Kindness Day Crystal Grids

If you have a moment, use these grids for a tonglen meditation or prayer session. I have decided to share this before I go into my painting meditation session, so others can hold these parents, themselves and those they love in healing light and energy. If we are doing this together, the healing energy will be amplified, cascading through the universe. This year, I am painting over thirty paintings. I will be in meditation all day, and through this time, I will be holding these people in prayer and meditation. Later, I will send each person a painting. I do this once a year (sometimes twice). And I am honored to do this work.

As a crystal healer, I feel it is important to set this intention and sacred space with crystals, and create grids, as you see above, to amplify the prayer, reiki and meditations I am doing. These can be used by you as well. You just use it as a soft gaze point in your meditation.

The heart grid is for grief and healing of the heart chakra. It is held for all parents, siblings and families grieving the loss of their baby or babies. For a tonglen, you can breath in their suffering, let it sit in your chest, and breathe out love, or healing, or compassion. This is a meditation to help alleviate suffering. I have written about it a few times. The term Tonglen means giving and taking, and as we meditate with take the suffering into us and give relief, even temporarily, to the sufferer. I have been meditating tonglen since my daughter died. My therapist, a Buddhist, taught it to me as a way to have self-compassion. It has worked. I began using Pema Chodron's CD, Good Medicine. This changed my life. I share tonglen with people whenever I can, because it is so powerful, so healing, so opening...it invites me to get out of my own way.

In the bottom grid, the medicine wheel healing grid, it is for all healing and connection. I have spoken the names of the people who specifically requested they be included, but I also included all those who I have forgotten to mention and all of humanity. (We all suffer.) I am also performing tonglen for this session.

I do these paintings and spend this day in prayer and meditation in memory of my daughter Lucia Paz, who left us far too soon, but who connects me to so many around the world. Her grace and life continues to ripple through the world. You can do a MISS Foundation Kindness Day Random Act of Kindness. It is a day specifically set aside to do anonymous and out in the open random acts of kindness in your child's name. Find out more information here.

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First things first, July 27th is the MISS Foundation's Kindness Project, and I am participating for the third year. Last year, I made a video of my work, which probably everyone has seen a bazillion times, but if not, this describes what I do and why.




So, again, this year, I am performing a tonglen meditation for grieving parenting, and painting mizuko jizo for grieving parents. If you would like a painting, please leave a comment here. This year, I am also adding an additional tonglen meditation and painting session for general healing. It will be directed to those suffering from emotional, physical, mental or physical dis-ease. In that painting session, I am painting angels. This will be an intuitive session, so I'm not sure what is going to come out. Again, this is a 4"x6" watercolor painting, and it is open to anyone. You can leave a comment here if you would like a healing angel painting. Along with both of these sessions, I am setting up two crystal grids, which will be infused with Reiki and prayers--one will be a grief heart chakra grid, and the other will be a healing grid. If you would like to be included in either grid (or both), please leave your name (or the name of the person to be prayed for) in the comment section of this post. for these grids, I write the names out to be placed under the stone, after I pray and speak the names and issues out loud. For the healing grid, you can include the specific issue you are asking for healing around.. I am sending it out to the universe, so that helps (though please know it is not necessary.) No issue is too small to ask for healing around, so please do not be shy.

Grief and healing grid from last year as I painted mizuko jizo.

It is my distinct honor to paint in memory of my daughter on this day. I spend the entire day in meditation and prayer, communing with grief and Spirit. And I paint. It is a beautiful recharging day for me, so just know if you have ever wanted a painting, do not feel you don't want to burden me. On this day, I mother my Lucia by painting in her name. I just ask that you please please please be specific in the comment section of this post about what you want. Here is what I need to know. Do you want to be included in the healing grid? In the grieving grid? Do you want an angel painting or a mizuko jizo painting? Whose name you would like to be included in the grid, and in whose memory (if that applies)? And what you are asking for prayers for? Please send me a private email with your address which is never shared or disclosed. If you are too shy to leave a comment, then send me an email with all this information. uberangie(at)gmail(dot)com.

Secondly, as you may or may not, I am opening my own practice called the Moon + Stone Healing. I am going to be writing at a blog there twice a week--Monday and Thursday. Mondays will be the Tarot card of the week. Hopefully, this will be a great series for those who are learning tarot and interested in going more in-depth with some of the cards. Thursday, I will be picking a crystal to discuss and share ideas on how to use in every day life, in grids, or with healing work. This week, I covered the Ace of Wands (which I picked randomly), and today, Black Tourmaline. I'm not going to link here every week, so bookmark. Feel free to ask questions there about crystals or tarot or anything that comes up for you. I'd love to field questions around that work there. You can like my new Facebook page for the Moon + Stone Healing to keep up on that work.

As always, I'm happy to answer any questions on this blog that you might have, or that you might think I have insight into, or write about any topic that might interest you. (Clearly, I am begging you for some blogging inspiration!) I have some parenting posts bopping through my head. My favorite thing recently is this picture my daughter drew at yoga class the other day when her yoga instructor asked her what made her happy.

Happy Kindness Day! Go pay it forward, and do something amazing in a baby's name.

Update: comments are closed on this post and all names and paintings have been completed for the July cycle.

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My friend Jess  wrote these lines over three years ago:


I’ve spent a year re-telling the same sad story. It’s so short too. How many ways can I write ‘My baby died, I never knew her, I wish I did.'

I think about those lines often, when I write, when I talk of her...Lucia died. I never knew her, I wish I did. It's true, you know. That is what all my work boils down to. Jess has a gift for cutting through the bullshit and writing the line that sums it all up.

I never knew her, I wish I did. So instead of not-knowing her and wishing I did, I write and paint and do other yummy, delicious stuff. I wear raven feathers and dance barefoot in my studio to pagan music. I meditate in suffering until it fills my chest. I breathe it in like unwelcome water. Searing pain and dull ache and the feeling of death. My lungs burst, a flood pocked with drowned moths and buzzards erupts from the hole left behind. I light wooden-wicked candles that smell of campfires and crackle like a language. I eat hundreds of life savers, but I am still lost.

There are people all over the world whose babies just died. They feel completely alone, like I did. I remember. I remember thinking, "I will always be that woman whose baby died." Because it used to matter to me which woman I was. I told a friend that, and she thought I was lying. Who would think that? It sounds like literary license, but it isn't. It is what went through my head. This will define me. I knew that this thing that just happened--being told my baby was dead in me--rewired my pathway. That I would have to tell this story over and over again just to make sense of it.


I bemoaned and wailed and called and keened and prayed and clucked and sighed. And then I conjured a community. They were conjuring me. Leaning over cauldrons. Adding eye of nice and aroma of clever. Chanting, "Let these people be babylost and not overly angel-y and maybe a little punk rock too. Let them be artists and magicians and conjurers. Buddhists and pagans and Christians and Jews and Zoroastrians. And full of compassion and patience and support."

There is a community of people whose babies died. Sometimes I write here for them. Sometimes I write here for me. But I am here. Over and over again. I have asked myself if it is healthy. If it is okay. If it is weird.  I asked psychics too and tarot readers and mediums and women that talk to angels. I asked them if it is healthy, but in me I know that I have to give back to this community who saved my life. I know that I need to keep writing here, painting here, talking about grief and daughter-death. I counted on someone three years out, ten years out, seven years out to tell me that what I was feeling was normal and that I was going to be okay. Not back to the way it was before, but something better even. Those people showed me a way to integrate this storyline into my life. Jess happened to write about this today at Glow. Even though I was writing a little bit about it too over here a quarter of the world away. I take writing about Lucia and telling this sad story seriously, because my story has changed. I can say with confidence and love that my daughter Lucia gave me the most amazing gifts. She taught me so many truths, so much beauty, so much compassion. She taught me about my weaknesses and strengths, and I have allowed her death to become the way to connect to thousands of people, because at first, I only allowed her death to cut me off from everyone.

We all grieve. If we don't now, we will one day. If you can find nothing to like about someone, nothing to feel empathetic about, use that as a starting point to grow compassion. Every person has lost someone. Every person will lose someone. Every person will be someone's grief.

Last Friday was the MISS Foundation's International Kindness Day project. For it, I offered to paint mizuko jizo for parents, friends, family, anyone who wanted one. I meant to do it in silence, but after an hour and a half of sitting through the massive tonglen session, then one painting group, it felt too isolating. Plus, the kids popped in, and I talked without thinking. I am human, and besides, it is enough to do thirty-five paintings. I wanted to listen to my music, the rain, sing, dance. I need to also be kind to me. Here is a video I made after Kindness Day. It explains about me and why I do this.

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The yoga was amazing in its ordinariness. I didn't cry. I didn't fall on the floor in a puddle, or talk about Lucia incessantly, or lash out in anger at all of yoginis. I just took the effin' class and it was lovely. It was very gentle, so I also felt fit enough for it, which was a bonus. The instructor never said the word grief, which felt odd for a class with the title Grief and Healing through Yoga, but you know, I liked what she had to say. She said we live in the negative programming of the story line. If we can be curious and feel it, it will change the grief. I liked that. It reminded me of that discussion on self-compassion I heard a few months ago.

She said the word heal and I didn't cringe or grow hot with anger. Heal. It feels okay to sit cross-legged with the concept of healing. I went back to another class on Wednesday. I didn't want to break the momentum and it was lovely. Grateful to this community for the love and support, and just the general acceptance at anything that troubles us. You are just there abiding, supporting, encouraging. Thank you.

Tomorrow is the MISS Foundation's Kindness Project Day. The idea of the day is to do something kind for someone in your baby's name as a way to carry his or her legacy. (Go visit the website to print out cards to leave at the scene of the kindness, and also RSVP on Facebook, if you can. These kindnesses are beautiful to read about.) Last year, I painted 4" x 6" mizuko jizo altar paintings for anyone who asked for one.

I think I did about 28. I am doing that again this year. You can comment on this post to request one, or on my Etsy shop's FB page (you can just become a fan), or on my personal FB page, or just shoot me an email at uberangie(at)gmail(dot)com. Just make sure you say something like, "I would like a painting in honor of my baby."* If you leave the baby's name, I am doing a crystal blessing grid in honor of all the babies I am painting for this year. Kicking off the day with a ritual in honor of grieving parents, then a tonglen meditation during which I will paint in silent meditation. I am also cutting off all email, phone and technology for the day. I am going to try to do a day of silent meditation and fasting this year. This is an exercise I have never tried and I am going to be in my house, so with babies and husband, it might not succeed. I think it is important, though. I will be painting on Saturday, July 28, in case you are trying to reach me, or trying to play Draw Something.

I have an idea of how many paintings I can handle, so I might close down these comments if it is too overwhelming. But for now, you can request one. You also need to send me your address, obviously, if I do not have it already.

Here is the listing  for a mizuko jizo painting from my Etsy site. I usually sell them for $25/painting, so I am including shipping, and a description of mizuko jizo. The first time I wrote about mizuko jizo was 2009 when I began painting them as part of my daily remembrance ritual for Lucia. It now comes up on the third listing for mizuko jizo on Google. That is amazing to me. I connected with so many women and men with my mizuko kuyo. It is humbling and amazing. I know that this life I live now, surrounded by meditation and healing is the life I was meant to live. Beyond giving me a place to direct my grief energy, painting mizuko jizo has become a way for me to honor all the suffering in this community and all the babies I now mourn.

I will probably write a bunch of overwrought posts about my experience, but until then, much love to you all. xo

*If you have one, you can still request another. Just know that.