jewelry

A Self Valentine

~ titinavh ~ Leave a comment

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This is the very perfection of a man (woman), to find out his (her) own imperfections.

~Saint Augustine (amended by Titina – it was not perfect…)

As this traditionally celebrated Month of Love comes to a close, here are a few of my own reflections that I hope will serve to spark a little deeper awareness.

I have been exploring the month of February from the predominant standpoint of Loving Oneself, a Self-Valentine of sorts.  More bubble baths, dates with oneself, giving to oneself as a lover would, sensual exploration of self, etc.

But I have discovered something else.  This “loving oneself” business is one big Band-Aid to cover up a bigger truth I have been avoiding: there is no other person, no activity, no identity, no outer achievement that can plug up the holes of a leaky sense of Self.

When I worked in the jewelry trade in London, I used to clean up batches of metal castings.  Occasionally, I would come across pieces that had a large hole caused by a bubble in the molten metal during the casting process.  Those repairs were painstaking and cumbersome.  The hole had to be drilled out further, a silver wire plugged in and soldered in place, then the repaired spot had to filed, buffed and polished to look like nothing was there.  Like this jewelry patch-up, repairing the holes may look purposeful, but the hidden flaw remains since the original casting of the piece.  In time, when the piece tarnishes, the filled-out hole may start to become visible on the surface of the piece. At this point, there are two choices: re-melt the piece and start all over again, hoping for a more perfect casting, or learn to accept, even love, the “wabi-sabi-ness” of the piece, thus elevating it to a different, perhaps even more sacred, kind of beauty.

I have reached a stage in my life when these flaws and plugged up holes are coming up to the surface and becoming visible (at least to me).  I cannot find it within me to re-polish the surface.  The fight has gone out of me and instead I am left with a bittersweet surrender that seems to flow with the conflict, aikido-like, to neutralize its dark power.  The loss of this polished identity feels very scary and yet strangely comforting at the same time.  I can see, that with time, I will be able to present to the world humbly and yet proudly, a treasure which was crafted, shaped, worn down, tarnished and buffed by time and bumpy experience, the flaws in its manufacture a unique feature that contributed to its pricelessness – a Soul Piece.

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SOUL SEED COLLECTIVE is a (hopefully) monthly blog on thoughts and ideas

by Titina van Hoorn from  spj logodark silver nuff sm

Titina van Hoorn is an artist, jeweler, life coach, energy healing practitioner, lover of words, dancer, mother and soul-seeker, who feels passionate about exploring the journey of the soul with all of its twists, turns and mysteries and supporting others who have chosen this rich path.

For more information on Soul Piece Jewelry go to www.soulpiecejewelry.com

or visit the Soul Piece Jewelry page onFacebook-logo-PSD

Recommended links:

This month I have been enamored by the work of this writer and contributor to Soul Work.  Articulate, deep, mystical, she has written a book called “Belonging”, from which I continue to harvest many gems.

Toko-pa Turner

belonging book

 

 

sop collage

Do you want to experience planting magic in your life and seeing it grow?

Uncover your soul’s purpose and create a talisman to carry with you at all times in your personal journey with Soul Piece Jewelry’s

Seeds of Potential

Perfect as an affordable gift for yourself or loved ones, these “seed” pendants are created in fine silver (on a sterling silver chain) with custom symbols and words to plant in your world as reminders of what you are wishing to grow.

It includes a one-hour coaching session to explore what it is that you want to manifest in your life. 

For more information CLICK HERE. Or contact Titina van Hoorn 

Thank you for this very personal piece of jewelry that I wear almost every day. I love it!      ~ Hillary Sunada, Seeds of Potential customer.

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2019 – A New Year’s Un-resolution

~ titinavh ~ Leave a comment

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I have let go of the need to know so much. What we can know is so small – the holiness around is so large. Now I trust in simplicity, simplicity and love.

~ Anaïs Nin

It has been a while since I have posted in this blog. Some of the reasons have been due to perfectionism and self-judgment gaining the upper hand, biting me in the a$$ before I could even start to write. Some, a reconfiguring of Self, propagated in no small measure, I’m sure, by what I suspect are the emotional symptoms of perimenopause and was therefore not quite sure what I wanted to express (grist for a whole other post).

In any case, I still like the feeling of a New Year as a fresh, blank page – a do-over of sorts.

Funny how quickly we forget…I thought I was coming up with an original New Year’s theme – “New Year’s Un-resolutions”, the opposite of having clear plans and visions for the New Year. So I peruse my old posts and see titles like, “Who Knows? – Some Random Thoughts on Uncertainty”, “A New Take on New Beginnings,” – hmm…

Maybe, the New Year highlights the coming-back-for-another-round of the same old issue. This year, it started with a deep, personal relationship loss that punched me in the gut and left me handicapped in my ability to grasp for externals as my props for fulfillment. I was forced to let go of dreams, of the direction I thought my life was going in and step into the unknown. Serendipitously, the Anaïs Nin quote above surfaced from my iPhone photos and I felt a strange and subtle sense of relief. Followed by waves of more ugly, snotty grief, despair and fear of letting go.

So it looks like this is my year of shedding, subtracting from the masterpiece, à la Michelangelo, to reveal what has been there all along, buried by old wounds, unmet needs, fears of stepping into my power and becoming visible. I have rebelled in the past against New Age platitudes of Surrendering, Being Grateful (ugh!), Letting Go of What No Longer Serves,  but a part of me is starting to viscerally understand the need to challenge what the ego thinks it knows (based on a series of past experiences, that get processed through inaccurate filters to become faulty, self-evident truths).

Do I love it? NO!

Am I full of blissful trust for the future? I wish!

Do I even feel like I have a choice? No, but I am done with trying to figure things out – staying the course of “not knowing” allows me to loosen my grasping claws and maybe give the world around me a chance to breathe and make room for what lovely thing really wants to grow. Do I want to grow a clipped bonsai tree or a beautiful, wild and sprawling Tree of Life?

It is my heartfelt wish that the heartbreaks, disappointments and detours of our lives serve to crack open the essential seeds of potential that we are, and allow them unfettered, organic growth into something more beautiful that we could have imagined.

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SOUL SEED COLLECTIVE is a (hopefully) monthly blog on thoughts and ideas

by Titina van Hoorn from  spj logodark silver nuff sm

Titina van Hoorn is an artist, jeweler, life coach, energy healing practitioner, lover of words, dancer, mother and soul-seeker, who feels passionate about exploring the journey of the soul with all of its twists, turns and mysteries and supporting others who have chosen this rich path.

For more information on Soul Piece Jewelry go to www.soulpiecejewelry.com

or visit the Soul Piece Jewelry page on

Facebook-logo-PSD

sop collage

Do you want to experience planting magic in your life and seeing it grow?

Uncover your soul’s purpose and create a talisman to carry with you at all times in your personal journey with Soul Piece Jewelry’s

Seeds of Potential

Perfect as an affordable gift for yourself or loved ones, these “seed” pendants are created in fine silver (on a sterling silver chain) with custom symbols and words to plant in your world as reminders of what you are wishing to grow.

It includes a one-hour coaching session to explore what it is that you want to manifest in your life. 

For more information CLICK HERE. Or contact Titina van Hoorn 

Thank you for this very personal piece of jewelry that I wear almost every day. I love it!      ~ Hillary Sunada, Seeds of Potential customer.

 

Healing the masculine and the feminine

Aside ~ ~ titinavh ~ Leave a comment

Make yourself a cup of tea or coffee and sit down in a cozy, comfortable place for this one….

Flowing goddess seed

In my exploration of the journey of the Soul, I have been fond of (well, kind of) digging into the areas that one would usually like to leave alone; the shadow, the dark recesses of my psyche that I would have a hard time admitting, even to myself (let alone have an awareness of their existence – more later on the illusion of projection….). The Soul fascinates me because it admits all things into its broad umbrella of “Journey”. Our limited vision as humans gives us the tendency to label things as good or bad, pleasant or disagreeable, worthy or not, but it has been through my personal work in life coaching that I’ve had a physical/emotional experience of surrender and peace when those “dark” things have come up and when I have admitted them as valuable pieces of myself. Misguided in their expression at times, their admission into my awareness has born fruit and ultimately brought freedom to my being.

Continue reading →

A New Take on New Beginnings

~ titinavh ~ Leave a comment

ts-painting

At the beginning of every year I make it an important part of my New Year’s ritual to set aside time to allow my visions and goals to come through for the coming year. This year has been different – in fact, the whole of last year turned my personal life paradigm upside down. It began in January of last year when I revved myself up in typical Titina fashion to inspire and fuel myself with THE NEXT GRAND VISION. And it crashed and burned before it even got off the ground. Not that it wasn’t a feasible or worthy cause. Just that my inner motivation changed. Maybe it’s because I’m approaching 50 this year and the hot fires of my younger years are not as sustainable as they were (well, the recovery time seems to take a lot longer – like recovering from a hangover).

It was a very tough year. I let go of what I thought motivated me – pursuing the creative dream, the next shiny object, the next dopamine-inducing endeavor, I either lost interest quickly, failed to have the enormous energy I’d used in the past to get it off the ground (a lot of “pushing” energy), or it was “taken away” from me. The biggest of all of these was the slow and apparent deterioration of one of the most significant and passionate intimate relationships that I have had in my life with someone I considered to be my soul mate and who I felt would be my last love relationship in this lifetime (the love never deteriorated, just the fantasies and form of expectations I had built around it). Continue reading →

Stepping out and stepping in.

~ titinavh ~ Leave a comment

mandala seed2

This is a post I began in January and am now picking up again at the beginning of March:

I am unapologetic about the fact that I LOVE a fresh New Year to begin all over again (it surprises even me, with my melancholic tendencies, that I should be such a die-hard optimist). I can already feel the look of superiority on those cynics’ faces, letting me know what a fool’s paradise I’m stepping into yet again. I mean, did those New Year’s Resolutions EVER work out?

This year, however, something shifted. I think that in previous years I may have timidly knocked on the Universe’s door: “Excuse me, if it isn’t too much trouble, could I please have X, Y, Z this year?”

This year, I stepped out boldly and claimed my spot. And I don’t want to knock my previous attempts. They all led me to this place. This place where all the messes, the wrong turns, the “mistakes”, my more-than-human failings, my false starts (I could really get into that one) and procrastinating ploys.

And then I slammed into a wall of doubt, despair and darkness Continue reading →

Awakening the Inner Lover

~ titinavh ~ 2 Comments

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It’s easy to be seduced into wanting to be something you are not so as to please others. Life is better when you are gratefully being who you are rather than playing a role for others’ approval.

~ Rev. Dr. Christian Sorensen, Science of Mind magazine

Dear Soul-Seeders,

For a long time now I have been wearing a necklace that I made (my own “Soul Piece“) which has the word “Trust” soldered on one side. It was my own touchstone reminder that the Universe is a place to be trusted as a provider of love, abundance and limitless opportunities. It wasn’t until recently that I realized I needed to make a subtle shift to TRUSTING MYSELF.

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“Seeds of Potential” from SOUL PIECE JEWELRY

I was still, in fact, seeing the source of my good as coming from outside of myself. Luckily for me, (although I would’ve slapped you if you’d told me at the time) life kept providing me with unique opportunities to look within. This sometimes came in the form of attracting strong-minded people into my life who I would defer to because I didn’t ultimately feel that what I had to offer was of any value. And they were unconsciously only too happy to oblige by reflecting back that belief.

Until….

Continue reading →

The Grounding of the Soul

~ titinavh ~ 1 Comment

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Dear Soul Seeders,

As the crazy (for me) season of summer is coming to a close in the Northern Hemisphere, I wanted to share with you the latest lessons and reflections of my journey. Where I live, in a special little town in North Idaho, for many the summer season tends to be a wild explosion of music, celebration, outdoor activities, art events and social events. At any given moment, there is so much to choose from to celebrate that we’re out of the often-too-lengthy months of cold and grey weather. The energy of the hot sun creates the desire for constant activity outside of one’s being, and one can feel like the brightly-colored Fourth of July fireworks, exuberant, loudly appearing and then fading back into the night sky, an exciting yet ungrounded experience.

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Not having started the summer grounded in any particular routine around my kids and my work as well as in other issues of my life (some of it was bad organization on my part), I found that as the summer wore on, that I continued to spin out wildly, culminating in a meltdown of sorts. (It so happens that the region was experiencing the effects of an almost unprecedented number of wildfires.)  Not everyone reacts this way when off balance, but it is possible that I needed this utter breakdown and plunge into frightening darkness to ensure a recalibration of my Being, a surrender of sorts.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

‘Sweet Darkness”
From River Flow
New and Selected Poems
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

I sought a coach to work with, who had me begin a practice of grounding myself. Now that I am a few weeks into self-healing, I have been reflecting on the nature of grounding on a personal as well as social level. There is too much to cover in one post but I wanted to leave you with some thoughts that I hope will lead to discussion.

  • In many healing traditions, the root chakra is characterized by the color red and it symbolizes connection to the Earth. If in balance, it can bring on a feeling that one is safe and held in this world. This can bring healing to issues around safety, being provided for, financially, emotionally or otherwise. How would we treat ourselves, each other and the Earth if we were more aware of this connection?
  • How would this connection from our root to the Earth change the pace with which we lead our lives? Would we feel  greater synchronization with the cycles of the seasons and the land that we live on and spend less time pushing agains the rhythms of our own connected Nature?

How do you (if at all) ground yourself in your everyday life? How does that nurture you? I’m continuously open to ideas!! 

Here are some resources in my own search:

http://life.gaiam.com/article/chakra-guide-root-chakra

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-4514/6-Simple-Ways-to-Balance-Your-Root-Chakra.html

http://www.earthenergyhealings.com/blog/how-to-ground-yourself

Looking forward to our collective discussions,signaturedark silver nuff sm

OFFERS

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is offering a 20% discount on its Seeds of Potential product. As a you enter the fall and winter season, gift yourself a piece that will serve as a Touchstone to your Dreams.

For more information and/or to order, click here or on the image and mention the Soul Seed Collective offer.

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EVENTS

Design your own special precious metal talisman 

a SOUL PIECE JEWELRY workshop

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When: Saturday, September 19th

Where: Sandpoint, ID – exact location TBA

Time: 10 am – 2:30 pm

Cost: $65 + $20 materials

In this workshop you:

•will be will be guided to do some PLAYFUL exploration that will include journaling, movement and collage to inspire you to design your unique piece
•will be taught a simple jewelry technique to create your own piece in FINE SILVER with a choice of additional materials
•will complete your own, UNIQUE piece to wear and TAKE HOME that may serve as an inspiration for your daily life.

HURRY AND MAKE YOUR RESERVATION ONLY 10 SEATS AVAILABLE

Let me help you explore your Purpose and create a unique and powerful Touchstone for your journey!

To sign up, email titina@soulpiecejewelry.com

or sign up on SOUL PIECE JEWELRY’S Facebook page

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SOUL SEEDS is a (currently) monthly newsletter that serves as a collective offshoot from spj logo

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To subscribe, click here SOUL SEED NEWSLETTER

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The Darker Side of the Soul

~ titinavh ~ 2 Comments

 

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Dear Soul Seeders,

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far! It has been an “interesting” one for me (the adjective is a throwback to the British art of understatement, influenced by my teenage years and early twenties in England):

Last month we explored the idea of Seeds and I had visions of my seeds growing and blooming and already enjoying the fruits of my labor. Somehow, things have turned out differently and here is where the concept of “Soul” becomes both challenging and interesting for me. Those who know me are familiar with the fact that I love the idea of the mystery of how our lives unfold. However, this is where it can also get tricky. To explain what I mean, I thought of exploring the idea of Soul a little bit:

Continue reading →

Welcome to Soul Seeds!!

~ titinavh ~ 3 Comments

In this broad earth of ours,…enclosed and safe within its central heart, nestles the seed perfection.
-Walt Whitman

The idea of a seed has always captured my imagination as a symbol and image of potential, growth and acknowledgement of the mysterious blueprint we each carry within. If this sounds like a lot of new age mumbo-jumbo, I go back to when I was a girl and how the fairy stories I read (I was a complete bookworm – I would go to friends’ houses for playmates, only to get immersed in a book in their library – aaaahhh! The bliss of sinking into the dreamlike alternate realities…) would often involve the magical powers of seeds.  Of course, Jack and the Beanstalk is one of the first ones that comes to mind.

Continue reading →