Jewelry that Means Something

I don't have much expensive jewelry. When we meet with our insurance guy, he always asks me about jewelry. "Do you have enough coverage? How much do you think your jewelry is worth?"

Um, I don't need a separate policy to cover my jewelry. Most of it is handmade. Almost all of it is inexpensive. I like it that way.

There is a lot of awesome, handmade jewelry out there, and I love supporting people who are creating their own pieces.  Much of my stuff has been bought from a friend of a friend who makes her own jewelry. Sadly, she doesn't have a website. However, I'll bet that if you go to a local craft fair, you'll find someone like Valerie who makes and sells beautiful jewelry at great prices.

I bought this Buddha pendant for $8 in 2007 and still wear it a few times a week. The metal chain (which I bought for $4.50) has turned brown, and someday I'll get around to replacing it. I bought this from an etsy seller that's no longer selling, but there are lots of great pendants on etsy.

I bought this for a friend for Christmas for $8.95 from SunshowerCreations. I think it's gorgeous and may end up buying one for myself as well.

Andrew bought me this nerd necklace for Christmas. It was $6.95 from Pieces of Me Pendants. Like the Buddha necklace, it's made from a Scrabble tile. I love this necklace and am constantly amused by people who think that "nerd" is an insult.  I'm proud of my nerdiness--so proud that I'll wear a Scrabble tile proclaiming it for all to see.







This is my most recent purchase. It's from SpiffingJewlery. She and her husband cut and bend the aluminum, custom stamp it with whatever you want in your choice of fonts, and give you forty different color options. This cost me $28.00, including shipping. It's astounding to me that such labor-intensive awesomeness is so affordable.


She hand stamped it with Eight Noble Truths. I need lots and lots of reminders. Lots and lots.

I love jewelry that reminds me of who I want to be. The inexpensive pieces I've bought make me so much happier than a piece purchased from a mall jewelry store.* They say things about me, and in some cases even help me as I strive to be the person I want to be.

*I assume. I suppose I can't say that for sure since I don't really buy pieces from a mall jewelry store. Still, it seems like a pretty safe assertion to make.

The Buddha, The Indigo Girls, and Me

I posted a bumper sticker on Facebook (I know. I don’t want to talk about it.) that said, “Obama is not a foreign born, brown-skinned, anti-war socialist that gives away healthcare. You’re thinking of Jesus.” It says something about me that I don’t even think about this being particularly inciteful (or insightful, actually). It seems very obvious to me and not something that would make people angry unless they have a gun rack in their car and an “In God We Trust” license plate.*

Well, you might not be surprised to learn that it is not obvious to everyone. I received one comment from someone who was a Religious Studies student with me during undergrad. I liked him as a person a lot. Since graduation, I’ve shot off to the left while he’s gone to the right.

The frustrating thing for me is that I know he takes religion seriously. He thinks about it critically, or he used to, anyway. I can’t write him off as someone whose only religious education comes from Sunday School. (How many people did I just piss off?)

I was trying to figure out if I should respond and how to do that in a way that wouldn't become an exchange of zingers.**

I was thinking that there had to be a healthy way to process this mentally. 

Oh, right. There is. In fact, I find it such a helpful way to process things that I had a lotus flower tattooed on my arm to remind me of it.

The Four Noble Truths

In life, there is suffering.

Suffering stems from craving and desire.

If we can end craving and desire, we can end our suffering.

The way to do this is the Eightfold Path.

When I actually knew this person, I liked him. I want him to think like I do. It hurts me that he doesn’t. The problem isn’t him. The problem is that I want him to be someone other than he is.  If I can accept him in his perhaps right-of-center Roman Catholic-ness, my suffering ends. I don’t have to change him. I don’t have to challenge him. I just have to acknowledge that we feel very differently and that is okay.

All this was rattling around my head while I was knitting at lunch. I was listening to the Indigo Girls, as I do, and

I have no need for anger with intimate strangers, and I got nothing to hide.***

Isn’t that part of it, if I’m honest? I’ve become someone quite different from who I was when I was in college, although the journey toward Liberaldom certainly started during undergrad. Even though I’m nearly always okay with myself, sometimes a desire for acceptance creeps up.

My goal is to acknowledge those feelings and let them go.

Secret bodhisattvas are everywhere. Even, apparently, on Facebook.

*Indiana has these plates. It fills me with rage. We’re a country built on separation of church and state.

**Zingers are tempting. My first zinger would have been, "It's pretty clear from the book of Acts that the Early Church was more socialist than Cuba."

***from “Reunion”

Fear cracked open.

I can't imagine I'm the only one who has had the experience of being scared of something for a long time until SNAP I'm not scared anymore.  It's as if all the worry has built up and up and up until it becomes too much to support and suddenly it all falls apart.  The phrase that I've heard that describes this is fear cracks open.*

I've wanted a tattoo for a long time, but I was scared.

Would I always love it? Would it look stupid 20 years from now? Would people view me differently? Would it hurt so badly it would make me cry?

Then fear cracked open.  I made the appointment, I had my consultation, we e-mailed about the design, and last Friday I went to the studio.

A lotus flower with eight petals to remind me of the Eightfold Path: right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, right concentration, right thought, and right understanding.  Pink for the Buddha.  It's on the bottom of my right forearm, a good place to serve as a reminder when I get knocked off center.

I go back in a month to have it touched up, and I tried to figure out how to thank the artist who gave me this beautiful, permanent reminder of who I want to be.  I'm going to thank her the only way I know how:

I'm knitting her a scarf.

* That's from a Sue Bender book, probably Everyday Sacred, but maybe one of her other ones.  If I remember correctly, she was in a sweat lodge at the time.