UPDATED 5/13 with links.

I want to love more.

It amazes me when I interact with my mother. To me, she is pure love.  I say my mom is love, like I say my mom is teaching, or my mom is cooking. Whenever I get off the phone with her and  say “I love you,” she replies with “I love you more.” As much as I want to say “nuh uh!” I know I can’t compete with my mother in the love department. I do the best I can, but she is a love veteran.

I think something happens to most people when they are given responsibility for someone else’s life. A selflessness, an unconditional caring, a thoughtfulness that may only be possible when you been with someone from the very beginning. I’d like to think I could offer this to another person without having them pass through my yaya, but I have a ways to go.

The pending Venus retrograde (May 15th-June 27th) has been a difficult but necessary time for me. In addition to the increase in social hostility we’ve been seeing in the U.S., my romantic partnership ended, and old friends have appeared in my life as well as old hurts and issues. I feel clear, if not remarkably certain about the step I need to take next (which I will go into in a future entry). By chance, I saw a Youtube video about meditating with a rose quartz stone. Rose quartz has many properties, including opening the heart chakra, attracting love, healing past hurts and making way for forgiveness.

This information stayed with me when I went out with a friend last night. We went into a shop she wanted to get incense from, and the shop had an amazing selection of spiritual goods, books, as well as some gorgeous jewelry.

I saw a case with many stones in it, and I narrowed my gaze on the shelf of rose quartz. Some were shaped like eggs, others orbs, others more like crystals, like the one I opted for. I wanted to get a pendant to wear over my heart, but that will have to wait until I open my pocket chakra :).

My friend got a smaller one and put it in her bra, right over her heart. When I got home I was so excited about my stone that I didn’t clean it, but decided to put it in my shirt while I watched SNL.

I woke up on the couch at 5am. Luckily, I hadn’t stabbed myself with the rose quartz, but my chest did feel heavy. It felt like congestion, like a cold, but the room was a good temperature when I woke up, so I’m not sure. Maybe some of my “blockages” had come to the surface over night? Who knows?

This morning, I decided to clean my rose quartz so I can make sure it’s ready for my energy and my intentions. The articles I’ve been reading say it’s important to keep healing stones clean. I opted to soak mine in a glass of cold tap water and sea salt (the article advised against using plastic or metal containers, warm or hot water, or table salt. Doing any of these could ruin the stone). I’m going to let it soak all day and use it to meditate in the morning.

Do I think having a crystal will help me love more? I think it could facilitate the work I’m already doing. Spiritually, anything that eludes to the connectedness between people and nature makes sense to me. If anything, looking at it on my nightstand and touching it will remind me, like my mom, to be love. Not even to embody it, but to actively do it.