raven thoughts and max ehrmann

i finished two new bracelets yesterday! one is the "raven thoughts" bracelet.

as you know, i love conor oberst. in his song "if the brakeman turns my way", he says:

when panic grips your body
and your heart's a hummingbird
raven thoughts blacken your mind
'til you're breathing in reverse
all your friends and sedatives mean well
but make it worse
every reassurance just magnifies the doubt
better find yourself a place to level out

a bit dark, i know. but also hopeful. and real. this bracelet is inspired by that song. the back says "rise up. soar above raven thoughts." in native american mythology, the raven is a symbol for change and transformation. the Raven is also said to be a keeper of secrets, and can assist us in examining areas in our lives that we are unwilling to face, or secrets we keep that harm us – the raven can help us expose the truth behind these (often distorted) thoughts and wing us back to health and harmony. very powerful.

the raven is hand-pierced from a thick sheet of silver, then soldered onto another sheet of silver to create the negative space image. the stones in this bracelet, from left to right, are prehnite, onyx (inside the raven), rutilated quartz, and spectrolite. spectrolite is a very high grade labradorite. while it appears black in the photos, it actually has an incredible rainbow sheen to it.

this is the spectrolite; it s amazing!

and here is the first in the desiderata series!

the desiderata, by max ehrmann, is one of my very favorite pieces of literature ever. it feels to me that every one of his lines is so poignant and so exact and so timeless. i try to read it everyday, to remind myself of what is. i have decided to devote a series of pieces to it; each will have clips of his poem and a prehnite with epidote stone somewhere on it. i am so excited!

this piece, just in time for valentine's day, contains his line about love, "neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass". so beautiful, it is stamped on the inside. on the outside is a gorgeous prehnite with epidote sheild-shaped cabochon. this stone is mesmerizing! a rich apple green, with such a lovely contrast of thick black epidote crystals running through it. the cuff itself is solid and heavy, and has been gently hammered and distressed, oxidized and buffed. the stone measures about 1" x 1" and the bracelet is 6 1/2".