Today was a good day. After feeling pretty low last night, I decided to kick things off on a positive note today by going to a kirtan session at my local yoga studio. I’d been meaning to check out their Sunday kirtan for awhile now, but just hadn’t found the right time to go. This morning turned out to be the perfect time to try something that I feel could become a regular fixture of my Sundays from here on out. The hour and a half I spent chanting and listening to beautiful live guitar music really soothed my soul, and I walked out of the studio feeling much more calm and at ease than I’ve felt as of late.

After kirtan, I decided to head to my local rock shop to look for some crystals that could help me battle depression and anxiety. I walk by the rock shop often, but haven’t been in in years, even though I love looking at crystals and gems. I’ve really benefited in the past from having just the right crystals around when I needed them, and though I should probably have just saved my money and cleansed my favorite chunk of smoky quartz for use today, I thought it might be nice to add some new tools to my arsenal. As soon as I walked into the shop, I felt a little more at peace.

I ended up looking around for over an hour, just admiring all of the baskets of beautiful shimmering “rocks”. In the end I chose a hunk of lepidolite, known for bringing calm and balance and assisting with times of transition, a small wand of blue kyanite, which helps align the chakras and assists with healing, a bracelet of labradorite, which helps ease depression and addictive traits, and also helps with mystical connection, a bracelet of blue jade, which calms and restores, and a bracelet of rhodolite, which promotes self-worth and spiritual growth, and encourages compassion and kindness.

After the rock shop, I went home and cleaned the house from top to bottom. I’d left my Roomba vacuuming while I was away, so when I got home I scrubbed the floors and dusted everywhere. Then I started going through the stuff in my closet to see if there was anything else that I could put out on the curb in a continuation of clearing out all of the baggage from my old life. I ended up putting out a bunch of shoes, purses, books, and crappy old jewelry, and rearranging my closet significantly. I’ve still got a long way to go, but it felt great to tackle such a big job and see a significant change in the end.

The entire day I’ve felt very calm, and mostly able to ignore the thought of having to go to work in the morning (which NEVER happens – I’m constantly obsessing about work and what’s happening on my various clients’ social media feeds 24/7). It’s been really nice. But the nicest thing of all was that a couple of hours ago, I decided to make a grocery store run. When I was passing the pile of stuff I’d left out on the curb, I noticed that it was now a lot smaller than before, since people had passed and taken the things they wanted from the pile. I also noticed that not all of the books I’d put out were taken; in fact, there were now a few more new books added to the pile that weren’t there to begin with. But that’s not the weirdest thing.

Someone had put a copy of Seven Storey Mountain, by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, right on top of the stack. Not so crazy, until you know that I’ve been wanting to read this book for a couple of years now, but something always keeps me from pulling the trigger and purchasing it. I’ve heard great things about Merton’s writings, and especially this book, which – get this – is cited as a “must read” by many pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago. It’s a lovely copy of the book, too. It’s from the late 70’s, and is well-worn and loved. The spine is taped, and the pages are creased and brown. It just feels like the Universe decided to slip me a gift when I most needed it.