Sharethis: Family Says Doctors Tried to 'Euthanize' Stroke Victim - Heart Disease - FOXNews.com

Horrifying story, even for this doubly Hades Moon. Where was the Living Will or Advance Directive?

I can't picture a more important topic to cover with a local attorney who fully understands the laws of the state, province, prefecture, county, country, land, or planet on which you reside than Living Wills and Advance Directives. Everyone of majority age needs one or the other, and deserves to be informed about each one. Review the document and reasons for the choices periodically the way you'd review a Last Will and Testament.

Here where I live, Living Wills are NOT the same as Advance Directives. Here, Living Wills put end-of-life decisions such as the timing of "the end of life" in the hands of medical professionals. Here, Advance Directives put decisions about heroic measures and such things as continuation of food and hydration in the hands of whoever the patient designates. Here, a Living Will won't give a dying patient even the most basic things all living beings need: food and water. Or things to allow for the most basic comfort for humane death.

Here, Living Wills give discretion into the hands of medical professionals. Advance Directives can be written to provide for virtually anything one would wish when one is unable to decide for oneself.

It's an extremely personal decision.

I have an Advance Directive. I will never have a Living Will. The way I see it, Living Wills allow doctors to end your life. To me Advance Directives allow whomever you designate to require that you have whatever will allow for the continuance of your life, or to require that you be given simple, non-heroic measures such as food, hydration, and palliative care without heroic measures. That's just my own extremely personal decision.

Read the article, then make plans for one or the other if you don't already have one or the other. Tell your family and friends about your decisions and give copies to those people who'll be legally allowed to speak for you, should the time come.

Advance Directive vs Living Will??
Family Says Doctors Tried to 'Euthanize' Stroke Victim - Heart Disease - FOXNews.com Source: foxnews.com
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Envy Me, or Hades Moons Attract: Sharethis

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"...but the thrill we've never known
Is the thrill that'll getcha when you get your picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone."
artist Dr. Hook

Ah, envy me gals: A Rolling Stone magazine subscription promo consisting of a trial subscription that includes--a handbag with Johnny Depp on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

And the bag is mine, all mine! Well, it's really Aikichik's (thanks for modeling honey!) but we live in Castle Anthrax and have raised sharing our stuff to a sacred state.

And speaking of Hades Moons...Johnny Depp has a Hades Moon. Here's a link to his chart in the Astro-Databank maintained by Astro.com. Johnny Depp is only 3 years younger than I am so outer planet signs aren't as significant as House placements. His Capricorn Hades Moon is in his 6th house and his Jupiter is in his 9th house, like both of mine are, and he has the Taurus/Scorpio axis on his angles (his is the IC/MC angle and mine is Asc/Desc).

IMDB has an in development page for a movie version of the 1960s TV soap opera show Dark Shadows. On behalf of those of us who ran home from school as fast as we could to catch Dark Shadows every day, you're welcome for the link to Wiki.

So what has this to do with Johnny Depp? Rumor has it that he is more than interested in playing Barnabas Collins in the Dark Shadows movie, scheduled for 2011 according to IMDB. According to the Wiki article, Johnny Depp was so obsessed with Barnabas Collins that he wanted to be him. I understand. I wanted to be Doctor Julia Hoffman. There's a reason that Wiki deems Dark Shadows to be a cult series. To me Johnny Depp certainly exhibits Hades Moon characteristics. It's said he has a working electric chair in his living room.

That's one Hades Moon trait--our obsession with obsessions, frequently Dark ones. Birth charts do not make us what we are, but they certainly provide a convenient way to understand ourselves.

There's another person in the Dark with whom I share some natal chart similarities: Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the exorcist for Rome who has written the new top two books on my Amazon "Important" list (on left). No matter who you are, if you work with demons or have never dealt with them in your life that you're aware of, everyone should read those two books. People who work with demons frequently have little factual knowledge of how the Church sees the subject, people with Hades Moons who are just curious about exorcisms will appreciate Fr. Amorth's straightforward, non-superstitious information, and every Christian needs reminding. All good, the way I see it. And go disinter a life, anyone who thinks I'm picking a fight. Sheesh. Just move on.

One of Fr. Amorth's favorite movies? The original The Exorcist. True. He says it's quite accurate although the special effects are a bit exaggerated.

Fr. Amorth does not have a Hades Moon (link to his Astro-Databank chart here); however, he and I both have our Suns in the 8th House of death, sex, and the occult (and inheritances, legacies, taxes, and things of metamorphic processes of all sorts) which is ruled by--Pluto of Hades Moon fame. He and I have the Cancer/Capricorn axis on our angles (his is MC/IC and mine is IC/MC). His 8th House cusp is Taurus so he's "right at home" in the Dark. It's where he "lives" one might say. My 8th House cusp is Sagittarius so I've got a more philosophical interest in sharing about it. His Pluto is conjunction his MC and opposition his IC. My Pluto is 115o (not too far from 120o trine) my Scorpio Desc and trine my MC.

The Vatican couldn't have picked a person with a better natal chart for his job than Fr. Amorth, at least as I see it from my kindergarten perspective.

Oh, and so everything is clear: I don't talk to demons or work with them at all and I'm not really in any sort of deliverance ministry. If you need help in this area, I recommend making an appointment with your pastor or priest.

WHAT I'M SAYING IS that we Hades Moon and others with Pluto-Scorpio-related connections live in the Dark. We're all in an eternal embrace of sorts whichever your side.


Barbossa: "So what now, Jack Sparrow? Are we to be two immortals, locked in an epic battle until Judgment Day and trumpets sound, hmmm?"
Jack Sparrow: "Or you could surrender."
POTC: The Curse of the Black Pearl

"Ophiuchus means 'he who holds the serpent' and that is how he is depicted. The struggle will last forever, since they wage it on equal terms with equal powers". [Manilius, Astronomica, 1st century AD, book 1, p.31]

Fr. Amorth in Messenger of Saint Anthony-please note that article content is highly belief-system intensive
Messenger of Saint Anthony - The Exorcist Source: messengersaintanthony.com
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Sharethis: 'You'll try anything,' says cancer patient - EarthLink - Health News

If nothing else convinces you that we poor folk need trustworthy guidance in dealing with serious illness, these two articles will.

In this country, people have the right to participate in treatment choices. But, as they teach you in first aid and first responders training, people reach a point when they no longer are able to make sound, rational choices regarding their conditions.

My father reached that point. He and my mother had been through so much with his metastasized prostate cancer, so much pain, so much dreadful treatment, so much sickness, so much much, that all they had left was desperation. Mom was his primary care giver, and they had believed the surgeon who operated on him 18 years earlier who said, "You'll die from something else, Rudy. You won't die from this cancer."

When the hospice nurse told my mother that my father had gone, my mother said, "What?" Between two of them, two nurses had been there for nearly 24 hours. My father had released his last breath some minutes before, the nurse had steadily checked for heartbeat with her stethoscope, yet my mother was in such bad shape that all she could say was, "What?"

All the doctors agreed that he had fared far better than any other patient than any they had treated. His surgeon wrote about his management of my father's case for a publication. To a one they all told him, "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it."

There has GOT TO BE A WAY to integrate what we know now, the miracles of modern Western medicine--which did treat my father successfully with hormone courses three times and radiation at the end--with what we know now about supportive care and healthy completing treatments.

My father breathed clean air and drank clean country water, ate my mother's marvelous organic food, rested and exercised on their farm, and love and played with his grandchildren who adored him right back. He and I spent time researching the drugs he was being treated with, I kept up with his OTC meds and such, and as a family we were united in working with his squamous cell skin cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure as well.

He lived 18 years and 6 months after his diagnosis. He had surgery, 3 courses of hormone treatment, radiation for palliative purposes, good food, the love of his family, and died peacefully having been relieved of his pain by God 3 weeks beforehand. True--my mother came screaming up the stairs one day near the end hollering, "Your father's been cured! He's been cured!" His pain was gone, he felt strength enough to move his arms and legs, and they thought the cancer was gone. It was a different gift from God than cure as it turned out, but they took it and we all gave thanks! He had 3 good weeks.

He had held so tightly to the dream that he might be cured that he was taking physical therapy treatments even after the doctor released him. His last session was exactly one week before he died.

If I ever get my way, clinics will someday have a staff of health care providers all with only one thought: integrating the astronomical amount of knowledge available to mankind to provide patients with not only the best treatment--which is subjective, as the second article below illustrates--but with the best of both Eastern, Western, and belief system advice.

And love. There must be much, much love.

Someday. Someday.

Patients need guidance
'You'll try anything,' says cancer patient - EarthLink - Health News http://shar.es/WIo7
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.

Patient choices
'A sad case': She chose herbals over surgery - EarthLink - Health News http://shar.es/WIWG
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.

Deep in transpersonality

"You know nothing of hell."
Koehler, POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl

May has been a rough month. It has taken a lot of out of me and I couldn't have told ahead of time that it was going to be so difficult. May marked one year since my father died here at home.

Fairly easy Migraine month, though. I've now gone for three complete weeks without a Migraine attack of any sort. Three-week-long prodrome still going so whenever the attack finally progresses, it's liable to be a huge one. Quite pleased that I've needed no meds other than daily preventatives in a nice long time. Clear quartz and dioptase-charged water, that's the secret.

Not a good month for Meniere's. One minor attack after another and one major attack, first major one since February. My ears feel like they're about to explode right now. My hearing in my right Meniere's ear is down. My mother had to raise her voice yesterday just to talk to me.

If I can ever get all my situations calmed down, I do want to go back to school to study transpersonal psychology. It's a complex subject by itself, psychology is, without the addition of things like shamanistic healing techniques, astrology, and in-depth dream interpretation. Transpersonal psychology is a form of depth psychology. Going into the deep places of the human psyche to heal the most frightening, disturbing, and supra-personal topics and doing it through transpersonal techniques that take a person outside themselves and into the extra-dimensional realms--I cannot wait. Soul retrieval, hypnosis, energy work--all right down my alley.

Seems I'm suited for it, if my birth chart with the new time is correct. It appears I've got the chart of a witch--or midwife of the soul, as it has also been put to me.

I've figured out a way to do a bit of studying. I can use my laptop in bed and when vertigo hits, I slide it to the edge of the bed and stretch out. Yeah, I've spent a lot of time horizontal this month. I'm vertical right now borrowing Libchik's computadora whilst I wait for mine to come back from warranty work. Feels good to be upright.

Got several things in my head that I want to write about: new information about the role of estrogen in brain's processing of hearing (which MUST include the study about the relationship between cochlear dysfunction and Migraine which is also affected by estrogen and hormones), something that struck me about the relationship between Neptune birth chart aspects and "permeable" people like me related to body energy leakage (I cannot afford to shed energy under any circumstance that I don't initiate), and how birth chart analysis seems to provide clues to help distinguish between learned behaviour and innate, inborn character traits. Learned behaviour is more difficult to modify than inborn characteristics, and any help in sorting it out would give a psychologist an edge in treatments.

Before I write any of those columns, though, I'm going to write about what I'm reading right now: The Hades Moon by Judy Hall, (c) 1998 Samuel Weiser Inc, Box 612, York Beach, ME 03910-0612. Judy Hall is a UK karmic astrologer/astronomer (Master's Degree level) who has counseled people who have a particular chart aspect connecting their Moon and Pluto placements. It seems that we Hades Moon sorts have unique problems such as energy vampirism and other such issues from the depths of hell that transpersonal work appears to succeed especially well in adjusting. My Scorpio Moon sextile Pluto in Virgo is what Judy Hall calls "doubly Hades Moon". So, to everyone I've put through hell since the day I was born, I apologize. Now I'm getting a handle on it. Glad my belief system contains a method for addressing wrongs. Hope you all begin to feel better soon. :)

Right now, I've got to get horizontal again. The good vertical feeling has worn off.

Feels good to be feeling again. Speaking of feeling--did I mention that some people with Hades Moons have a higher libido than others? Add that to my current 20% increase due to Migraine and...dadgum...gotta find a way to solve this...

With my Venus in Aquarius squared Neptune in Scorpio plus my doubly Hades Scorpio Moon, it takes an extremely strong, handsome man on the darkest side of the Force to achieve perfection in my eyes. But, he'd have to prove trustworthy first, and I don't believe that's possible for any man. Love you guys, but you'll tell a girl anything. Especially you dark-side and handsome types. :-*



On Twitter--Parin Stormlaughter

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Star-Crossed or A Cardinal Rule of Energy Generation

I’ve found another piece of my energy problem puzzle. It's been in my stars all along.

I meant it when I said I would leave no stone unturned in my quest to solve my health problems. They’re serious, disabling, and confounding.

It’s been a journey since my father died last May. I’ve explored crystals, energy medicine, acupuncture, chiropractics, and Edgar Cayce health recommendations in my current full-time job of getting well. The years and mountains of money I’ve spent on Western medicine dismay me. I’ve derived benefit from all forms of health restoration and illness amelioration into which I have delved. I intend to continue them all for as long as I continue to benefit.

One insurmountable problem has plagued me as far back as I have memory, and that’s energy generation. Yeah my stamina is shot but I mean body energy when I say energy generation.

The problem is simple: a permanent solution has yet to be found, to my knowledge.

In the last few months, I’ve done some superficial reading and moderate pondering and decided that personality astrology would not cause belief-system conflict. Predictive astrology, making decisions and plans based on horoscope charts, would be a problem (and really wouldn’t be of much assistance to me). Being a true believer in psychology and professionally-administered, scientifically developed assessment tests makes personality astrology seem like a good fit.

My journey into self-understanding began when my late friend and Formation Director in Carmel, a PhD who administered psychological and other assessment tests at the State level before her retirement, gave me the MBTI assessment. Her advice and recommendations, guidance and friendship, finally drew back the veil on why I am the way I am (ENJT if you’re just wondering). She died of cancer, I voluntarily withdrew from Carmel, and had to start again, once again. But my firm belief in the value of professionally administered and scientifically-developed assessments was cemented. (Oh, go on and take a Tickle test. It won’t hurt and you might learn something. But get a counselor or psychologist for real assessments. They’re worth the price if you want the knowledge).

But, before embarking on any complementary or alternative health program and before considering anything found here at Sparkling With Crystals, I urge my gentle readers to evaluate and be strong in their own belief systems. You must know what you believe to be right and true before you’ll be able to evaluate whether a practice or system will be right for you. Clients and patients must find those whose beliefs are in line with their own in order to make optimal progress.

I was absolutely blessed by God to have accidentally come across a crystal healer tolerant of my belief system (no idea if he‘s an anomaly in the business, but he understands my belief system well). He made just a couple of recommendations but they were utterly perfect and spot-on. Without his help, I would still be bedridden as well as housebound.

I took his advice and ran with rock medicine. I buried myself under a rock with books and books and books.

Studying crystal and mineral medicine logically lead me into the broader field of energy medicine. I found Donna Eden, whose system doesn’t conflict with my beliefs, and made further progress. Still, I can’t get a handle on increasing the amount of bodily energy I produce. I can move it around myself, balance it top-to-bottom and side-to-side, but can't generate more.

I can hold onto what I have, for the most part. I can disseminate energy well when I communicate and when I’m being creative, for example. But generating sufficient energy is simply something my body cannot do.

In pursuing personality astrology through my birth chart looking for answers, I found a reflection of this energy-generation problem of mine. It seems I don’t have beneficial Cardinal planets in my birth chart, the only astrological chart I'm really working to understand right now.

Cardinal signs reflect energy production, Fixed signs ground the energy into usage, and Mutable signs share the results. To apply this strictly to health one should probably consider the planets in one's 6th House which covers physical health (where I have the Moon and Neptune), but my overall Quality situation can't be ignored.

• Cardinal Earth: Jupiter, Saturn Air: Mars
• Fixed Fire: Uranus Air: Venus Earth: Ascending Taurus Water: Moon, Neptune
• Mutable Fire: Sun, Mercury

Plenty of Fixed and one of my Lights, the Moon; sufficient Mutable with my other Light there, the Sun, which is important. But only planets in my Cardinals and two can be conflicting for energy generation.

Jupiter expands and Saturn contracts, so the teachings go. The Lights, Sun and Moon, are the most influential bodies in a chart. Mars is my good shot at energy generation, for all intents and purposes.

I've got science behind me that I don't produce normal amounts of electrical energy, at least. There's a device called a AcuGraph that measures the amount of skin resistance present over acupuncture meridians. When last it was measured, I was producing 56% of what an average person produces. To compare, my two daughters were both slightly over 100%. We were all measured on the same day, same machine, same technician.

Anyway, I am more and more leaning toward the position that my energy problems are constitutional and not due to ill health.

Poor Cardinal signs, AcuGraph reading, having lived 48 years knowing myself better than anyone else knows me--I can't find anything else to account for my poor energy generation other than simply the way I'm made.

The Crystal Healer intuitively knew a crystal that would help. What's the crystal considered to be the one that carries energy to the most perfect state possible? One considered to be a pure source of energy? Clear quartz, the crystal he told me to start with. I'm telling you, crystal healers aren't your average Joes.

My recent clear quartz diet was very good for me in many ways. I'm gonna make clear quartz-charged water to rinse my hair and for the next time I dive into a nice hot bath. Heck, no reason not to put nice tumbled stones in my chest of drawers, the pockets of my coat and sweaters--the possibilities are endless. Clear quartz clusters--need more of them too.

Is this a cure for my problems? Will I suddenly become Amazing Woman? Wow, wouldn't that be FUN?? XD Heavens yes, it would be GRAND to become Amazing Woman. But clear quartz won't do it.

Clear quartz will NOT straighten my spine or move the displaced vertebra back in line. I seriously doubt it will balance the ionic fluids in my cochlea. It will raise my "frequency" as long as I'm in contact with it or until my body learns to maintain the higher frequency by itself.

What I expect is that redoubling my exposure to clear quartz will improve my functioning as a whole. That alone would be worth my efforts, the way I see it. I have come to the conclusion that any permanent or even long-term improvements, Eastern or Western, temporal or astral, are so far ahead of me that I can't see them from here. And I'm clairvoyant. I can see a long, long ways. :)





On Twitter--Parin Stormlaughter

Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, or Are you the real thing?

"Are you for real?"
The question guys most frequently ask Yours Truly.


It appears that Oprah Winfrey is going hormonal again. If you missed the recent episode with Suzanne Somers (and I did--I've missed every episode of The Oprah Winfree Show ever shown!), then you might be interested in the Newsweek review of it. Unfortunately, Newsweek isn't offering free linking to online articles or I'd point you there. But, I've read it and it was interesting.

Bottom line: Newsweek assessed her TV show as not fair and balanced, but her concurrent Oprah magazine article on the same topic as far better.

But what were they about? Bioidentical hormones compared to conjugated equine estrogens (CEE) and synthetic conjugated estrogens (CSE) for women in menopause, either natural or surgically induced.

I am most assuredly not as studied-up on bioidentical hormones as Suzanne Somers and Oprah Winfrey. I wouldn't dream of giving anyone, male or female, any opinion about the state of his or her own hormones. I just learned from reading around today that even without hormone or estrogen replacement, a woman's body will produce a small amount of estradiol through her adrenal cortex tissue whether she has any functioning ovaries or not.

I'm writing this article mostly to gripe about--marketing and words.

I had a TVH-BSO (total vaginal hysterectomy-bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy) in 2004. Gone were the evil ovaries that patently and categorically refused to give me peace. In the month leading up to my surgery, I did intensive reading and pondering about post-surgical ovarian secretion substitutes. Only for my own self did I do this, so don't anyone run to a doctor and say "Well, Parin Stormlaughter said such-and-such was the best..."

Anyhow...

Conjugated equine estrogens are made from the urine of pregnant horses--mares. The drug industry calls them the "natural" estrogens. Synthetic conjugated estrogens are made from plants and plant extracts and the drug industry does not consider them to be natural.

Please take a moment to glance at this chart from the Premarin website. Notice the page is entitled "Common Alternate Estrogen Replacement Therapy Products in the U.S." Notice that in the URL string it's "synth". Is that short for synthetics?

Ladies and gentlemen (and guys, I hope for the love of the women in your life that you're still with me here), there is nothing synthetic about a yam. Or soybeans, unless they're genetically-modified soybeans and that's for another column...

In my opinion, there is nothing more naturally human or "real" about equine estrogen nor anything "synthetic" about plant-based estradiol. There, I've said it.

There are arguments to be made on both sides. One could validly point out inconsistencies between people who eat horse meat but refuse to take CEEs. One could validly point out that putting a yam through the processing necessary to conjugate an estrogen is about as far from the tuber as you can get.

I see both sides. I am repelled by the thought of putting anything derived from mare urine in my mouth, which is what one does when taking Premarin. I try to be consistent, though. I'm repelled by the thought of ever needing a pig valve for my heart for example, and someday I may be faced with that decision depending on how my mitral valve prolapse goes.

I don't use placenta products on my hair. There are all sorts of skin care products that use what they euphemistically call "DNA" in their products designed to be absorbed through skin capillaries. I'll eat a burger now and then but I could easily be a happy lacto-ovo vegetarian (and was for a few years).

I'm a true child of the land. Horse manure makes marvelous compost (although really, chicken manure is better if you can get it). My sister-in-law was a state champion equestrian in her teenage years. She and I used to ride, she on her rescued thoroughbred racehorse who had fractured his leg and would have been destroyed if she had not taken him in, and me on her old childhood quarter horse. The quarter horse retired to the loving home of a child with skeletal difficulties where he made the child's life bloom--that's a story I want to write someday. Love, love, love horses.

I guess I'm complaining that mare-urine-derived estrogen does NOT seem more natural for humans than plant-derived estradiol. Sounds like a marketing strategy designed to pull in people who otherwise have no opinion but feel like "natural health" is better than synthetic health. Gripes the left side of my behind to see marketing strategies of this sort.

I use Vivelle-dot, whose estradiol is derived from yams. I had nearly completed very early menopause when I had my surgery at 43 years of age. When I started Vivelle-dot, I was suddenly in a world that I never knew could be so...even. Any menopausal woman needing to feel better deserves to, and I'll stand right beside you on that.

And I won't criticize you for what you choose. We all have very important decisions to make about our bodies. I'm there.

Be aware that drug-industry generated labels may or may not conform to your own beliefs. Read, study, ponder, sift it all through your belief system, and be able to explain your decision if you are challenged. Keep up with the latest information.

And know that the Sparkling One will be here to share what gripes the left side of her behind. It's big enough for plenty of things to gripe it, that's for sure. :D

The answer to my most FAQ is yes, I'm very much as I appear to be. If you like me on the outside, you'll love me on the inside. Dadgum head in the beehive...must be Valentine's Day in the air.




Copyright 2008-2009 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission under any circumstances. Contact me to request permission to link. And remember that if my work gets published anywhere else, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Sparkling With Crystals: Part I

This is the first article in the Sparkling With Crystals series. It first appeared on my other blog, The Carmelite's Habit, on June 19, 2008.


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"It is love alone that gives worth to all things." - St. Teresa of Avila


Disclaimer: There is a branch of Christian theology concerned with proving Christian doctrines and it’s called apologetics. Roman Catholic apologetics is far beyond my little pea brain talents and there’s no apologetics here. Sorcery as discussed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) paragraphs 2116 and 2117 isn’t germane to this series of articles. I speak for myself as a Christian mystic and former Secular Carmelite. Ok, I’m good.


I feel like a walking pharmacy. I’m tired of feeling like a walking pharmacy. I take three prescription migraine preventatives and one prescription Meniere’s treatment med every day. I take a number that I won’t reveal for the migraine and Meniere’s attacks that occur but it’s far more than four. I’m going to do something about feeling like a walking pharmacy, if anything can be done. I’ve got my migraine specialist’s approval for this series of experiments, so I’m good again.

Recently, I reread a neat passage about crystals and migraine in the only book I recommend for migraine. Teri Robert, the nation’s #1 Migraine Disease Patient Advocate, wrote Living Well With Migraine Disease and Headaches: What Your Doctor Doesn’t Tell You–that You Need to Know © 2005 HarperCollins. It is part of my migraine education recommendations. I’ve read a library of books on migraine in my 42 years of dealing with it. This is the only book I recommend. I’ve given it away for free. I recommend it to you.

Teri has a chapter about complementary therapies. I’m a firm believer in complementary therapies. To me, they’re completing therapies because used correctly, they complete the work of the Western physician. How lovely it will be when the Western Physician will do his or her thing along side the holistic practitioner whose work will round out the patient’s belief system and the patient will get well and get on with living!

Here is what Teri wrote on pages 156 and 157 of her book:

One of the basic principles behind crystal therapy lies in the theory that different crystals or stones have different vibrations. An interaction between the vibration of the crystal and vibration of the person triggers healing responses. Some people believe crystals were created by God and can have healing properties just as herbs and minerals do. They reason that if we grind up minerals and ingest them, why not use whole stones and crystals for healing effects?...When I was introduced to these theories I figured, “Why not?”

Why not me either? I thought. So, I messaged someone who knows about crystal healing. After taking his advice, I realized there was an entire world that I had not explored, a whole world of healing out there, a beautiful world of healing with crystals.

Am I saying I had never heard of crystal healing? Of course I have. I know this man is a crystal healer. I know all the myths of crystal balls, magic wands, stories of middle- and far-Eastern rulers who used various crystals and things like ground pearls in elixirs and medicines, food and drink and enhancements for all sorts of purposes. After all, I write historical fiction and I’m in the middle of writing a novel about an ancestor of mine whose father and husband both were poisoned–that’s history. In my novel she will have the gift of stopping blood–that’s fiction. She and her sister-in-law use crystals and gemstones superstitiously and so will another character who is a distiller of essences. I’ve done historical reading about how crystals were used during the Renaissance. Queen “Bloody” Mary was said to have a toadstone that she was never without, that she used for “treating” her wine to supposedly render it free from poisons.

So why now after reading Teri’s comments in her book did I decide to research my belief system for guidance and then find out for myself if the superstitions were bogus, placebo, or real? What made me think I’d have success with crystals for migraine? Teri Robert has had some success with amethyst. Migraine is a full-body, genetic disease with no known cure. We can work to prevent them, and treat the attacks when they come, but that’s the best we can do right now. I am retired on disability from both Meniere’s Disease and migraine disease. I’ve tried other completing therapies and whilst I’ve had success for other situations, nothing has ever touched migraine. Was it a fantasy dream to think anything would help migraine in me besides a drugstore of medicine?

Crystal healers are not plain old people. Just have to come right out and say it. They have gifts that science will explain one of these days once quantum theories are thoroughly understood. Right now, there is no way to adequately discuss how crystal healers do their thing. There is so much involved in crystal healing, so much intuition, and that cannot be taught.

I feel like it’s part of the Providence of God, the manner in which God ‘provides’ for us, that this crystal healer agreed to help me. He did it for free. His time is limited.

I made good use of his advice. And became enchanted not with amethyst, which Teri mentions in her book that she uses for migraine and the crystal healer knows of too, but–clear quartz crystal which is what the crystal healer recommended that I start with. Why did he recommend that I start with clear quartz crystal? Part of the intuition of the crystal healer.

I’ve left out part of the sequence of events. Before I ever placed the first clear quartz crystal point on my head to see if it would make my head stop hurting, I had to come to terms with some serious spiritual issues. I wanted to know much more about how rocks and crystals are made and mined and what they do by themselves when they’re just sitting around, much more about how the human body works as we know it, whether crystal healing was something my belief system would even allow me to study much less utilize. I wanted to know if they worked too. Long-time readers, y’all know I’m a firm believe in What Works. Placebo, repeatable results, doesn’t matter to me. If it works, it’s legal, and it’s ok with my belief system, I’m there. But I had to start with my belief system because it is the first layer in the filter.

As we live every day, every minute, every piece of sensory input that comes into our brains is sifted through the sieve of our own belief systems. We all do that. If we’re not taught to do that then we learn to do that on our own. We learn to be true to ourselves, whoever ourselves happen to be. We learn so, so much about morals, social conventions, and how to live rightly from those who rear us. We form our own belief systems based on what we’re taught or what is revealed to us, then filter everything we see, hear, read, or think through those belief systems. I am a Christian Roman Catholic (CRC) Carmelite mystic, so every thought, word, and sound goes through the CRC mystic filter before I accept it. All of us do the same. Some of us are more Democrat than Pagan, Republican than Atheist, more closely attuned to our IRA balances than anything else or sure that our beliefs are to hold no beliefs at all. I had to filter the concept of crystals for healing through my CRC mystic beliefs before I ever sent that first message to the crystal healer. You can’t imagine the spiritual gymnastics I’ve done since then.

I already knew that certain other parts of crystal work were a duplicate effort from a Christian perspective. Using crystals in meditation is an example. In the Judeo/Christian belief system, we pray. We meditate on sacred writings and Scripture, and we can meditate when we pray. In Christianity, meditating on sacred writings is called lectio divina.

Akashic Records wouldn’t be part of Judeo/Christian sacred writings unless one believes them to be the Book of Life as Edgar Cayce, a devout Christian and considered by many to be the Father of the New Age movement, did. There are crystals said to ‘download’ information from the Akashic Records when used in meditation. Never been to the Akashic Records myself so I can’t give a report on what’s there. We would meditate on a crystal if it were part of giving thanks for God’s amazing creation but other than that, the concept of meditating on crystals is superfluous in Christianity by and of itself.

Using crystals to access other metaphysical realms is another area of duplicate effort. I wish I had done that series of articles I had planned on Carmelite spirituality so I could refer to them now!

The Judeo/Christian belief system is balanced by its mystics. The Carmelite Order, of which I was one until I voluntarily withdrew when my formation director and friend died of cancer a few years ago, is a mystical order. My particular side, the Discalced Carmelites, were reformed by St. Teresa of Avila who levitated and performed miracles that have yet to be explained. The Wiki article is quite accurate and well written. Scroll down to the Mysticism section for a good overview of her mystical phenomena. She had visions of heaven that defied her ability to describe because she didn’t know words that would match what she saw. Some of her visions seem to closely match near-death experiences and the trances of Edgar Cayce, for anyone interested. She encountered Hell too, and saw her little cell in Hell waiting for her if she chose not to repent of her sins, and Hell was populated. Honestly, I’d rather not encounter beings like some of the ones I’ve met before. I’ve seen heaven too and wonderful, marvelous beings. Many Judeo/Christian mystics have perhaps not such dramatic stories to tell as St. Teresa of Avila’s, but suffice it to say that using crystals to access other realms is duplicate effort.

My sole interest is in whether there were prohibitions against laying rocks from the earth on a human body to alleviate pain and promote health. I’m certainly no Biblical scholar, but I went to Sunday School every week. I can usually find what I’m looking for. I got started.

I searched the Bible. I searched the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I prayed, and prayed, and talked it over with family and friends. Between myself and my daughters, we’re blessed to have friends right now of nearly every religion except Satanism and I did know someone who was a Satanist priest, but I’ve kinda lost touch with him. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, I’m working my way through all of these religions to see what I can learn.

During my prayer time alone, the Holy Spirit impressed on my soul the guidance I asked for. I won’t post all that here but if anyone is interested, comment on this column and ask and I’ll gladly share. The more people who examine this, the better we’ll all understand it and hopefully, get it right. The comments for my blog are moderated which means that what you comment comes as an email to me first. They will not automatically appear here on this page. If you don’t want your comments listed after I’ve read them, just tell me.

Neither in the Bible nor the Catechism can I find a single prohibition against using a rock from the earth on the outside of a body for health any more than I can find prohibitions or guidance against using one on the inside of a body for health either (and I’m thinking of mineral supplements now). Using crystals for meditative and/or mystic purposes is superfluous in the Christian belief system. Sorcery as defined and discussed in paragraphs 2116 and 2117 of the CCC isn’t germane to this article. So I’m on to the science of how crystals could possibly do what they most apparently do, and do well.

What I plan is four columns including this one. The next article will cover a few of the rocks and crystals I’ve experimented with and will include some of the information from the crystal healer. Regardless of belief system, there are ways to get the best relief from crystals. Silicone Valley has learned how to deal with crystals too as they’ve built computers. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Right now, I envision that the third article will cover more of the science of crystal usage today. They’re everywhere and I had no idea until I began my work on this series. Rest assured, science has no interest in any religious aspect of crystals and they get spectacular results from their fiber lasers and diamond dome music speakers. Yep, crystals are utilized for their oscillations as well as for their hardness and durability.

I plan the fourth article to cover my personal experiences with crystals so far, maybe give a couple of gem elixir recipes that might be useful to migraineurs. I might put a couple of photos of my own crystals and ones I’ve dug–I’ve been a rock hound since I visited the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington when I was 12 years old and saw the incredible rocks and minerals on display. Once you see a rock fluoresce under UV light, you’ll never be the same. When I saw the diamonds and gemstones fluoresce, I wondered if heaven could be more enchanting.

Crystals: A new world for me, a new way to relieve pain and support health that’s reusable and doesn’t require that I put anything into my mouth. A new way to utilize the fruits of the Earth, this beautiful world that I love so much. Perhaps a way to bridge some of the gap between traditional crystal work consumers and their Christian brethren, if they’ll have us, common ground one might say.

Healing: A solid bridge in this beautiful world, glowing with minerals and sparkling with crystals.








Fossil in shale from my backyard, with watchcat















Fossil in chert, again from my backyard










Thanks to Teri Robert, author of, Living Well With Migraine Disease and Headaches, for reprint permission.

Notice of copyright: © The Carmelite’s Habit 2008. No portion of this may be reproduced. If I hear of anyone or any website taking any of this, I’ll pray for you. And maybe take legal action. Trust me, prayer is more effective.