I moved to Missoula a few months prior to the Rock Gem and Mineral Show but was no stranger to the types of events.
On the Spielman side of my mother’s family they were miners. My uncle Barney from Leadville was shot at over his mine and when I was nearly 7 years old the elders moved to Skull Valley, Arizona.
I do not know how long the area desert has been slated into acre parcels for development like you see across the nation on realtor .com, but back then, the mid 1980’s, it was pure desert. You could not see anyone or anything in every direction except the sand and sky with a few cacti, tumbleweeds and rocks. I spent my summers in the car between Colorado and California, stopping to see the elders in the four trailer cul de sac middle of the desert.
There was one trailer unrelated where my childhood friend came from San Bernadino. My grandmother had one. My great grandmother the other. great Uncle Barney and his wife. And Great Aunt Aileen possibly. The only other thing in town was a gas station where I would get bubble gum cigarettes and wax lips. Well there was the railroad tracks between the trailer park and gas station.
We would sit in the desert chanting Hu before hunting crystals, allowing them to find you is key. Then we would then take them to my grandmother's trailer where we would do the ritual wash. Since then, I have moved across the country and back with crates of rocks and minerals. And still they find me.
It was during a slideshow in archeology class I learned I own a few of the top ten deadliest minerals on earth haha. Those are still in vial’s and when the adult said do not open, you did not open. Some I inherited from my father who leased a mining claim high in the Rockies.
If anyone who is reading this follow my social media posts you will see, I am a huge opponent of mining. And it has more to do with than pollution and environmental destruction. It has more to do with exploitation and displacing tribes, wildlife and forced labor. Although my interest grew when my uncle Justin Dillon created Made in a Free World.
Here I am that sweltering summer day inside a conference center and I had known of -Melody- my whole life actually, her writing the “crystal bible” so to speak. A book, now books, on the metaphysical properties of minerals and crystals. Often my family would go to fairs and I probably even saw her once before without realizing.
So, as I walked around this crowded event looking at jewelry and stones, feeling sick with social anxiety from ptsd, I made my way quickly to the last booth. It was really crowded but I stepped up to the horseshoe-shaped table with a glass cases anyway. Hanging inside the case were various beaded bracelets. Divination tools. At this point I had not made the connection what that was although I had been gifted "tools" my whole life.
One bracelet started swaying in the case while the others stood still.
I will never forget looking around at the people next to me to see if they could see it! This one bracelet swaying in a glass case inside a poorly ventilated indoor event.
With the eyes in the back of her head, Melody saw it.
Standing at the other end of her booth with her back to me talking to the crowd she suddenly turned and looked right at me. At the time I was not paying attention to her name. She walked right to me and said, “I think this belongs to you.”
Of course I bought it.
And in the package was a card which I did not pull out to look at for a few years when the beaded bracelet broke. It said simply Melody St. Ignatius,MT, a place not to far from me on the reservation.
Also, a place I like to go birding so I booked a room. Upon checking out after a weekend exploring the nature area I asked the counsel woman at the Native museum where I could find her hoping to get my bracelet fixed. She pulled me aside and said Melody's family came to get her after she fell ill and started believing in …lizard people!
She returned to Colorado. Where she resided, but passed away on an overseas trip shortly after and that was 2019. I just found out today.
The blog where I found out about her passing has many recent concerned comments of followers and friends, wondering where on Earth she had been.
So sad to hear of her gone already six years ago.
Oddly, in that time I was informed the miners and most beautiful women in my family also succumbed to the same illness. All the elders but one, has passed away, my sweet aunt. Since then I am on this mission to understand this ailment and why it seems to effect those who handle minerals.
Let’s just say I quit licking my rocks.
My favorite show as a child was V.
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