand faces.” He had been given 5 to bring back to the States. Quite simply, he wanted to give me one.

I looked at him, no longer surprised (yet always in awe) by how new Stones found their way into my pouch. So I selected Her, brought her to the pouch, and set her among friends. It takes time before their names and ways become apparent to me. They challenge me and teach me to be patient. Some Stones spend quite some time as Place Holders on the mat, before they move into the collective to be thrown.

“But can you listen?

Without saying a word?”

She became the Black Madonna. Fierce. Cutting through Fears, and Shadows. If there were aspects of oneself that we were afraid of, or rejected, She brought them into the Light. She was the fiercest one in the pile. When She started speaking, it was not a “Go Gently into the Night” type of session.

Not one single bit.

For years She worked so hard, and one day when I opened the pouch, She was gone. Gone. I knew She had done her time, and was complete with us. They disappear like that sometimes. I don’t ask questions. I have learned, it is an honor to have them for as long as they stay, and then when they are complete, they move on.

Trust.

It’s about letting go of what I think, and what I think I think, and what is Right and what is Wrong. What is Appropriate, and what is Precious. These things are thoroughly and utterly different to all. Being willing to Let Go, especially when you are asked to, has been the most unusual journey.

Many years ago, I was at a festival in Asheville, NC doing a Stone Session for a mother and her son. And I received direction to give the young boy a particular stone of mine. I battled this for a few moments, silently. I did not give Stones away. These were here for a particular reason. These were not just whimsical little things to pass along.

But I heard it again, and again. Insistent. This had nothing to do with me, and I had to get over myself and what I thought I was supposed to be doing. So I let go. I explained to the mother about the gift of the Stone, as her son was young to understand certain aspects. But the gift was clearly for him, and he would know what to do with it, in his most beautiful purest way.

I watched them walk away with one of the Stones. Letting Go.

About an hour later, a different young boy came to me.

So shy and quiet, he reached out his hand to me: “I just wanted to give this to you.”

In his hand was a Stone.

He didn’t know the other boy. He hadn’t seen our exchange earlier.

He just knew. And listened. And did what he knew.

Trust.

One great day, I met a woman who traveled often to Peru, studying for years with the Shamans there. She saw us working, and incredulous at what she was witnessing, asked me where I learned this.

“I didn’t,” I told her. “I just do it.”

“You just do it? This is a 10,000 year old tradition from the Q’ero people in the highlands of Peru.”

And just like that, they let me know.

I write this chapter from one of the islands in the Caribbean that was destroyed by a hurricane so massive, they could not categorize it. I survived it, and the aftermath, with 3 friends in a closet. Because much of the infrastructure here was stronger than some of the other islands affected, only about 90% of St Marten was ravaged. Whereas, islands such as Dominica and Barbuda were obsolete.

About 3 weeks before Hurricane Irma came along, I received this channel. For some reason, I never sent it out to my email list or onto media as originally guided to. It is curious how now, it applies even more:

“We [the Stones] are to be cherished.

To remind you of this pure energy of communion, of TRUST.

Of the trust in Yourself that told you to believe in Us.

You believed when your mind suggested you shouldn’t.

Now help Us remind everyone else.

You can’t not be awake anymore. Not because the Earth is suffering. Or nature dying.

The Earth will exist after You. She will. Her surface may look different, but She knows how to rejuvenate.

No, it’s not for the Earth.

It’s for You.

You must wake up.

The only reason Trees die, Waters dry up and Air becomes a stagnation of pollution, is to show you to WAKE UP.

Parts of Us may die, but Earth will always come back.

All of you will die, and you will not come back.

Wake Up.

Life is Beautiful.

It took Us millions of years to form. It will take Us many more to deconstruct. You, my little ones, do not have that luxury.

Wake up, Little Ones.

Wake up.

Or you will be asleep forever.”

5 days and 2 Hurricanes later, we were evacuated. Jose, the second hurricane, never ended up hitting us. Miraculously, in one day he went from a Level 4 (certain death for us after surviving a Level 5plus) to a Level 2, and then decided to leave us alone entirely.

I never even saw the rain that night.

We were allowed to bring very little as we ran to the helicopter evacuating us to St Kitts. My pouch of Stones never left my side. A bit of a weight to carry when you have to run past a military blockade to get to your destined evacuation, but we tore on.

3 weeks ago, I returned to St Marten, to “help” her rebuild. But I think it was really to find these pieces of my heart that fell out when Irma came. I carry my pouch of Stones to different spaces on the island and Listen. I pick up my Heart-Pieces.

And realize, now more than ever, as I was told months ago in the channel, She’s not asking me to heal Her.

Not one single bit.

She’s asking me to heal me.