Pray:  All Ends in Beauty.  Everything Ends in Beauty……..

Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha

Ever have a problem making decisions? We all have our techniques. I flip a stone.

I have a little flat round stone whom I consult. It’s about the size of a fifty cent piece and I made a black dot on one side, although I can tell the two sides apart. I keep the stone in a blue leather pouch in a top drawer.  Sometimes when I flip the stone I say to the universe: “I will abide” to the decision of the stone. Other times, I reserve the right to do the opposite.  But I like to ask the stone what it has to say.

When I don’t like the answer,  or want the answer reinforced, sometimes I say “Two out of three.”

Very often I have an instant reaction to what the stone suggests.  This reaction enables me to know what I am really wanting or not wanting to do.  Sometimes when I am trying to decide, I come to the conclusion that either way will work, so why fret?  And the stone decides.

It’s easier to use the stone’s advice with small decisions, of course.  But sometimes these seem to me to be the thorniest.  Like what to wear somewhere or what to pack in a suitcase.  I find packing to be a chore.  Once I used the stone to handle the entire wardrobe question for a trip and it turned out remarkably  well.

My husband inadvertently trained me in this technique.  He is as casual as they come.  One of his fundamental philosophies is “It doesn’t matter.”  This took a long time getting used to. Of course things matter!  It used to really BOTHER me when he made this assertion.  But there came a time that I realized that the worst thing that could happen with a “wrong” answer was that I would learn a lesson of some sort.  And a lesson can–more often than not–be a thing of beauty. Indeed, in the cosmic scheme, the Taoist way of seeing things, there are no “wrong” answers.

Why not a coin? Stones are the oldest among us.  They are not manmade and have an energy of “The Oldest Among Us.” Metal has an electromagnetism entirely different from a stone and  likely has been in many other hands.  I’ve had my stone now for years and its likely that no other human hands have ever touched it.  It has MY energy on it.  It’s a medicine stone, a Nuwati stone

Fortunately, intuition and reason also inform me when its time to make a decision. But the stone is my little friend that helps me dialog with myself and the universe.

Elizabeth/Du’Tsu/Spring Frog