Communications with My Sweet Jess xo

The cover of our journal

So my new relationship with my daughter after her crossover began with a very special journal that my two best ever Earth Angel Lovies gave to me. It's a journal designed by Laurel Birch, who surmounted some major challenges while she was here on Earth, so, extra special. I probably shouldn't say it "began" then, because Jess did, and continues to do occasional electrical stuff and songs and numbers, but the relationship with my sweet Jess certainly deepened.

This special journal sat on one of the bookshelves in my studio for several months and then one night I was really missing my daughter and I pulled it out and wrote her a letter, which I will share with you. (You can click on the images to make them larger.)

First letter I wrote to Jess

I was pretty sure she could see what I had written, and feel it as I wrote it. She could feel me reaching out to love her, and express my concerns.

I wrote several entries over a period of several months, which made me feel closer to her - somewhere in my soul I knew she "heard" me, she "received" the communication.

Then one night the idea came into my mind to write a letter from her to me. Well, wasn't I pleasantly surprised - it was beautiful.

First letter from Jess

xoxo

Well this made my heart feel lighter, and I loved it. I didn't know at the time that there was a name for the process we were doing, which I found out later. In the course of conversation with some people I trust absolutely, who are knowledgeable about alternative medicine, and energy work, I learned that here in this town where I live, there lives a psychic medium. Well, I thought, why not go see her? So I called and made an appointment to visit with her for an hour and see what would come about. Wow, it was so special.

For those who might be interested in a session themselves, her name is Desiree Dennis, and her whole family is wonderfully fascinating. Her grandfather is a veterinarian. Her mother is an energy worker and does a number of wonderful things. Her brother is very talented in a number of ways, and she, herself, is the most unassuming, charming, genuine individual who truly cares about her clientele. (Funny aside here - when we went into the room where she does her sessions with people there are three chairs. She sits in the middle one. Her client gets to pick which chair to sit in, either on her right, or on her left. She said it's so amusing that most of her "Penn State" clientele tends to choose the right-hand chair, and most of her "artsy, creative, spiritual" clientele tend to choose to sit on her left. Yes, I sat on the left, that's where the tissue box was : )

During our session, which was an hour long, and recorded, one of the things Desiree said was that Jess loves our letters and wants me to spend more time writing, both to her from me and from her to me. Desiree explained that there is a name for this process, and it's called "automatic writing." She also said there's a tree that's special to Jess and myself, and Jess wants me to know that if I go sit under our tree she'll come and talk with me. I happen to know this would be the peach tree by our pergola in the back yard, where we sat on the grass at sunset, and where Jess pranced through a little pathway bordered by mushrooms that had sprung up from the recent rains while she was visiting us. Yes, I've sat there, and yes, we've had wonderful conversations.

But I digress - I've spent some more time doing this "automatic writing" thing, and can say it lightens my heart and in each of Jess's letters there's at least one "zinger," which is what I call something I wouldn't normally write or even think of myself. These zingers give me insight or encouragement or turn a lightbulb on in my head and heart. They're gifts.

She guards me when she feels I've had enough to process - she says "Gotta go!" And I appreciate that.

She's talking here about the little creatures that our cat, Joey Max brings to us. I bury them in the front garden with flowers and prayers.

~Laurel Birch

Thank you Laurel Birch for being a big spirit while you were here. Thank you Desiree for your facilitation and encouragement. Thank you my sweet Jess for being accessible and sharing your adventures. 

Just LOVE. All good. 

We are working together and it is so fun. If you'd like to try "automatic writing" with someone you love who's in our true home, here are some tips:

• Make yourself comfortable (you might not want to be interrupted)
• Light a candle
• Put your favorite music on or go out in beautiful Nature
• Bring with you a beautiful journal and something to write with
• Breathe deeply a few times and ask for the blessing of Our Creative Source (whatever you call that) and the highest source of communication
• Then write what comes to mind without questioning or "editing" it (it's so interesting to read later). Don't think, analyze, or question, just write. That way the message comes through with more purity and not so much of "your" spin on what you're getting.
• You might feel an urge to change your handwriting, for example, Jess prefers me to print rather than write in full cursive, just go with it.
• After you feel you're done, say thank you and close out the session with gratitude.

Questions? Feel free to contact me at dreamkeepercreations@gmail.com or have a session with Desiree, you'll love her. She's very down-to-earth.

Fear? None. "The only thing to fear is fear itself." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt via Louis McHenry Howe

Love? All there. 

Try it. You'll love it. And it will love you back. 

I will also add that I've captured Jess's loving spirit in photos occasionally. A beautiful soft pink orb so huge it surrounds me.

See the round pink orb shape that almost takes over the whole photo?

Here's another photo taken seconds later.

AND when I chose the pink orb photo to upload it the other (second) photo uploaded by itself without me choosing it. Hi Jess xo : ) The cool thing about the first photo is that as soon as I saw it I felt an overwhelming sense of PEACE. I just love that. 

I think this kind of communication is good and healthy, and pretty much available to us all. 

Lots of food for thought here. Shared with love.

Namaste

Jen

Multicolor Abstract Gemstone Peyote Stitched Cabochon Necklace

Floofy fun!

For this abstract art necklace, I chose ruby agate, turquoise howlite, green agate, and golden tiger's eye cabochons and arranged them against a black seed bead background, dotted with occasional sparkles of colored glass beads.

Each cabochon is bordered by several rows of peyote stitching in beautiful shiny colored seed beads. 

Happy floral multicolored fringe!

I had the most fun creating the fringe on this necklace! It includes adorable glass floral beads in dark iridescent blue/purple, soft pink, and green. And I love the little round glass beads in fun colors on the edges and the sparkly yellow bead tips, as well as the cobalt blue teardrop shaped beads, which suggest the rains that come to make the flowers grow.

Detail

Here you can see the glowy cabochons and the floofy little skirt that plays around the bottom of the piece.

The back

The back of this piece is a soft maroon Ultrasuede.

The whole piece

And here you can see the whole piece, with its multicolored necklace strap.

Total Length - Hangs to about 19 inches (necklace strap is 28 inches)

Length of abstract focal piece is 5 inches 

Width of abstract focal piece is 1 and 1/8 to 1 and 3/4 inches at its widest point

Soft velveteen pouches

Comes in a soft velveteen pouch for softkeeping.

This necklace will be posted in my Etsy shop, Dreamkeeper Creations, as long as it's available.

Thanks for taking a peek!
Namaste,
Jen

Springtime Cabochon Fairy Necklace is done!

Teaser - Springtime Cabochon Necklace!

I've had a good time creating this lovely springtime cabochon necklace.

She is born....

This little springtime cabby girl wanted me to choose a lovely hand-carved bone face, which I tea-stained, and for her belly, a gorgeous mixed gemstone teardrop cabochon in greens (my very favorite color,) and soft browns and creams. She is the Earth sleeping just before everything comes into blossom. She is the promise, always kept, season to season.

Serenity itself.

I used a bit of copper next to her head for balance, and along the way she let me know she wanted fairy wings, so I added the beautiful little leaf bead to represent her wings. The background is made up of many stop-stitch beads in greens, creams, copper, with a bit of gold, and she has tiny flowers woven into the background - see if you can spot them.

Her halo is made of beautiful bright green glass bugle beads, which I love.

She has a lovely necklace strap!

Her necklace strap is made of copper beads with some gorgeous glass floral beads, smoooooth tiny bugle beads, and seed beads. I love how it twines upon itself. (This is not easy to make happen, the twining.)

No fasteners to fuss with.

She slips over your head easily, and sits upon your chest, about sternum level. The sternum is the chestbone - which sits right about the level of the heart chakra (energy center) - the chakra of LOVE, the heart center. According to Chakra Anatomy, "Green is the color of growth, life, and balance. Through balance you find this center from which you can love, form healthy relationships, and give and receive love."

Soft ultrasuede backing.

The backing on this piece is soft tan ultrasuede. Wonderful to run your fingers across when you're in a boring meeting....lol.

There she is!

Here you can see her altogether. Beautiful face, gorgeous cab, great background, and lovely necklace strap.

Total Length - 15 inches

Length of springtime fairy is 3 and 3/4 inches

Width is about 1 and 3/4 inches

Many hours of good, sweet work available to you at Dreamkeeper Creations. Come and take a peek.

Namaste,
Jen

A New Madonna for Racing2Cure!

The Madonna and Child

It's fundraising time again for Racing2Cure and my friend Brenda Milliken asked me if I'd like to donate some Dreamkeeper Creations jewelry. They do an auction on racing night - July 16th. It's a great cause, so I said YES! And because there are so many prayers going up for loved ones struggling with cancer I especially like to include a Madonna necklace. 

I love the madonna because, as I mentioned in the first Racing2Cure post, "Mary is to me, the calm amidst the storm. The quintessential woman who bears the very worst, yet never does her heart grow cold, and never does she lose the ability to love, not only her son, but also those who would do him harm. She has abiding faith in our larger Source of Creation. She has abiding faith in Life itself. She is an example for us to aspire to in cultivating serenity amidst the challenges of our lives."

She comes with a soft maroon pouch for safekeeping.

This madonna necklace incorporates blues, golds, and reds, with Swarovski and glass crystals to decorate the fringe. Czech glass dagger beads weight the bottom of the fringe strands. You can click on the image to see it larger.

The ever popular cloisonné bracelets.

I also like to include the most popular item I make for Dreamkeeper Creations, which is a set of five cloisonné bracelets. (3 sets available at auction.) The tubular cloisonné beads have a floral design on them and each bracelet is multicolored, so they match with everything. One reason these are so popular is that they don't mess with the keyboard when you're typing. They also are easy-on, easy-off since they're stretch bracelets that just pop over your hand and onto your wrist. 

Cloisonné Necklace!

AND I've had a lot of people ask for a necklace to go with the bracelets, so I made 47 inches of gorgeousness that can be worn a bunch of different ways. I have one and sometimes I wear it doubled up, other times I triple it up for blouses or dresses where I want something closer up on my neck. And sometimes I wind it around my ankle for some surprise bling.

Blue quartz wire-wrapped necklace

Sometimes I love to wear a simple gemstone sparkle, so I included a blue quartz, sterling silver wire-wrapped crystal on a delicate silver chain. I love the energies of this stone, which has properties that help to calm the mind, assuage fears, and inspire hope, according to Judy Hall in her book, The Crystal Bible (Godsfield Press, 2004).

Citrine with Swarovski crystals

Citrine is also a favorite, bringing powerful cleansing and regenerating energies.

Handmade glass lampwork bead with hematite and onyx.

I love handmade glass beads because no two are alike (like us!). The one on this necklace incorporates blues with a bit of elegant black, and swirling landscape colors that remind me of the ocean at night. Hematite "boosts self-esteem and survivability, enhances willpower, and imparts confidence." Judy Hall's information on the energy properties of gemstones helps us to choose what we want to enhance about ourselves. I like that.

Happy little floofy earrings!

I made some floofy, fluffy, fun dangle earrings for days when you're feelin' the love. These incorporate agate with a little bit of jade. Agate is a wonderful grounding stone, keeping us connected to beautiful Earth, and jade helps us keep wisdom up front. I have a couple pairs of this style in different gemstones and love to wear them.

Handmade glass with agate accent beads.

I love green, and I love agate, so I combined them in this pair of earrings. I really like that there are no others quite like this - the glass beads are handmade, hence, one-of-a-kind.

More one-of-a-kind earrings.

These elegant, understated earrings are also one-of-a-kind. The focal beads are handmade, beautiful glass beads with swirly designs in soft purples, blues, and creamy beiges with agate accent beads.

All made with lots of love.

Bid high, peeps, and wear the ones you win with good cheer, knowing you're helping to make a difference where making a difference really counts. And holler real loud when CJ, Brenda's son races - he drives to bring in a win for us all! GO CJ!

Racing 2 Cure's (R2C) mission is to help families that are currently fighting cancer. R2C wants to treat the "Human Side" of cancer. R2C donates a portion of the funds raised to cancer organizations that do amazing work in research, treatment, and raising awareness for this horrible disease. Additionally, funds are used by Racing 2 Cure to directly help families with everyday needs such as: 

• Travel expenses 
• Temporary housing expenses 
• Utility bills 
• Car payments 
• Transportation/Gas 
• Rent 
• Insurance premiums 
• Medical equipment 
• After school activities for kids (with transportation) 
• Day care (during treatments) 
• Tutoring for students 
• House cleaning / yard services 

Namaste,
Jen

Needles and Pins: What Acupuncture Has Done for Me

Wherever we go, there we are.

I was having a conversation one day with the director of the Bellefonte Art Museum, Pat House, and we were talking about health. Toward the end of 2015, the year my daughter died, I found myself struggling with pneumonia for several weeks, and Pat mentioned that sometimes pneumonia can be related to grief. "Ask your doctor about it," she suggested.

So of course when I got home I searched on the internet, and was very surprised to find tons of information on pneumonia as it relates to grief, and along with that I discovered that the ancient practice of acupuncture has specific meridians associated with grief therapy. Wow, who knew?

Mannequin showing acupuncture meridians

I had seen my conventional primary practitioner, who prescribed antibiotics and turned me over to a pulminary specialist. Went through a bunch of tests with the pulminary specialist who gave me more antibiotics and turned me over to a thoracic surgery specialist. Went through a bunch more tests and got yet more antibiotics, which were working, but very slowly. All tests came out well - the x-rays and CT scans and PET scans confirmed that my lungs were full of infection from the pneumonia. I'd never been so sick in my life. After 4 rounds of antibiotics I still felt pretty lousy, with very low energy and residual congestion. "You'll be spitting out all kinds of junk in all kinds of colors for a couple more months," said the docs, "No worries."

So when I discovered this new insight about pneumonia being related to grief AND there being other, ancient ways of bringing the body back into balance I decided to see if I could find a good acupuncturist.

Balance feels good.

Our bodies are composed of several different types of energy, and when we get a big "knock" in life, it can throw us off balance. With the death of my daughter, I had to restore all the different aspects of myself, including my emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual bodies. 

Time is a great healer for the mental body, and I think that's the one that recovered the fastest for me - my ability to focus on work and to continue to function by handling necessary, sort of factual or active things (computer work, laundry, house chores, etc.) returned the quickest. 

Psychological therapy is great to help the emotional body recover. Connie Powell at Centre Psychology had real tools and exercises she shared with me over a period of time so I could direct my emotional body, not by denying grief, but by integrating the emotions surrounding it into my life in healthy ways.

The spiritual part of myself has always been strong, and it upheld me through the hardest parts of the first year of recovery. Keeping our spiritual connections strong helps tremendously, though of course it doesn't "remove" the pain and other emotions associated with deep grief.

We are so much more than just our physical bodies.

But the poor little physical part of myself was still quite askew, regardless of the antibiotics to relieve the "symptoms." There was more work to be done to restore health to my physical vehicle. It was just exhausted on very deep levels.

Sometimes we need help to get back to health so we can dance again.

And that's where Dr. Heather Ferlitch, of Fusion Chiropractic and Acupuncture, came in. After talking with her on the phone, I made my first appointment. And wow, it was powerful. 

When you walk into her office, it's almost like entering another world. You open the door, and you can feel your troubles rolling off your back as you enter a place of quiet, soft, flowing energy and peace. A small water fountain welcomes you, along with inspirational plaques and gorgeous stained glass torchiere lamps. These lamps have dragonflies on them, a fairly archetypal symbol for transmutation/breaking the illusion. The view outside the windows is calming, and the waiting room is full of light. You can flip through a copy of Humans of New York while you're waiting - it's the perfect book because the wait is never long. And her right-hand person, Eileen is friendly and always willing to pop out and chat.

We can blossom again.

During my first appointment Heather spent time talking with me to ascertain where my struggles were and how she could help. While we were talking, she made me feel like I was the only person in the universe and she had as much time as needed to get a clear picture. 

After we'd talked I got to experience my first session. She led me to a small treatment room, my little sanctuary, where she proceeded to insert about 27 needles, in various parts of my body. It did not hurt, and she explained to me that when a doctor gives us a shot with a large needle, it punctures the skin, but when an acupuncturist inserts these tiny, restorative needles, they "part" the skin. They really are tiny, like a hair, and I don't feel them while they're in. She uses new needles each time, so I know they're sterile, which I like.

After all my needles were inserted, she gave me some tissues, ("Do people cry sometimes?" I asked, and she replied that sometimes they do as they release emotion), and a little bell I could ring if I wanted anything. Then she left the room. 

I was reclining on one of the wonderful tables she has - this is the one that has heat radiating from it under your back. It felt so relaxing to my overtaxed lungs and helped to loosen the congestion. It felt so comforting. She also directed soft waves of heat onto my feet by turning on a little machine I'd never seen before, it looks like a lamp but emits heat instead of light. I wiggled my toes and stretched into relaxation.  I listened to the quiet sounds of another little machine that makes "white noise." 

There I was on the table alone, with my Self front and center. I was scared for a minute - as the traumatic images of cleaning out my beautiful daughter's home trooped through my mind, and the ceremonies scattering her ashes, and a million other events we'd been through. I wasn't sure I could lie there and let them come, I wasn't sure I could feel the emotions behind them yet again. 

But I took a deep breath and decided to let the needles do their work. Took another deep breath and relaxed, and that's when the colors and swirling energies and shapes started to appear on my internal movie screen. As I relaxed into a trancelike state while the needles did their work, I began to see beautiful magenta and purple colors and geometric shapes (mostly hexagonal) and softly swirling energies on the "movie screen" behind my forehead. It was very much like meditation, though I didn't consciously guide myself into that. I felt the vastness of the universe and the peace of eternal unity and love. I felt a "part of something much larger than myself." I did not feel all alone. It was like the "bad" emotions were being drawn out of me and into a distance the likes of which I'd never even imagined - like they were being absorbed into some vast source that knew how to transmute them. Globs of lime green and brown waves of something like energy just swished their way up my body and out into the ethers and it felt really good.

When Heather came back 40 minutes later, with a soft knock on the door, she asked how I was doing and I told her I'd never felt so relaxed in my life! It was rather a miracle in itself that this was the first time I'd been able to be alone without a book or the TV or some distracting thing streaming into or out of (journaling) my mind. 

Sure, I'd cried, and used the soft tissues to mop up the tears. I wished I could do this marvelous acupuncture experience for and with my daughter, she'd have loved it. I missed her. But what I found when I arrived back home was that instead of going to sit on my little couch and read or watch TV, I wanted to do some beadwork, so I did. And later that week, when I worked on the laundry, which is downstairs in our basement area, I noticed that my knees didn't hurt when I came back up the stairs. Hm, that acupuncture had unblocked something and not only did I feel better physically, but emotionally I did not feel it necessary to "shut down" my feelings. 

So several weeks and sessions later (I'm not giving them up any time soon, I LOVE them) I'm able to listen to all kinds of music again. After my daughter died, I could only listen to instrumental music like jazz or big band or Native American or David Arkenstone because music with words sent me into emotional tailspins and made me cry.  My productivity levels have increased tremendously, and I can enjoy beadwork as well as painting. I had been fairly unable to paint for many months because there's a lot of emotion in that and I couldn't go there. But now I can, comfortably. I haven't needed any additional antibiotics and the residual congestion from the pneumonia has departed. My energy levels are much better too. 

So I'm not exactly sure how this works, but I know that it has worked amazing magic on my system. We've graduated from targeting "grief therapy" to general overall well-being, working on digestion, and keeping the overall system calm and fluid. And pretty soon we'll focus on quitting smoking. Yep, acupuncture can target that too.

I wanted to write about my experiences with acupuncture because though we sometimes need the intervention of conventional medicine, it isn't always enough, and can be greatly enhanced by alternative methods of healing. I have a lot of respect for ancient systems of healing that have been effective for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Each individual's experience of an acupuncture session is as unique as they are - and what I've found is that though I experience the benefits of acupuncture each time, my own sessions are often different, always relaxing, but "different" from each other in various ways. The only way to really find out is to try it.

Thanks Dr. Ferlitch for your wonderful skills and talents! I'll see you next week.

Note - all images courtesy of Pixabay.com

Namaste,
Jen

Receiving Jessica's Spirit - Painting is done

Detail of Jessica in Spirit

In order to celebrate my daughter's beautiful life and commemorate her passing, we invited a group of her friends, her Lovies, I call them, to hike up to a beautiful place she had enjoyed hiking to called Elowah Falls. We took a photograph of the falls after we'd scattered her precious ashes, shown below.

The Three Spirits in the waterfall foam.

As I looked at the photo later, I loved the way the spray from the waterfall rose up in the form of three women. It was as if they were welcoming Jessie's spirit. So I decided to do a watercolor painting depicting this.

Welcoming Jessica's Spirit

This is what came about.

During the ceremony, the Lovies released baloons that they'd written messages on, so I included them.

Loving messages to accompany Jess on her new journeys.

They also brought flowers and each person tossed one into the water along with blessings and prayers. So I included some flowers on the rock near Jess's spirit feet.

Beautiful flower gifts.

The Spirit Women in the waterfall foam seemed to welcome her, so I included them.

The Three Spirit Women

The Landscape along the stretch where Elowah Falls is, is mountainous, filled with beautiful pine trees, and many waterfalls throughout the terrain, so I painted them.

The beautiful landscape of Portland's mountains.

Jess has sprouted beautiful wings, and she's ready to go. 

Heading into new territory.

Happy new journeys my Love.

Healing is beginning.

My little painting is done xo

Namaste