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Lesley

Grey Matter

Lesley is also a columnist for UFO Magazine. Check it out !

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6.16.10

Stoned

Last week I wrote about my interest in stones and how it had taken me until now to actually delve into their esoteric uses.

Stones are kind of like UFOs to me, in that I never can remember a time that I wasn't interested in them. I remember many happy camping trips as a child where I spent a good deal of the time rock hounding (and panning for gold if we had a stream nearby) and then when we stopped at the touristy places, I always wanted more stones. I liked looking at them and the way felt in my hands. Sure many are pretty, so I can understand anyone might like them for that reason, but I liked holding and touching them and I certainly couldn't have said why if you asked me back then, I just knew that I did. Often at home, I would pull out my boxes of stones and look at them and hold and rub them and it always made me feel good.

I don't think it is really unusual. After all, since as far back as we are aware, people seem to be obsessed by stones. Some of the greatest manmade monuments are made from stone, like Stonehenge, but many others too. One of the first things man started making as art (meaning something that they didn't need to survive) was jewelry made from stones. And although we can't know for certain, it is likely that they felt these stone adornments had special powers and meanings and chose certain stones for their significance in relation to themselves.

I have always chosen jewelry by what appealed most to me at that moment. I don't think this is a bad way to go, as intuition is often right. A week or so ago, I was at a local shop called Mama's Minerals. Right as I walked in the door, a certain strand of beads caught my eye. These were raw beads, meaning they were in their natural shape and color and hadn't been polished up. They were also rather large for beads, 1 to 2 inches each. Really, they were just stones with a hole drilled through them. I bought them and, when I got home, I looked them up in one of my stone books, because I wasn't sure what they were. As it turned out, they were blue lace agate, which I am familiar with it in a cut/polished jewelry items or as a cut and polished round bead, but I didn't recognize it in the raw form.

My book said that these particular stones were good for neck pain. As I am sure I have probably written in the past -- I often have neck pain due to a car crash several years ago. On that day, it was really bad and every time I turned it, it sounded like popcorn popping, so I laughed to myself and draped the strand around my neck. Honestly, I thought it was pretty silly that I was even trying it and it was more of a little joke with myself than anything else.

However, almost instantly, my neck started feeling better. I told myself that was because the stones were cool and were reducing the inflammation. Within about 10 minutes, the stones on the back on my neck, that had been cold when I put them there, were hot to the touch. I don't mean warm -- I truly mean hot, not burning hot, but really hot. My pain was totally gone within 20 minutes. I took the strand off and moved my neck around and all I got were a couple pops, not the continuous pops that I had before trying that. I was flabbergasted. I know that certain people probably consider me to be totally woo-woo, but I am actually really skeptical of anything I perceive as "new agey."

So far, almost two weeks have passed and I have not had any neck pain. I don't know what to say about that, because I do know how crazy it must sound, but it is true.

One thing I can say is that I am always OK with being proven wrong -- especially if it benefits me. I didn't think it would work, but it did. Some will think it worked because, even though it was a joke, somewhere deep down I believed it would work. It doesn't matter to me why it worked, I am just happy that it did.

  • Check out Lesley's Blog HERE

    As well as her Beyond the Dial blog