talismancer of Joy!

Have you ever had an object in your life that felt alive to you?

Maybe it was that beloved stuffed animal from childhood that talked with you and told you stories and had defined thoughts and desires - you felt like it already HAD its personality, not that you created it. Or maybe it was that cool vintage car you named and spoke to, the car that seemed to have moods of its own. Perhaps it’s your house, and you almost think it’s greeting you when you come home to it. What about that battered tool you reach for every time because for some reason you can’t articulate, it’s an old friend that you trust more than the shiny new one. You may have sensed personality in a houseplant, or a particular object in your home that seems to radiate an emotion in a way you can’t quite explain. (Our beautiful freestanding gas fireplace is so cheerful and loving, joyfully throwing out its heat for us.) Does your favorite coffee mug send a certain energy to you each morning? Musicians sometimes describe an instrument that sings or dances with them, and extreme sport athletes talk about merging with their skis, their skateboard, their mountain bike, or their whitewater kayak.

All of these are experiences of what we might call the consciousness of objects! And you’ve had them, even if you didn’t label it as such. You don’t have to call it consciousness to recognize the experience - only to notice when something responds, communicates, or comes alive through use and our connection to it.

On one level, we think we’re making up these relationships or our sense of aliveness of the object. 

But on another level, in those places where we don’t admit things that make us feel sheepish, we acknowledge that it sure feels like we’re discovering something that already exists. It feels like the thing is ‘real,’ that it’s a something or a someone, that it came into our lives with a personality we didn’t make up.

For me, this way of perceiving extends naturally to metals and stones, and also to intangible things like a strong, clear intention. 

I am Cynthia - jewelry artist and Talismancer of Joy. My gift, which I can finally articulate after decades of doing it without knowing what I was doing, is the ability to easily enter into the consciousness of things, whether tangible or intangible. I can turn my attention to a beautiful cut stone, ask it if it wants to be included in a piece of jewelry I’m making, and sense its desire. I can hold a jewelry design I’ve drawn in my mind, even before I’ve started making it, and as I see its finished form, I can feel its beingness. I can communicate with it, discovering what it wants to be. I can hear or read your intention for something you desire to bring into embodied reality, and I can feel that that intention already exists as a ‘something.’ I can’t necessarily visualize what this something will be once it comes into that state of embodied reality, but I can connect with it as a living intelligence.

When I create a talisman, I work at an intersection point, asking each of these entities if we can play together:

• the consciousness of Spirit

• the consciousness of your higher self, always with your permission

• the living intelligence of your intention

• the consciousness of the metals and stones and the design they will become

Each of these is already alive. Each is already in motion. The talisman emerges where they meet.

I don’t invent your talisman. It’s already ‘out there’ somewhere. I coax it into awakening - allowing it to come into form as an object that can hold all of these consciousnesses at once. More than jewelry, it becomes a tangible ally: something you can wear, touch, and return to as your intention continues to unfold.

This journey is a collaboration - between you, me, and what is ready to come into being. My role is to listen closely, translate faithfully, and give form to what is asking to be born. May the talisman that emerges serve you as an ally and a companion, supporting your intention with steadiness, intelligence, and care as it finds its way into form.