Shankari Jewelry

Archive for August 2009

I have had a vision, finally….

I am a very visual person, without a vision it is very hard for me to act.
When I am not in motion “doing something” I go into self criticism.
It’s a strange dynamic when you think about it.

quanyin_consortsWe come from a culture that frowns on open space…. too much free time and open space is dangerous.
You might stop and ask yourself how you really feel if you have too much free time on your hands… idle hands do the devils work!

But then again, we must have ‘time for self’ or we will go completely crazy or at least become physically unbalanced and eventually sick and tired of everything.

The vision I had was somewhat of an evolution, arriving in parts, like a puzzle.

First … in real life, I was made custodian of a life size, porcelain and gold, standing Quan Yin.
This is definitely not living room furniture… she and her two life size consorts, an old man carrying a child and a dragon staff and a younger man carrying yet more children in his arms and on his shoulders… and scrolls that would appear to be “the law”.

These three potent sculptural representations of cosmic law and compassion currently take up the better part of my front porch with the White Owl Mosaic.

I was feeling crowded and yet honored to have their presence at the Mystery School in Hawaii.
Slowly things have unfolded… or at least it feels slow when you are in the eye of the hurricane.
The land has appeared to build the temple… the vision was of that temple, with it’s breadth and height… the heart wood of four fur trees was immediately manifested and donated as the Pillars of the New Temple to Peace in Hawaii. Since then I have had constant visions of pathways and sacred geometric grids, gardens and flowering trees.

It’s underway… the tide is changing and compassion is returning to the hearts of humankind.
I have heard recently of honey gathered from rooftop gardens in Manhattan… and of ‘guerrilla gardening’ becoming a fad across the planet…. god bless everyone learning to grow food again and applying their imaginations to how to do this under impossible circumstances.

I’m excited… jumping out of my skin with the adventure of creation looming before me.
I’m building a food garden within a labyrinth of sacred symbols and silent spaces.

Where I live there is no dirt.
I mean absolutely no earth…. simply rocks.
There is no water unless you buy it and truck it in, there are trade winds that irregularly blow at 40mph…
I’m bored if its not almost impossible…
that must be why I got the job!

I lay in bed at night and ponder things like how to pull water from the air for the food garden…
I think I have figured it out by the way.
I lay awake and think of ways to turn a desert into a garden for the sake of all it will feed, in all the different ways it will contribute to the community at large…

Food is important, food for the spirit, food for the eyes and food for the body… my vision is to provide all these things in one sacred place… activated for deep and permanent healing of the individual soul.

Why not?
Life must continue to be a challenge and an adventure until the day we die…. or we are already dead in some respects just waiting for the rest to catch up.
Plan a garden of your own.
Invite your friends to come and join in.
I’s a wonderful thing to share the food you have grown with others.
Start with something small… parsley… or tomatoes perhaps… then build to your imagination… the sky is the limit!

I do not believe as a culture we are meant to live with such financial pressure for our daily sustenance and am working on becoming energy efficient in every aspect of my life.

Soon the Hawaii School will be completely off the grid with solar panels — and if I can master this water collection story, it will enable us to live and breathe and create constantly, within an environment that is self sufficient and leaving almost no carbon footprint upon the earth.

Those involved in the creation will be and are fed at a creative level, constantly growing their self-esteem.

I have a friend named Bob, from Michigan.
He had been in Hawaii a few months when he came to visit one day and said, “I’m sorry but I have become homeless and I would like to live in the shed in your green house…. can I do that?”

I said … “You know there have been times when I wanted to move into the shed in the green house myself! Of course you can sleep there until you find a home of your own.”

This was quite a few months ago!
Bob is a trained chef, who has previously held jobs of great importance in big international hotel kitchens… but he has lost his feeling for cooking and now prefers to build rock walls.
The walls he’s built on the property for the Quan Yin Temple and the Peace Garden are amazing.
He expresses such grace and charm that I’m flabbergasted.

In this manner he has rebuilt his self-regard, lost a ton of weight and is genuinely happy for the first time in years!
He may even be interested in food again soon… we are planning to build a big stone oven to bake community bread in the future…

Food and the Magic of form and space… this is my vision and clear intent.

http://www.shankari.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.html?keyword=quan&search_in_description=1

Creating a magical labyrinth of food and silence that will profoundly heal all who come and experience the frequency of compassion in this form… here in the lava deserts of Hawaii…. a place at the end of the universe, becoming a ‘beacon of light’ to the world.

I love you all and trust you will have your own vision soon…With your own vision comes the freedom to throw yourself heart and soul into your evolution…
towards freedom and joy!

Come and join me when you have some time.
We are always creating something in service to the Goddess.

Blazing tales of wonder, remembering all we have been and learning to love what we are becoming…..   Sxxxx

Leave the door open for change… but never give up!

Life is an amazing dance…
And like all good dance, there is structure; but what makes it so special and different and your own, is the level and quality of personal  improvisation within the form.

Shankari's Bali RetreatTwenty years ago I arrived in Bali to start living my vision… to make jewelry to empower the ‘light workers’ of the world.

I have struggled from the beginning…
I have had no training in this life, how to run a business… I have never been to school to find out how you are supposed to do this ‘properly’!  In the long run I feel this was of benefit to me.

Under these circumstances… because I had no ‘box’, I was expecting everyone else to fit into, I was open to new thought and new ways of doing things.
Since my arrival in 1988, I have been creative in all my endeavors.

The company of over 100 souls, runs itself because I have built it on the model of Social Business.

This means, my aim is to empower people; educate and encourage creativity and responsibility within the group and always remember it’s about the quality of our life, not the state of our profit margin.

I have never laid people off in times of crisis… and there have been many!
I have lived through the ousting of Suharto (A dictator for 42 years), the financial crisis that devalued the currency overnight and had us all in a spin, the election and consequent riots of the first new leader since Suharto…

I have married, given birth and divorced since I have been here… and more recently there was the bomb the year after 9-11-01 and the recent bomb in Jakarta… all acts of powerless men craving attention for their cause…

What have I learned in thinking about the last twenty years?Shankari's Children

I love my family.
My children and my family of Talismans of Power.
I feel honored and blessed to have been a part of their life for so long.

I know they love me as unconditionally as I do them; we are blessed to be in the dance together.
I believe this is the energy that shines through all our work together and why the value of what we produce will continue to grow in the future.

This knowledge keeps me healthy and emotionally balanced where ever I am in the world… to know I am loved… and will be protected against the dark night should that moment arrive.

Shankari's Talismans of Power familyTo go to sleep at night, knowing we are still a family of light despite the dark times surrounding us… keeps a smile on my face.

Despite the current challenges, all the gang are smiling. As we were preparing for the party, we were completing the prayers for Saraswati, the Goddess of Beauty, music, wisdom and jewels…. it was her sacred day and all my staff and I spent the morning praying in the garden by the temple… it was a sublime experience and reminds me of why I came here and why I will never give up and run away…

This is an important part of my personal commitment to my extended family in the third world. Their safety, joy and evolution is just as important to me as my own or those of others in more salubrious locations.

Life is a brilliant adventure… and for those whose hearts hear the music, the tickets are free for the dance…

Blazing tales of wonder…. S xxx

Birthdays Bring up stuff!

As you know it was recently my birthday…
Time to access where I’m going and what I’m doing… in my new body.

From extensive personal experience, I know that birthdays most often bring out the worst in us because they represent a time of intense self analysis…

I don’t know anyone that simply has a “happy birthday” no matter how well intentioned everyone else in their life may be…  because birthdays have been filled with drama since that dramatic day when you and I were born!

Shankari's Bali RetreatBirthdays bring up ’stuff’… they make us question our intent, our purpose and our position in the game plan…
If we have not eaten well and are short on brain fuel we will become very self critical… try not to do this… it is so destructive in the long run…

This birthday has been no different for me!
I have been reassessing who I am, where I am meant to be and how to best use my limited resources in service to my personal and spiritual evolution and that of the world around me…  and still take good care of my beloved staff in Bali… (all 120 of them) and their families…

I have been amazed as I walk through my remarkable creation in Bali…
So much hope, love and energy has been shared here, so many dreams and schemes have unfolded and become reality… 20 years is a long time.

I am reminded everywhere of how much I have been loved and have had the opportunity to love in return… this is the great blessing!

I am reminded by all my creations to love myself unconditionally, to stop criticizing myself and putting myself down when I do not measure up…

That’s why I started the “Sparkle Club”,  so that on your birthday there would be a wonderful, special opportunity to change your energy, through upgrading your jewels.

I have a new piece myself… it’s a silver belt buckle, made with inlaid rubies and then gold dipped.
I have designed it to take any color belt… thanks to the wonders of Velcro!

This may not seem so auspicious, but I must share with you… five kids… never left me with a waist!
I have lived most of my adult life waistless!
Now, thanks to a few well planned exercises and some commitment I have a svelt figure and for the first time… in decades, I have a waist! So… what to do but flaunt it!Shankari

I am excited, I am ‘born again’.
I am one of those people who was born old and serious and have finally learned to play as I have become older… it seems like a contradiction in terms but that’s the truth. As a child I felt very responsible for my mother, now finally as an ‘older woman’, I have raised my kids and built my business on rules of freedom and responsibility in equal measure…

Now it is time to enjoy the ‘freedom’ part… and let the others take on the responsibility.
I have a waist and now it is adorned with an amazing belt buckle filled with rubies, to activate a nobility and wealth frequency within my solar plexus.

So far it seems to be working like a charm!
Blessings on your day… be kind to yourself… you’re worth it!

And blessings of the same nature to Obama whose birthday is the day after mine on the 4th of August… may his time be one of angel blessings and may his inner and outer critics… take the day off!

Love and blessings from beautiful Bali…
Blazing tales of wonder, remembering all we have been and learning to love what we are becoming…..   Sxxxxxx

today is my birthday

Yes it’s true…
Today is my birthday… I am 58 years old today.
Where did the time go? I still feel like a spring chicken, despite five kids and nearly six grand kids and a few international companies!

I arrived in Bali 21 years ago to start a new life; it has been a roller coaster, of constant challenge, that built strong internal certainty of who I am and what I am here to do…
Somehow it appears, despite all the convolutions we have survived and prospered … to some extent….

It is, never the less, a hard day.

I am swinging between tears and laughter on a moment to moment basis.

As my wise mother used to say… “Wherever you go… there you are!”
So if there is anything I would like to share with you from my experience it’s this… love yourself along the way. Don’t wait for someone else to tell you that you are worthy, or have made it!

Love yourself along the journey…
Down every side track and dark alley it takes you on…
Love yourself when you fail,
Love yourself when you are scared,
Love yourself when you feel no one else does…
Do not make success conditional upon your feeling of loveability…
No one else is as invested in your success as you.
One of the most important lessons this journey has brought me is to keep the faith!
Keep the faith in your own mission.
Keep the faith in who you are at your core,
Keep the faith that you are beloved of God and indeed, deserve the best.

Why do I say this?

Because this is the hardest thing to do along the journey…
You will always eventually find the money to pay your bills.
You will eventually resolve your differences with others and follow the cultural patterns of social behavior into old age… but if you lose faith in yourself along the way…. that is true bankruptcy!

There is no pill for that!
There is no solution… this is the fertile ground for annihilation!
People choose different poisons but all for the same effect… self destruction, because they believe in their own worthlessness!

Keeping the faith in yourself, in tact and sacred is your primary mission when the proverbial sh.t hits the fan… with no faith, all else goes to rack and ruin…

My blessing to you all today is to remember once again, you are the beloved of the Divine Mother of All Creation and she loves each of us absolutely and completely, because we are her children of the light!

That’s why I make my jewelry, to remind people of ‘the light’ within them.
To remind everyone who has the power to wear my jewels of just who they are and how special their role is in the future of our world…

I wear my Talisman of Power pieces to remind me to hold my faith in my true purpose, which is to love and be loved…

To do the best I can with what I have, and remember, to celebrate each moment as if it was my last… the joy is in the journey, not the destination…

Never miss a minute of the fun… celebration is our greatest resource and surest revenge! Hee hee hee!

Blazing birthday tales of wonder, through chaos and comfort S xxxx