The Healing Powers of Crystals and Gemstones

Anjie Cho August 8, 2018

I met Rosie Stars, from Super 7 Healers a few years ago at the Awaken Fair in NYC. Rosie creates beautiful jewelry with beautiful and healing crystals and gemstones.

I purchased a "Super 7" pendant that activates all seven chakras. It "facilitates spiritual growth on all levels of being, gives access to subconscious mind to remember one’s purpose & how to live it. Contains all 7 mineral characteristics in every stone whether they are visible or not and synergistically creates a higher frequency that heals". And I wear it everyday. The results have been amazing, and it's gorgeous.

Rosie was kind enough to let me interview her about the healing properties of crystals and gemstones.

AC: Please tell us about the healing properties of gemstones, minerals and crystals.

RS: Every stone has different healing properties based on its origination, mineral content and color. Most stones can be used to balance specific chakras based on color, or you can wear stones that are effective on all chakras. For instance, a stone like Larimar is a rare, beautiful blue which looks like water in the Caribbean. It was created through volcanic activity when the island of the Dominican Republic was formed, making it a water AND fire stone. Because of this, it is a great stone to balance hot flashes and swings of emotion. It helps us speak our truth without being overly emotional as it is a throat chakra stone. It's very good for all women and especially great for managers, lawyers, mothers, anyone hitting their 40-50's to wear!

What are your favorite gemstones, their properties, and why are they your favorites?

I don't have a favorite. I consider stones more like sacred tools, medicine or helpers - so I honor them all. But I personally need to work with certain stones 24/7. Sugilite is a rare purple "violet flame" stone from South Africa that I must wear as it helps shield me from other peoples energy. I pick up other people's pain/negativity otherwise. It works with the 6th through 14th chakras so it is very protective and purifying from negative energies and disharmony. I wear a choker and ring on my receiving hand at all times. I also have a bracelet of covellite on my right (sending) hand. It is a stone that is sensitive to the changing energy patterns of the Earth...and it alters its vibration to stay in harmony. I don't know if you are familiar with String Theory or Quantum Physics but I'm very conscious of my emotions and the vibes I am putting out and receiving. I only want to create positive experience these days, so I wear Covellite on my sending hand to make sure I only send balanced energy out to the world.

Sugilite image via Crystal Cure — Sugilite image via Crystal Cure

I love your tagline "to heal the earth heal your self". Tell us more about that!

Metaphysically we are all connected. Our vibration/energy affects every aspect of our experience. People have a tendency to see "saving/healing the world" as an external process that one has to go out and physically do, when in reality every thought and emotion (e-motion = energy in motion) is what we are sending out into the world. The vibration or frequency of those thoughts and e-motions then attracts a similar frequency/vibration. If we watch movies or TV, we are bombarded with fear mongering, anger, greed, resentment so THAT energy is what we internalize, which shows up on the planet as dolphins being killed en mass, the tar sands, terrorism, war, etc. If each one of us raises our energy/vibration and sees the people around us with love and appreciation, we then send out that energy to attract our life experience. Every person we encounter then gets the benefit of our positive energy and that energy exponentially goes out to affect others around the world. It all starts with us. Very simple...but not easy!

Thank you so much for all your knowledge, Rosie! And for creating the amazing piece of jewelry I am wearing right now!

by Anjie Cho

Rosie Stars of Super 7 Healers is an ordained Metaphysical Minister with Metaphysical Universal Ministries. She studied Life Coaching at Inner Visions Institute for Spiritual Development with Iyanla Vansant and is an certified instructor/practitioner of Quantum Touch (an energy healing process similar to Reiki.) Rosie has been working with stone energies for a couple of decades and is now in the process of developing a workshop to help people understand how our thoughts, emotions and thus our vibrations create our lives and experience (including serious illness), how to use stones to shift our vibrations and other simple techniques that make healing our selves less of a mystery.

Contact her at: super7healers@yahoo.com

If you’d like to learn more about feng shui check out the Mindful Design Feng Shui certification program. Laura Morris and I are launching our program in September 2018. We have a free webinar “Five Feng Shui Tools Revealed: Must-Do Business Boosters for Soulpreneurs and Wellness Practitioners” coming up, too! To get on the list about it, sign up at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com.

Mindful Design is a new way to learn feng shui. Our unique training program takes an holistic approach to learning the art of feng shui design. Mindful design is about becoming aware, and attentive, to the energy around you: both inner and outer qi. It is about promoting a better way of living and creating sacred spaces that support, and nourish.

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How to Spring Clean & Green your Beauty Cabinet with Anjie Cho

Anjie Cho July 18, 2018

featured this month on Modern Minerals by Mo Mi

In the late summer of 2015, I was in Brookfield Place in lower Manhattan where I found a book titled “108 Ways to Create Holistic Spaces“. I was in a bit of a rush, but snapped a photo of this because I knew this was something I needed to read. At the time I was with my Mom and said “I would love to meet this designer one day”. A year later, my friend Katie Hess invited me to a super moon soirée on the roof top of building in Flatiron. I sat down next to Anjie and we started talking and I immediately knew we were going to be friends. It wasn’t until in 2017 that I had finally got around to organizing my photos when I found this photo I had taken in 2015 to remind me I wanted to read this book, and to my surprise the author was my incredible friend Anjie Cho! Since getting to know Anjie and watching her on YouTube, I often turn to Anjie when I’m feeling like something could be made better or for practical solutions to improve the flow of energy and balance in my space. Learn more from her podcasts HERE.

I wanted to find out more about Anjie for some advice on how to Spring Clean our beauty cabinets and asked her for some advice…Check it out!

...read full article

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On Meditation with Joseph Mauricio of Shambhala Center

Anjie Cho May 23, 2018

As an architect and feng shui practitioner, I help my clients create holistic home and work spaces. One of the most important aspects of the feng shui work includes meditation and visualization. I had the honor of taking one of Joseph Mauricio's meditation classes at the Shambhala Center in NYC. His teachings are very approachable and digestable. I believe it is incredibly beneficial to include meditation in everyday life.

AC: How did you get involved in meditation and with the Shambhala Center -- what's your story?

JM: I used to run a comedy club years ago in New York, I was a comedian, an actor and that was an exciting lifestyle but it was a little heavy and I was looking for something to help me balance out the pressure. Then I came across meditation. I had always known about Jack Kerouac, the Dharma Bums and Naropa University, founded by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (also founder of Shambhala Center) along with Allen Ginsberg, Ram Dass and a number of people back in the ‘70s. So it was kind of legendary in my mind, the beat poets. They were an influence in my work as a performing artist. I ended up going in to a Shambhala Center and finding out there was this whole connection. I decided to drop out of the comedy club, moved to a dharma center up in the woods, then ended up at Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center at 8,000 feet in the middle of winter -- which was crazy. I went from being an actor in New York to a cabin with no heat. I met my teacher there, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, and I ended up studying with him.

I became intrigued by the mind (my own mind) and the idea that I’d (maybe all of us) create the limitations and disabilities in our own world because of the way we think and the way we perceive the world. So I became really fascinated with that concept. It’s not something that you just pick up and put down, and I gave up my whole life and career to study. I studied in India, Mexico, a number of places for number of years. I was actually studying personally with Sakyong Mipham in 2003 when he suggested I move back to New York and go back to doing performance, which just shocked me. I didn’t expect that at all. I thought I would just be a yogi. I moved back and that’s when I started teaching at the Shambhala Center. I found my calling putting meditation together with performance and comedy. I’m also a life coach, motivating people towards a more healthy balance vision themselves.

So for other people, the way I recommend meditation is not that they drop out of their careers like I did for 17 years, but that they incorporate it in the same way with a good instructor. They study and go to classes and let meditation actually bring stability into their life. I recommend everybody read Sakyong Mipham’s books, particularly The Shambhala Principle. He teaches practical meditation, and it is not particularly religious. I study and teach meditation and training people of all backgrounds. I go in to jails and you can’t even mention Buddhism or any kind of religion. You just teach straight mindfulness training and it helps people. I’m a real believer that meditation can bring a lot of stability and clarity to people, to their lives.

How would you describe meditation to someone who's not familiar with the concept?

I would say that it’s a tool whereby you sit in an upright posture, which helps you to wake up and gain confidence. There are tests and studies showing the mind can change brain chemistry in only two minutes when you sit up straight. It starts to lower cortisol and raise testosterone levels. In short, you begin to feel more confident just by sitting in an upright posture. And relaxing down into the earth allows us to open up our heart and begin to feel our feelings and our sense of things. The upright meditation posture is very powerful in re-training the mind into believing that life is possible, that life is workable.

How is meditation helpful in everyday life?

Any given meditation session could be wonderful; maybe they feel very clear or calm. Or maybe their back hurts the whole time. But the real power of meditation comes from consistent practice. I recommend that people practice as little as 10 minutes a day, if that keeps them practicing every day. It’s more powerful than just an hour every few days. But to practice at the same time every day, you develop a consistency that brings stability to life. It becomes like a reference point. Every morning you get up, seat yourself up, recharge your confidence, open your heart and face yourself. It can be very powerful to do that in a few minutes.

Obviously, as time goes on, with longer sessions we can go deeper. I’m a believer in consistent practice even if the practice isn’t very long or arduous. I teach that practice doesn’t have to be perfect, great, or good, and not to be hard on themselves. If they’re on a cushion consistently, slowly and in time lengthen their practice up to 20-30 minutes, and settle in to their practice, they will see a profound difference in their life. But as I said, for beginners, I stress that consistent process.

Now for my holistic space question: Where do you like to meditate and what makes it sacred to you?

I have a number of altars. When I was single it was really embarrassing! I have one in my kitchen, and my room is basically a huge shrine. But that’s me and that’s not what I recommend for other people, I’m just obsessive and very devoted. And that’s why I teach it, it’s my living, it’s my life. But for other people, according to my teacher Sakyong Mipham, meditation should support your life, not be a burden to it. So I think if people are creeped out by a shrine, they don’t need a shrine.

I do think meditation in their house is helpful because it actually settles the energy of the space. If you start to feel open and calm in your own house, then that really makes you feel open and calm when you come home. A focal point is also helpful.

Meditation with community is good in a different way. If you just meditate at home, you tend to not have the same level of motivation as when you show up in room full of people. You’re not going to slump as readily. So I do recommend both for people. But I do think some kind of a meditation area in the house really empowers the home. And for some of the hardcore meditators, we have that instead of a television…Often the television is the central part of the home, that’s great and that’s fine, but what kind of energy does that create? So I think to balance that, a meditation area is wonderful, especially in New York apartments, where you can’t have the fireplace or a big beautiful kitchen and stove, the kinds of things that bring more warmth and life in to your house.

I think a little meditation area kind of does that, they can. I do also believe that the meditation changes the energy. If you go into a meditation center, it’s easy to meditate because people have been doing it there for years. That starts to happen in your house and it starts to feel a little more contemplative and meditative because of the practice.

I absolutely agree! Thanks Joe!

Read my other blog post where Joe shares his tips for beginning meditators here.

by Anjie Cho

Joseph Mauricio is a speaker, teacher, workshop presenter, and meditation instructor in academic, business and private sectors. A senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist Tradition, Joseph began teaching twenty years ago at Karma Choling Buddhist Meditation Center in Vermont, and has subsequently taught in meditation centers, schools, businesses and community centers throughout North America, Canada and Europe. He has served as the Director of Public Programs and Outreach at the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York, and has recently become the Executive Director of the Baltimore Shambhala Meditation Center.

Joseph is a close student of Meditation Master, Sakyong Mipham, Rinpoche, the Head of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage. He has studied with renowned teacher and author, Pema Chodren, and many prominent teachers in the meditation and yogic traditions in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia. He has completed dozens of solitary and group retreats, including three month-long meditation retreats, two month-long solitary retreats, an eight week silent group retreat, numerous shorter group retreats and years of advanced study. Joseph is a graduate of the Shambhala School of Buddhist studies and advanced meditation instructor and teacher trainings in the Shambhala Tradition.

www.josephmauricio.com