This afternoon I decided to compare the two different striker/mallet/paddle that came with my crystal bowls. One is a ball on a stick and the other is a tube that is covered in faux suede.
Rubber mallets are probably one of the most common mallets on the market. If used with frosted crystal singing bowls, the tone they produce is usually a strong, pure pulsing. They are usually rounded like a sphere, and are played by applying friction to the side of the bowl. They come in various colors however white is the most common. Due to the wooden handle, care has to be taken when playing to avoid a rather unpleasant sound.
Suede mallets bring their own unique texture to frosted crystal singing bowls, causing a subtle pink noise or hiss underneath the crystal singing bowl tone. The hiss is pretty noticeable and due to the shape of the mallet, it was tough to continuing playing for more than 5 minutes or so. I recorded two sessions one with each mallet so you can compare.
Here are two videos.
First, one with the round rubber ball paddles that I have used in other videos.
Second, this is my first session with these style. They are hollow tubes wrapped in what appears to be a faux leather.
What did you think? Is one better than the other? I have my own opinions on this but will hold those to myself for now. I'd love to hear your thoughts, feel free to comment or send me a private message.
After this warmup I went on to make a 14 minute video with the rubber mallets that I called Clarity. The focus was on grounding, passion, healing and speaking my own truth for 2023.
Hi Everyone! I just wanted to reach out to let you know there have been some (obvious) unexpected updates to the blog. My plan was to switch over to reviewing strictly e-books just after my birthday in February. I was going to make a switch over, rename the blog and start focusing more on my writing and less on reviews. My goal was to bring you into the world I'm living in now.
Confessions of a Modern Witch is now To Live Whole
When I escaped into the book review scene it was mostly out of sincere frustration and pain. My body was hurting all the time and I was angry most of the time. My bipolar was out of control and I was feeling pretty helpless. I couldn't focus on writing a single sentence let alone and entire blog post with any coherency.
Photo Credit Renee Sosanna Olson
The Rio Grande
My days were filled with frustration and anger. It has been a rocky three years. I ended up taking a much needed break and heading out to Las Cruces NM for a while to soak up the sun and try to recharge my broken spirit.
We ended up staying there for a year while we waited for the county's decision on buying our property after Hurricane Matthew. I took some classes and found one that was called Holistic Wellness. That was the catalyst for me getting my head back in the game. I finished three other classes including crystal healing certification, mindful meditation and yoga certification. I have to say that it has changed my life.
Photo Credit - Elijah Trent Olson
Eli and I managed to switch over completely to a WFPBNO lifestyle and in the process reversed all of our medical issues including my type two diabetes. We dropped weight significantly. I have lost 135 pounds as of today. He's lost over 125. Together we're taking some time to get back to ourselves. We're back in NC now but we're not letting the poor weather get us down. We have started meditation sessions twice a day and are cooking our meals together. Always looking for a great recipe to share in our group over on Facebook. Our page there shares many of the medical opinions that got us where we are today. We would love to have you join us.
As part of our meditation, Eli and I read an hour every morning when we wake about Buddhism. We have begun to see a real change in our lives. Just yesterday I was thrilled and surprised to find see my resting heart rate has dropped down to 49 from 79 a year ago. Such an amazing change. So as a part of this I wanted to reduce my carbon footprint and switch over to e-books and stop buying things from China. I wanted to live simply and share that experience on a new blog. So I purchased a domain (To Live Whole) and began the process of getting it set up.
Well, let me tell you, Google is super easy about adding your domain to your blogger account. I literally clicked a single button and boom all my settings were updated and here I was with a new URL for my blog a mere 3 months ahead of schedule!! Instead of fussing with getting it switched back over I just took it as a sign that I was ready to go and changed my social media accounts as well as my media contacts over to the new blog and here we are!
I hope that my change in the visual appearance of the page w/o make you jump ship. I'll be sharing the same types of books with a few more related to health, wellness and Buddhism as well as the old magical favorites. I'll be adding more frequent and personal posts related to what we're doing in the kitchen, what new advances we're seeing in science and maybe a post or two about the Dali Lamma.
I look forward to inviting some discussion on the page and welcome questions and comments. I hope that you'll hang around for the direction. I feel as though it will be something quite special.
Thank you so much for your readership and your attention and I hope I'll be able to share more soon.
Over the few years I've grown quite a bit in my path. I've looked to the sky for guidance, gathered twigs and herbs for spells and spent many a night naked under the moon. My journey has taken me from learning about Wicca to being an independent witch. This is the first year that I have gradually separated from the Wheel of the Year, stood aside from Rite of Her Sacred Fires and tried to join with the earth's energy. I tossed aside holding my tongue in lieu of speaking my mind even if it seemed to be a thumb at harm none.
I did a few searches on YouTube on the subject, the only one that seemed to be interesting and not start out with someone younger than my socks and brite pink hair was the one from a Yale Class.
I'll share it here just because I thought it was interesting.
In any event needless to say that a lot of my daily rites have changed and I no longer have an altar or even participate in events like Samhain & Yule. While I still work with natural energies, work to better my body and become more aligned with the natural world, I don't have a deity and don't work with one. I have never really believed that you needed one but for what its worth, just to clarify, I currently don't have one.
Year before last my focus was to refine my art and work on mastering wire weaving for my jewelry. Last year a flood snipped my ability to vend and I was pushed back to only selling online. Taking advantage of that hubby and I took to the road and ended up in New Mexico. As I sit here just a week outside 2018, I've begun setting my goals for this up coming year. I plan to continue to work my craft but adding a new medium and focusing on my body. I want to make myself stronger and healthier. I want to encourage the new Atheist Witch in me to embrace my mystical skills while holding fast to the things I know to be true.
This will be a different path than I have been on, but I hope that you will stay along for the ride and lend your comments, suggestions and feedback as I move forward on this new journey. Things will change. I will be a bit more assertive with my comments. I will be more direct and practice less hand holding. I will be cutting off things that no longer play a role in my life and I will be removing those who do not bring about positive in my life. This is a departure from my normal status quo however I feel it is something that needs to be done in order to continue to grow.
If it doesn't bring you happiness. Let it go. Find what makes you excited and embrace it.
Wow. It has been an entire year of this series. I'm not sure I'll be continuing it next year on a weekly basis. We'll see how it goes. I will be focusing on getting my craft together, both magical and mundane. Here's a look back at some of my favorite pictures of the year.
Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson
Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson
Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson
Photo Credit - Elijah Olson
Photo Credit - Elijah Olson
Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson
Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson
Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson
Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson
Its been a fantastic year, thanks for tagging along. Wishing you health, wealth and well being.
So it’s the beginning of the new year and everyone is going
crazy on their diets for the New Year.
Gym memberships soar, workout videos sell like hotcakes and by the end
of February no one will be using any of them.
In 2007 Tara Parker-Pope wrote that 40% of those serviced ditched their resolutions
because they were just too busy.
I was doing really well at my weight loss last year this
time. I was down to a size 10 and 8 was
fast approaching. I was working out
every single morning and then my life had a sudden change. Hubby ended up in the hospital with emergency
surgery and my mother moved in. Hubby
got better and was back at work and I was here to take care of my mother. She stayed with us from January – July. In July I moved her into a nursing home, my sister
freaked out and took her out of the home, then started telling everyone I was
stealing her social security money. I
was devastated. I stopped going to my
grandma’s. I stopped going everywhere.
I stay in my house now, barely ever leaving. I go outside to feed my chickens, or to clean
up the dog’s yard, but that’s it. Hubby
has to force me to go into town and into stores. I have panic attacks when we leave the house. Obviously since I stopped moving, I've begun
to put on weight. I still eat the same;
I could however lower those portions a bit.
I’m back up to a size 16. I like
being a size 16, shape wise. I believe
that curvy “Goddess” built women are so sexy.
I can also say that hubby is very “Sir Mixalot”, if you get my meaning.
So what’s going on?
Why am I talking about this again?
Yesterday a dear friend of mine shared a blog post from Dianne Sylvan,
called Ten Rules for Fat Girls. As I was reading, my chubby little heart was
filled with joy. Finally someone who got
it. Finally someone was speaking up for the fat girls. I quickly shared the post and liked her
page. Then I went back to start looking
at her other entries. I was just as
quickly disheartened as I saw that Dianna was an author who’s picture I had to
dig for on her webpage. Her page is
decorated with “beautiful” skinny girls.
So no matter how much she was telling me to be proud of whom I was in
her rules, here she was contributing to the sizeism in popular media by not
using her position to elevate fat acceptance.
I’m not saying she can’t have a skinny girl as her main character, there
are many reasons for having that character but I was a bit puzzled and felt as
though it were a mixed message. For more info on this I recommend checking out "Killing Us Softly" by Jean Kilbourne. Ed.D.
I spend enough of my life feeling not good enough. There’s a lot in the media already that tells
me I’m not tall enough, or thin enough.
I’m not the right skin toned or have the right hair color and with their
product I can be right. I literally sit
sometimes and just cry.
My friend then shared this video.
I want to be able to embrace who I am. I want to be able to love me for me, and not
for the size of my jeans. I don’t want
to feel bad when I look in the mirror or embarrassed when I see someone who saw
me in my “skinny jeans”. I look at those
pictures and feel like such a failure now.
I’m still healthy. I’m not
hurting. I’m not eating crap. But for some reason I just can’t put that bad
down. Even when I read stories on NPR about
how the BMI
is junk science, I still hold myself accountable and expect myself to
measure up to those guides.
It is self-defeating and abusive. If someone sent me an energy request on my
blog for guidance in a situation where I was their partner and I was treating
them how I treated me…. Well I’d tell
them that their partner was abusive and they should seek out counseling or
leave the relationship. Yet, I allow
myself to pick up that bat and beat the shit out of myself daily.
It may take me a while.
I’m a work in progress. Next
Month I’ll be 44 years old. I’m on a new
goal. A new resolution. By age 45, I want to be able to say, I love
me. I love who I am, what I stand for
and most importantly how I look.
After all, you know what they say about fat-bottomed girls.
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