How I got into readings, reiki, and crystals

I also fell kind of sideways into getting my first reiki session. I had had a coupon for a woman offering discounted first time visits for massage and reiki. I called to get a massage but when she said, “what do you want? Reiki?” I said, “yeaaaah.” Wow was that session powerful! There were tears and tingles. I saw colors and threw energy. She said she doesn’t really advertise this but she’s a reiki teacher. She said she had a level 2 class coming up and offered to do level 1 for me privately to catch me up. She normally makes people wait 6 months, but I’m a natural and it’s really just a piece of paper for me anyway. I was blown away! I had just barely learned was reiki was a few weeks before and in a few weeks I was going to be a level 2 practitioner? I was still coming to terms with being a reader! But of course I jumped at the opportunity. I was still being tormented by my abuser and needed every tool I could have to protect and heal myself. Now I help relieve people who have physical an emotional pain due to injuries, illness, and abuse.

Somewhere in the middle of this my psychic commented that my choice to wear a morganite necklace was probably not an accident. Since I was now in the habit of stopping at the bookstore (who me? Bookstore regular? What???) I picked up a really cute book about manifesting energy with crystals. A bit later I looked up a local rock shop and took the book with me to get the tools I needed to use the book. I thought I’d spend about $30-50 and “have the rocks I need.” I still laugh about that. I have rocks everywhere: decorating my yard, gridding corners of my rooms, protecting my entry way, creating abundance in my work space, in my bra to protect my person. I have little tiny chips and big old free forms. I buy them, find them, and am gifted them. I’ll sometimes buy one for myself then upon showing someone realize it was actually intended for them.

The books are a really fun way to inspire me to use my crystals. I like to cross reference several and include free apps and online searches to help me define what need to use. But when stressed and really, really need an outcome, I just pull what I’m drawn to, put them where I’m drawn to, do as much of a ritual as I’m drawn to (do I add candles, sage, tarot cards, essential oils, meditation, none of it?), and rely on my own power to manifest more than what someone else has decided will work. I have a lot of stones that I’m not even sure what they are called whether I found them, they were gifted, or I just plain forgot.

So holiday season 2019 I was just in a rut. I decided to get myself a high end advent calendar to get in the holiday spirit. I didn’t want chocolate because my doctor told me to cut the sugar before I made myself diabetic (moment of silence for my beloved sugar). I found a few online but didn’t actually want what came inside, then I thought about crystals. I figured other people might want one like that, too. I committed to make 100 for 2020 and see what happened. So I met with a printer who said he wasn’t the right guy but helped direct me to what I needed. I went to the Tucson Gem Show with the cash I’d saved up to buy 2400 stones, and found out it doesn’t just work like that. No one has 100 of exactly your list of requested crystals, ha ha. I pieced the rest together with a local shop that also sells wholesale. I had 100 assembled and ready to sell by March. I was hoping to sell them to early birds throughout the year to fund creating more, if the demand was there. This was another thing that doesn’t work like that. I suppose a global pandemic that shut down every event I was planning to attend didn’t help. I sold my first one in September 2020. But I ultimately sold over 550 that first season and used the funds raise to start experimenting with other types of products.