Shiva

Ever since my father died a few months ago, the transitory nature of existence has occupied my mind. If he -with his powerful presence- no longer exists, then everything else will also end in time. This vision may seem depressing, but it has freed me from my worries about the future.

For as far back as I can remember, my dad had a toenail infection. After decades trying to heal it, he finally found a medicine that worked. When the funeral home came to take his body, the last thing I saw, as they closed the bag that contained him, was a perfect toenail on his foot. We fret about things that come and go, when what we can always have is the awesome experience of being alive.

Shiva Ring.
Handmade with lemon quartz and recycled sterling silver.

Durga

Empathy from this shared life experience will turn us into citizens of the world. After we care for each other, it will be time to care for our planet.

Durga Ring.
Handmade with lemon quartz and recycled sterling silver.

Kali

In these times where we collectively help each other by not seeing each other, I am glad we can communicate through the universal language of art. 

Kali Ring.
Handmade with lemon quartz and recycled sterling silver.

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Venture

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I spent the morning writing blog posts. As I wrote, I felt inspired and confident. What great ideas! I thought. Now I’ve re-read them and they seem shallow and empty. Is this how I’ve been writing lately? For years? Stories I think are interesting, but are not worth reading at all? 

Later, full of shame and regret, I realized there is no way to avoid this. I make a living by sharing what I create. Unless I show up as I am: informed or ignorant, profound or shallow, I cannot show up at all. When I work at my jewelry bench, I have to be willing to make junk or high art. I never know which is which, because there is no formula for either one. 

A voice in my head says, who the hell are you to write about anything? Why should anyone care? I’m sure you hear it too. I think we all do. But I will continue to make things and write about them, because if I listened to this voice, I would be half dead. I’d no longer experiment and learn, fail and succeed. After all, everything is an attempt at something. Life itself is an attempt. I choose to participate.

Venture Ring.
Handmade with amethyst and recycled sterling silver.
This Wednesday in my online shop.

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Continuity

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There is a space I enter when I am able to work in my studio for several days in a row. It is a deeper place in my mind where I feel more connected to my hands and body, and where I feel present as I chisel each tiny line on the surface of a piece. I call this space the blessing.

Continuity Ring.
Handmade with rainbow obsidian and recycled sterling silver.
Next week in my online shop.

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Quietude

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I love living alone. It makes me aware of my changing nature, of the cycles of my mind and body.
I rest when I am tired, eat when I am hungry, and connect with friends when I am full of energy. 
I have the gift of time and space to integrate my experience of the world around me.

Quietude Ring.
Handmade with labradorite moonstone and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.

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Immerse

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One of the things I most appreciate in my life is that I can read every day. It is how I make sense of the world and find out what interests me. It’s how I model those I admire, and uncover my shadow in those I reject. Reading expands my imagination and makes me feel intensely. Stories are how I learn.

If I like the narration, I will listen to a book on Audible, otherwise, I will read it on Kindle. These are books I’ve read recently (in no particular order):

The Lost City of the Monkey God -Douglas Preston

The Work we Were Born to do -Nick Williams

Thou Shalt not be Aware -Alice Miller

Healing the Shame that Binds you -John Bradshaw

Born Standing Up -Steve Martin

Art and Soul Reloaded -Pam Grout

The Actor’s Life -Jenna Fischer

Chasing Aphrodite -Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino

Pussy -Regena Thomashauer

Bad Blood -John Carreyrou

Three Women -Lisa Taddeo

Men Without Women -Haruki Murakami

More than Enough -Elaine Welteroth

The Mother Tongue -Bill Bryson

The Patron Saint of Liars -Ann Patchett

It’s not your Money -Tosha Silver

Beautiful Boy -David Sheff

In Pieces -Sally Field

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up -Marie Kondo

The Wisdom of Florence Scovel Shinn

Ninth Street Women -Mary Gabriel

Get Weird -CJ Casciotta

The Muralist -B. A. Shapiro

Cooking for Picasso -Camille Aubray

Sapiens -Yuval Noah Harari

The Art Forger -B. A. Shapiro

Less -Andrew Sean Greer

An Abbreviated Life -Ariel Levine

Self Therapy -Jay Earley

The Tao of Fully Feeling -Pete Walker

North -Scott Jurek

Circe -Madeline Miller

Forward -Abby Wambach

The Insight Cure -John Sharp

A Thousand Names for Joy -Byron Katie

The Children Act -Ian McEwan

Behold Dreamers -Imbolo Mbue

The Secret History -Donna Tart

Eckhart Tolle -A New Earth

Finding your Way in a Wild new World -Martha Beck

Steering by Starlight -Martha Beck

The Anatomy of a Calling -Lissa Rankin

The Betrayal Bond -Patrick J. Carnes

Caveat Emptor -Ken Perenyi

Love Warrior -Glennon Doyle Merton

How Children Learn -John Holt

Self Comes to Mind -Antonio Damasio

The Body Keeps Score -Bessel Van Der Kolk

Inner Work -Robert A Johnson

Finding your Element -Ken Robinson

The War of Art -Steven Pressfield

Bird by Bird -Anne Lammott

On Writing -Steven King

Walking Home -Sonia Choquette

Loving What is -Byron Katie

Radical Acceptance -Tara Brach

Peter Pan -J. M. Barrie

The Power of Self Compassion -Laurie J. Cameron

This is Marketing -Seth Godin

Find Another Dream -Maysoon Zayid

The Dark Side of the Light Chasers -Debbie Ford

Talking to Strangers -Malcolm Gladwell

How to Change your Mind -Michael Pollan

Listening to Ayahuasca -Donna Postel

What I talk About When I Talk about Running -Haruki Murakami

City of Girls -Elizabeth Gilbert

Mating in Captivity -Esther Perel

Sense and Sensibility -Jane Austen

The End of the Affair -Graham Greene

The Female Persuasion -Meg Wolitzer

Lolita -Vladimir Nabokov

The Seat of the Soul -Gary Zukav

David Copperfield -Charles Dickens

The Color of Water -James McBride

State of Wonder -Anne Patchett

Bel Canto -Anne Patchett

21 Lessons of the 21st Century -Yuval Noah Harari

Call me by Your Name -André Aciman

The Weight of Ink -Rachel Kadish

Calypso -David Sedaris

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark -Michelle McNamara

Total Cat Mojo -Jackson Galaxy

Nevertheless -Alec Baldwin

When you are Engulfed in Flames -David Sedaris

Theft by Finding -David Sedaris

Sherlock Holmes -Arthur Conan Doyle

Born to Run -Bruce Springsteen

Just Kids _Patti Smith

Middlesex -Jeffrey Eugenides

A Life in Parts -Bryan Cranston

The Power of Focusing -Ann Weiser Cornell

The Invention of Nature -Andrea Wulf

Creativity Inc -Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace

Year of Yes -Shonda Rhymes

Yes, Chef -Marcus Samuelsson

The Art of Asking -Amanda Palmer

Rising Stronng -Brené Brown

The Power of Vulnerability -Brené Brown

Elon Musk -Ashlee Vance

Big Magic -Elizabeth Gilbert

The Virgin Way -Richard Branson

Quiet -Susan Cain

The Goldfinch -Donna Tartt

Mind over Medicine -Lissa Rankin

Finding Ultra -Rich Roll

Unbroken -Laura Hillenbrand

The Personal MBA -Josh Kaufman

Made to Stick -Chip and Dan Heath

Purple Cow -Seth Godin

Start with Why -Simon Sinek

David and Goliath -Malcolm Gladwell

Immersion Ring.
Handmade with Chalcedony and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.

Ember

I want to learn about what happens to us when we take the gentlest kindest approach towards ourselves. When we don’t start off feeling evil. When we begin by knowing that we are not evil. We are not sinners. Who do we become then? When we have nothing to prove? When our self worth or worth in general does not depend on our achievements. What do we do when we let our minds wander and be curious? What do we read? Look at? Learn from? 

I believe we all educate ourselves that way, in what matters the most to us: our inner healing. We make sense of who we are that way. We claim our own way, not our parents way, not how others saw us, or how we think they saw us, but how we are.

We identify and claim our own teachers. Part of us knows and follows the trail. Usually when we are not watching. When the parents are gone when we are alone and no one can see us. That’s when we really choose. In secret, not ashamed but guilty of indulging. It’s when we give ourselves permission to explore and “waste time” that we best use it. The product is who we become by choosing. 

Ember Ring.
Handmade with amber and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.

Ample

After years of shedding and major change, I feel am finally embodying my 46 year old self. The person I was in the past is gone, as are my expectations of how I thought life would be. I look around and observe where I stand:

I am learning to gather my tribe, and form a family of kindred spirits. My home is a creative and nurturing space where I have the love and play of not one, but soon two, furry creatures. I explore this magnificent city each week and feed my soul with new ideas. I regard my work as a deep act of healing for myself and others. My body is strong and flexible. My mind is curious, and I feel with all my heart.

Ample Ring.
Handmade with moonstone and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.

Outlier

What happens if I don’t grow up? If my choices are not wise or healthy? If everything goes to hell because I live with few responsibilities? 

Would it make me a failure if I don’t make a long term commitment to someone else? Will I end up alone and un-challenged? 

I feel everyone around me has it figured out, but having slipped through the cracks of society, I now belong to no-one, but to myself.

Outlier Ring.
Handmade with aventurine and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.

Maya

I feel bad that I can’t save other people. That I can’t help them be gentle with themselves. I’d love them to see how much they try and how well they are doing. Then I realize, that perhaps it is me I see in a mirror, and I’m just trying to help myself. 

Maya Ring.
Handmade with crisocola and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.

Cuddle

This ring makes me think of pajamas. The fuzzy, full body kind that gave me comfort as a kid. A cave within a onesie. A furry womb. My childhood under covers.

I look like an adult, but mostly, I am still five years old.

Cuddle Ring.
Handmade with amazonite and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.

Legacy

One day, when my dad thought he was dying, he called my mother, sister and I to his side, and said: remember how important aesthetics are. This sense of taste that your mother and I created in our work and home, matters. Appreciate and cultivate it. 

Legacy Ring.
Handmade with carnelian and recycled sterling silver.
Soon in my online shop.

Panfilo

I made this cuff for my dad for his birthday. For years we called him Panfilo, which derived from Pa (pop), and also means “kind” or “friend to all” in Greek.

One day, towards the end of his life, he told us he had always hated that nickname. After a lifetime trying to make others happy, I was glad he finally stood up for himself and told us what he wanted! This piece has inspired my next series.