Destiny, dharma, life purpose—
these buzzwords have seemingly come into
the center of woke culture. They
drive us forward, but they also seem to drive us crazy.
What is destiny anyways?
How do you find it? Where do you look? It
seems like a such a big concept to try and unpack, and
sometimes like a really high goal to live up to.
It can be hard to know how to tap into this idea, or
what allies can even help you.
One of my favorite ways to understand this
concept of destiny and connect into it is through the stones.
As some of the most ancient beings here on the planet,
they've seen it all. They understand what this word "destiny"
means because they've lived it.
And they can help you to live it too.
I'm Asia Suler of One Willow Apothecaries,
and these are my three favorite stones
for helping you find and embody your unique destiny.
(gentle music)
What is "destiny" anyways?
Well, if you look at the dictionary, destiny is defined
as events that will necessarily happen—
things that are fated, and often unavoidable.
I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't really resonate with
this definition of destiny, so
I'm gonna give you mine:
destiny, from my perspective, is more of a
blueprint. The idea that,
when coming into this lifetime, we have
a sort of contract, or general outline,
of the things that could possibly happen.
It's almost like the acorn becoming the oak—
inside of the acorn, is the blueprint
for this most majestic, tall, beautifully fleshed-out
oak tree. Well, destiny is exactly like
that. We are born with this acorn imprint
to become the oaks that is possible for us
to become in this lifetime.
And that's really your destiny.
Now, with all of this, there's always free will,
right? So you have the choice to decide to not
grow into a 20-foot tall oak—
you could just be a sapling, you
could grow in one direction versus another, so
all of this is encompassed in this idea
of destiny. But when we're talking
about, in this video, connecting into destiny
through stones, what we're connecting into
is the possibility, the potential, and the
aspects of our contract
that we may decide to step into and
fulfill, so we can really reach our
greatest height and greatest growth.
So a big part of my training with stones
comes from a Chinese and Daoist perspective of
working with stones as medicine,
coming down through the Jade Purity lineage—
here in this country embodied by Jeffrey Yuen,
and one of my personal teachers, Sarah Thomas.
In this tradition of working with stones,
stones are thought to resonate with the deepest
levels of our being—called the Yuan level.
Now, the Yuan level is the place where
our dreams and the unconscious live,
and this is also the place
where our contract, our life blueprint, is kept.
So when we work with stones, we have
this ability to access the deepest
level of ourselves
to remember those contracts.
So the first stone group is
a pretty common one, and that's agates.
So agates, in Chinese medicine,
are really representative of this first process
in what you would call "alchemy"—
this process of separating the pure
from the, quote, turbid.
So, in this way of thinking, everything that comes along
in your life is actually an opportunity
for growth. That said,
it's an important process to recognize
where is the pure, the settled, and where is the
stirred up—the turbid?
And being able to recognize where those two things lie
in your life and how they affect you is
this first step in what the Daoists would call alchemy—
which traditionally, was this process of really finding your inner gold.
And I would say, it's this process of really finding and
embodying the golden light of who you are in this lifetime,
of transcending out of the patterns
and programs that hold you back. That's true alchemy—it's
finding your inner gold, and giving it to the world.
In this way of thinking, agates represent this
first step on your alchemal journey.
So if you look at agates,
they have bands. So this is where you
that idea, that metaphoric idea,
of the distinction between the layers. So they have
bands or layers, kind of like Tiger's Eye, if you've
ever seen a piece.
Agates represent the ability to
take time to be with yourself,
to be in cultivation.
Oftentimes, when we get this idea of destiny, it's like we want to rush
into it, we want to start the doing, we want to start the planning,
but in this way of thinking, the very first step in
all of this is actually taking time out
to be with yourself, and cultivate this ability to
connect to your inner awareness—beginning with separating the
pure from the turbid, which is
essential to what we would call "meditation."
Agates are often formed on the
surface of the earth, normally at the tail
end of something like volcanic activity.
And agates really help us in this phase of
getting the bigger picture again.
It's like stepping out of the heat of
turmoil, and seeing the wider picture for the way
things are. And this is really this
is really the beginning moment of understanding the destiny
that lies in this place of awareness
and cultivation. The Daoists also say
that agates are trying to become jade—
jade being the stone of perfection in Chinese
medicine. But the key here with
agates is this: the idea that self-acceptance
is what leads to perfection—that
perfection isn't a state that you attain that's outside of yourself—
it's actually an inner process of alchemy that
begins with self-acceptance.
And this is what agates are about.
Agates are wonderful stones to meditate with,
have on the body, or
to place on your altar—I find them
to be incredibly grounding,
and they're a wonderful first step in connecting into
your destiny. The next stone is labradorite.
Now, labradorite helps you to
see your destiny. And in fact,
Labradorite is known as the stone of the seer,
and it's all about perception, and the inner sight.
So if you've ever seen a piece of labradorite, one
of the things that makes this stone so special
is that when you turn it in the light
you'll actually see flashes of different
colors inside of the stone.
Now you can imagine how
much magic this must have held
for all of our ancestors who
came into interaction with labradorite.
And you find, if you look at different mythologies
across the world, specifically
for Nordic peoples, this
idea that labradorite is actually this
container of magic
often represented by the aurora borealis—this
idea that part of the Northern Lights, this
incredible, mystical experience—
actually came down to earth and was embodied
inside of these stones. Now,
even outside of the northern regions,
anywhere there was labradorite in the
world, you're going to find really interesting stories and mythologies about
how this stone helps you to perceive—
this idea of almost turning reality
slightly, so you can see the flash
that's behind things. That flash
being this insight from what I would call your "wider self,"
helping you to navigate, like your own
personal GPS, back onto
the path of your potential and destiny.
In one version of the Daoist creation story,
all of life began on this planet
by light actually coming into a cave
and hitting the rocks there.
So literally this idea that all of
life comes from consciousness coming and being
embodied on this Earth, and where it began
was with the stones.
So in traditional Chinese stone medicine,
there is this idea that stones are actually
this repository for this awareness of
our wider selves and our wider plans.
In Chinese medicine we would call this
the "Shen," this wider self. So
stones are this repository for the Shen
and for you to become aware again
that you are a part of this wider
self, this wider being, this wider Shen, and
that you can remember the plans, and ideas, and goals
that you had for this lifetime.
Now, labradorite embodies this perfectly.
And in fact, in Chinese medicine, labradorite is
associated with the kidneys. So the kidneys
in Chinese medicine, are considered to be the place where our destiny
is stored so that we can remember it.
This is the literal place in our body where
our destiny comes in and it's like a record keeper.
Labradorite, in particular that has the blue flash,
will be really helpful for connecting into the destiny
as stored within your body—
as blue is resonant with the kidneys in Chinese medicine.
So labradorite is a perfect stone to work with
to re-access your contracts, and
to really ask certain questions, like
"Is there magic in my contract?"
This stone will really help initiate you into
different forms of esoteric knowledge,
and help you to embody the wizard, the witch,
the magic-maker that you were meant to be.
So you can really see when working with this
stone, which modalities will resonate with you
and really begin to perceive
your own inner flash.
My favorite way to work with labradorite
is to hold it in my right hand when I'm
meditating. Our right side of our body, in many traditions,
is where we're actually giving out energy to the world, so
when I hold labradorite in my right hand,
I'm signalling to myself, "I wanna learn about my
destiny in terms of what I'm actually meant to bring
to this world. I also love to wear labradorite
on the body. This stone really loves to be
interacting with your body, so finding a piece of jewelry
where the stone can literally be touching your skin, is
the best way to go about it.
The third stone is amethyst.
Amethyst is part of the quartz family, so
it's one of the safest stones to be interacting
with in making something like an elixir.
Amethyst also has this resonance with the kidneys in Chinese
medicine. It is particularly resonant
along the kidney-heart axis, so
it has this ability to access this stored knowledge of our
and actually crystallize it or solidify it
through bringing it up to the heart and projecting
is out into the world. Amethyst is
a really popular stone, for good reason—
it's incredibly potent, and diverse, as
well as super accessible. I find amethyst to be
really helpful in developing intuition,
and sort of balancing the highs and lows that
come along with this journey of understanding your destiny.
It can be particularly helpful in developing psychic
tools, or awareness, and really opening
up your ability to make a communication
with this idea of your soul blueprint
or contract, and see what information is continually being
fed to you throughout your life, so you can follow it.
In Chinese medicine, this stone was literally thought to create
an energetic, protective shield around your body.
And what's interesting is that when we look
a lot of the ways in which this stone was used
in antiquity, we actually see that it was
oftentimes employed for addiction.
So, in Greek, amethyst literally means "not drunk,"
and it was often used prior to a night of drinking
or after a night of drinking to reduce hangovers.
In this way of thinking, addiction, especially
to something like alcohol, is actually
emblematic of our desire to connect into a wider
state of consciousness—our desire to
shift our consciousness. And that addiction is an
unfortunate pattern and sometimes disease
that overtakes this innate desire to
connect into more than what is.
Now, amethyst comes in and actually creates a protective
shield and shows you another viable energetic option—
a way of connecting in—to numinous states of being, to
an expanded awareness, and ultimately, to your destiny.
One of my favorite ways to work with amethyst
is as an elixir. So
creating elixir is super easy—you just
want to get a stone, put it in a glass of water overnight,
and oftentimes I drink it first thing in the morning.
The first thing to do, obviously, is to make sure that your stone is safe
to be imbibing in water. Now if
you're working with any member of the quartz family,
that hasn't been artificially irridated, or chemically processed,
then you know you're safe. So this
includes ametheyst. I like to drink the water first thing in the morning
before I put food in my stomach, to really see the
effects, or save it for right before I meditate.
When I do that, I often find that
the seeming blocks or screens between me and my destiny
start to sort of dissolve and come away—
things feel brighter and lighter, and my ability to
access my potential, what's possible, this idea
of my destiny, seems to come a lot closer.
So if you're interested in learning how to work
more with stones, you can head over to
my website and check out my library of online classes.
I talk a lot about working with plants and stones
together, and I have a course specifically to help you learn how
to open a line of dialogue with the
mineral world, called "How Stones Communicate.
So if you liked this video, share it with other
stone lovers in your life, or people whose interest
is being piqued by this topic of destiny.
And if you work with any of these stones, I'd
love to hear from you in the comments section below—
what is your favorite practice to engage in with these
stones, or what other minerals or crystals do you
work with for this purpose?
Thank you so much for watching, and I"m excited
to keep finding, and embodying, our destinies together.