Heard it on the Podcast - The GreenMan Cruise

 

25-AUG-2022

Hey there! This is Cindy, and in case you missed it, Modern Musings and my travel agency, Crafty Neighbor Travel, have partnered with Arthur Graye, owner of The GreenMan Studios to present a GreenMan Holistic cruise. We are very excited about this collaboration and we hope you'll consider joining us for a fun and exciting metaphysical cruise. If you'd like more details, click the link below to go to the cruise website, and don't forget to come out to the GreenMan Holistic Faire this weekend!

👉👉Get More Info About the Cruise👈👈

The GreenMan Holistic Faire

Sponsored by Events @ Sneaky Petes

August 27th & 28th

11:00 AM-6PM

Sneaky Petes

2 Eagle Point Road

Lewisville, Tx 75077

And don't forget to visit 

The GreenMan Studios

771 East Southlake Blvd Suite 130

SOUTHLAKE, Texas 76092

(214) 631-9917

arthurgraye@thegreenmanstudios.com

My Collections

Hi everyone, Christen here…thanks for stopping by today. This week on the podcast, we are discussing collecting as a hobby. We also go into the pros and cons of collecting. One of the neat things that we discuss about collecting is the chase. There is a sort of thrill in obtaining the items to add to a collection. I highly recommend that you check out  The Role of Information in a Community of Hobbyist Collectors, a fantastic article about a study conducted in 2009 in which they researched people who collected rubber ducks to varying degrees. The article dives into the psychology and methodology of the act of collecting and how collecting enriches a person’s social life.

I thought it would be fun to show you some of my collections that I have, and how I store my collections. I am not a well rounded and knowledgeable hobbyist collector; I am a novice. Although I do have several small collections that I am pursuing, I have very little knowledge about the items that I collect and the proper ways of storing them. I have not invested much time into the research aspect as I am not a serious collector, and there is no museum looking to acquire my collection, nor will you see my collections on a TV show like Oddities or Pawn Stars.  I am just a passive collector. Someday, I may find that I want to change my methods of storing, or acquiring, but for now, I am happy with my collections as they are.

Coin Collection:

I have approximately 183 coins that I have collected over the years. I began my collection when my grandfather gave me an “Indian Head Penny” and a “Walking Half Dollar”. I always had a fascination with the wheat pennies because they looked different, and I also enjoyed looking at foreign currency. It feels like having treasure, and this is probably why I collect it. It also fascinates me that I can hold a penny from 1919 and imagine that someone else used that over 100 years ago to purchase something. Each coin has its own untold story, whether it be where I acquired it, its possible value, and memories that go with it. I also love putting a penny in the coin machine when on vacation and getting embossed memorabilia to add to my collection; I am sure to get one whenever I see an elongated penny machine. I also keep tokens from arcade centers now, which seems to be a rare item, considering many arcades use swipe cards or free-play modes these days. One of my prized tokens is from Putt-Putt, a miniature golf center, circa 1984. I don’t mind getting coins as a gift, it’s not necessarily a requirement that only I select the coins for my collection, I will gladly take any coins that someone offers to me. I do have to say that one of my fondest memories of coin acquisition was in the early 2000 at the peak of my coin collecting. I worked with one of my dearest friends in the restaurant industry. She also had a passion for coin collecting, being more focused on coins of value and historical significance. She was a great mentor on the types of coins made in the US and their evolution in relation to American history. We would enjoy going through the till together at work after closing and checking for pennies, nickels and dimes, in the search for any that were missing from our collection. Now that I do not use change on a regular basis, my coin collecting has dwindled down to obtaining elongated coins for the most part, but I do look forward to traveling out of the country soon and possibly exchanging currency while abroad.

Stamp Collecting:

Another collection was also inspired by my grandfather who had an extensive collection of stamps and was probably a very knowledgeable philatelist. I never really got a chance to look at his collection as he passed away in 2002 after briefly showing it to me, but I was inspired none-the-less. In 2003, I decided to start my own stamp collection. I was not particular about collecting new or used stamps and I am happy to take any used stamps that my family gets in the mail. It's a sweet and thoughtful gesture when my mom hands me a plastic baggy of postage stamps that she has set aside for me from the various mail she has received. I have a nice book that I keep my stamps stored in. I don’t plan on expanding my stamp collecting knowledge at this time, but it might be something to invest more time and money in later in my life.

Rocks, Crystals and Gemstones:

I have always been obsessed with rocks, crystals, and gems. I also consider them treasure, like my coins. I get great pleasure from looking at them and holding them. I currently have them in a small canister, and a few line my bookshelf, but I recently purchased a neat display box at a thrift store that I am excited to decorate and convert into a mini display cabinet. As for my crystals, this collection is more curated. I specifically go in search of gemstones that I have on my wish list. I enjoy reading up on gem properties and where they can be mined. I get excited about visiting shops that sell crystals and can lose any sense of time while looking for the perfect rock. I am not sure where my fascination stemmed from, except that my mother loves them, too, so I must have gotten it from her. Just last year we discovered that Reyna also had a fondness for rocks. Her favorite is Jasper and I know this because she would come home with pocket loads of jasper pebbles and I would even find them in her backpack. When we took Reyna canoeing for the first time last year, we traveled down the Brazos river. The water was shallow enough at the bank of our campsite for her to play safely. She spent countless hours just playing in the rocks and she brought many more home from the trip. Since she was so intrigued by the rocks, we decided to take her diamond digging at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. We had so much fun digging in the dirt! Sadly the only gems I brought home were purchased from the gift store.

What kinds of things do you collect? Do you consider yourself to be an expert, amateur, or novice? Have you considered investing a significant amount of time researching something in which you already have a considerable collection? Did you find that you had anything of value? Let’s keep the conversation going over in our Facebook Chat and be on the lookout for the podcast coming out on Wednesday.

My Take on Astrology

Hey guys, Christen here. This week on the podcast we dove into the topic of astrology.  Well, I guess you could say we cannonballed into it. I know that the three of us,  Amber, Cindy and I, really enjoy discussing topics like astrology, numerology, tarot, crystals, and spiritualism. There are so many topics that I know we want to discuss, and during the podcast we  sometimes barely scratch the surface. 

Observing  the Earth’s position with regards to the sun, stars and moon has been a practice for thousands of years. Only in the last few centuries has that science diverged into astronomy, leaving astrology in the dust. Many consider astrology to be a pseudoscience.  There was a strong pull away from astrology when scientists argued that it could not be proven by fact. Ultimately, once we were able to prove that the earth revolves around the sun, the two “sciences” split ways, and astrology became the scientific fact, and anything else is considered pseudoscience and parapsychology. So Capernicus, the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day, decided that he would follow astrological phenomena, and not astrology, and boom, astrology is “fake news”. He was a Pisces (just saying), and he studied at the University of Bologna - no joke! The shift actually happened over a longer period of time, but astronomy phased in and astrology phased out. But astrology has never died. Over the past 200 years, there has been a new wave of interest in the occult, esoteric topics, and parapsychology. In the 1840’s with spiritualism, and in the 1970’s with the New Age movement, many of the beliefs within astrology have seen a resurgence and are still followed today.

Even so, I will sometimes swap out the words astrology and astronomy by mistake. I have always enjoyed the study of outer space and the ideas of the beyond pertaining to astronomy, the study of space and the universe, but astrology is a topic that has piqued my interests far beyond the facts and figures of astronomy. I was drawn to it at a young age. I know we have mentioned that my mom used to have some books by Linda Goodman, Sun Signs and Love Signs , that went into detail about each zodiac personality type. I discovered those books and was hooked. 

When I got older, I bought a book for myself that I highly recommend called The Secret Language of Birthdays: Your Complete Personology Guide for Each Day of the Year by Goldschneider and Joost. This book features a two-page, in-depth personality report for each day of the year. I have lugged this book from home to home, and it was always a favorite when guests came over. I could almost guarantee that someone would open it and take a look. I often would crack it open myself if I met a new person and happened to know their birthdate. It was an easy way to “get to know'' someone without having to be too nosey.

I will admit though that using the book, or any horoscope, zodiac website, or book to discern a person’s characteristics is not the best way to get to know someone. In reality, it can create a biased opinion of someone, and cause you to inadvertently treat them differently than you would if you had met them and learned about them organically. It is like knowing the future or a possible future outcome, and making different choices based on something that might or might not happen in reality. For example, I know that people born under the Cancer sign are prone to be temperamental according to many personality trait sources, however one Cancer in my life that I am very close to is probably one of the most level-headed people that I know; I actually admire her for it. Had I read that she was temperamental, I probably would have avoided her, and missed out on an opportunity to build the relationship that I have with her today. I know another Cancer, and love-her-to-death, she has a volatile personality that is easily triggered. Cool as a cucumber and volcanic emotions are far from similar, yet they both have the same astrological sign. I have to consider Nature vs. Nurture and wonder how their environment and raising come into play. But I digress... astrology is a tool, and just like a hammer, you can build things, and you can smash things, so use the tool wisely.

Another tool that interests me is Witches’ Almanacs. I have never purchased one, but I am thinking of getting one this year. Very soon actually. The LLewellyn’s 2023 Magical Almanac should be available here in July, from my favorite publishing company, Llewellyn. This almanac, like the Farmer's Almanac, gives the reader guidance based on the sun, moon, and stars, but from a metaphysical approach. If any of this interests you, I recommend checking it out. I have used the internet to pull dates and put them into my own day planner in the past, so I look forward to adding this to my planning rituals. 

I will be sure to follow up once I get one and look forward to sharing it with our readers. I would love for you to share as well. We love to carry the conversation over to our MMC chat group on Facebook. I hope that you enjoy listening to our podcasts as well, if you are not listening, then you are missing out on part of the conversation. Be sure to click on the Listen link at the top of this page or find us on Apple Music or wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a YouTube channel where you can listen to the podcast or watch an instructional video.