'The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightning and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.' -The Upanishads.

Monday, October 22, 2012

I'm a believer ...

I've been lusting after some of the leather amulets I've been seeing on necklaces on Etsy.  You can see some of them at Quisnam, Desert Talismans, Stregata, Infinity Stop and other shops.  I've gone through my closet (and Dave's), a couple of thrift shops, even tried to talk someone out of a well-worn wallet, but no luck finding the perfect piece of old leather to become my personal amulet.  When I tried to envision what it would look like, what I saw in my mind's eye was a Moroccan coin purse that I had bought at a head shop when I was in college, carried in my jeans pocket over many years and across several states.  I could not remember when or where I had seen it last, but I couldn't get it out of my mind.  The rust colored goat skin.  The stamped design in gold.  Opened and closed a thousand times.  I'm talking the sixties here, folks.  I hadn't seen it in like, thirty years or more.


In anticipation of selling our house and moving south, we were going through some boxes the other day. One was filled with stuff my daughter had left behind when she went off to college years ago.  A old jewelry box.  Pens and pencils.  Pay stubs from an after school job.  Her high school stash box.  And at the bottom - you guessed it - the little worn Moroccan coin purse.

Sometimes you can call things to you.  Important things like friendship.  Like love.  And small things that have little or no value except to make you a believer.







And a couple of new listings on Etsy:







Tuesday, October 9, 2012

http://www.etsy.com/shop/maggiezees

 My heart is pounding, but I finally did it. With Dave waving around a couple of flashlights, I pressed the button and opened my Etsy shop. Why is it so terrifying?? Maggie Zee was already taken and so was Urban Amulets and Etsy wouldn't let me use an apostrophe, so it's maggiezees. With an "s".



Friday, October 5, 2012

Some pieces finished in the last couple of weeks.


turquoise deer & labyrinth amulet necklace

close-up of turquoise deer



Chinese bronze coin amulet necklace


I will never do a multi-strand necklace again. Not fun. I don't have the attention span. I must have taken it apart 20 times.  Well, 4 times at least.  The white beads are rainbow moonstones and they really are very pretty.


I have three more necklaces to photograph, but the computer is causing massive headaches and I'm not able to download anything new.  One of them is really spectacular though - check back next week.





The Archaeology News blog had the following story today...http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2012/10/cavewoman-jeweller-rewrites-gender.html#.UG-Ch7KPX90

If you were to be buried with items that would tell future archaeologists just who you were, what would they be???