Tranquility Touch Stone

After enduring all the new-agey nonsense surrounding the perfectly routine solstice (despite its very nice numerological rhythm, 12/21/12), I am vowing to hold tranquility in my hands, my heart, and mind in 2013.

Tranquil as a stone.

I picked up this nice little water-polished stone at Cannon Beach, Or., in November.  It felt so good in my hand, has a nice heft, fills the palm like a ball of qi, and has a little depression even where my thumb can rest. I thought it might make a nice paperweight, but I think it is better as a meditational object.  I put the characters for tranquility on it but they will probably wear off over the coming year.  (It's a nice way to make a treasure out of a chunk of non-descript mineral.)

Rock-polishing beach

Being of a numerological bent, I also note that 12/21/12 is my 44th wedding anniversary.  "44" seemed equally non-descript as a number, but apparently it is not.  In  some circles it's considered a "master number," like 11, 22, 33) and has some positive significance. According to this new-agey  site, "The Master Number 44 is the most powerful vibration of materialization. It’s known as the master of creating “Heaven on Earth”. The “44″ grounds and motivates people to awaken and manifest their hearts desire and to be influential in their lives and the world."  (I should probably inscribe "44" on the stone as well.)

That sounds like  a good thing, because I was more concerned about the negative association of "4" in Chinese (si, sounds like death).  But if you add 4+4 you get 8, and that sounds like ba, (fortune or wealth), and since there's two of us, we could make it 88, which is the double happiness symbol, which has more to do with the 88 visually resembling "shuang xi" (囍) than the sound of ba ba.  I didn't really know that before.  So, I have willfully turned what might have been a negative meaning into a positive one.   Not new-agey nonsense, just old-timey superstition!

In any case, since 44 is not one of the traditional anniversary gift years (next year it's sapphires!) I have given myself just a little stone reminder of 44 years of tranquility and many more, I hope to come.


Son, DIL, Wizard, at Cannon Beach. Rock group album cover? The Tranquil Stones?

My Wizard of 44 years!