The Shadow Seekers’ Dispatch, edition 8
Index
Some things only reveal themselves after they are cut open.
A stone can look ordinary until the saw finds the hidden seam. Then there it is: a desert, a face, a storm, a stranger, a whole small world held inside pressure.
That is how the Shadow Desires series has been arriving.
One cut at a time.
I have been on a tear with the pen because something in this subject keeps offering another seam. Desire. Fantasy. Obsession. Jealousy. Longing. Each one looks simple from the outside until the pressure opens and the pattern shows itself.
These are not feel-good pieces.
They are feel-honest.
Desire rarely arrives well-behaved. It surfaces distorted, disguised, half-ashamed of itself. We call it fantasy, obsession, cringe, jealousy, hunger, longing. We try to make it behave before we listen to what it knows.
But desire, like stone, has layers.
You do not understand it by polishing the surface and pretending that is depth. You cut carefully. You look at the pattern. You ask what pressure made this shape.
If you have not read Shadow Desires: Secret Fantasies, Sacred Longings, and What They’re Really Trying to Tell You, start there. It is not soft. Good. Soft would be suspicious in this neighborhood.
In this issue, lapidary artist Dale Bertram lets stones tell their stories, two pieces have crawled into the shop, and we will look at a stone-and-herb combination for Shadow work when hidden material starts pressing against the surface.
Story Stones™ : Dale Bertram and the Art of Letting the Story Speak
When Dale Bertram cuts open a rock, he is looking for more than pattern.
He is listening for story.
His work, which he calls Story Stones™, began with a moment at Quartzsite. He watched a man cut a large chunk of Landscape Jasper on a slab saw. When the cut was finished, the surface revealed what looked like a desert mountain scene with a sunset.
A story in stone.
That moment changed the way Dale saw the work. He was not forcing meaning onto the rock. He was revealing what the stone already held.
That distinction is important.
Decoration stands on top of the thing.
Discovery cuts in.
Dale’s art lives in that cut.
His pieces move through geology, philosophy, faith, humor, and the kind of weirdness that makes a viewer lean closer before deciding whether to be delighted or mildly concerned. A very respectable outcome.
He sees creativity everywhere: coral reefs, the Amazon, the night sky over Palau, the ordinary earth split open to reveal something impossible-looking inside. So when he finds aliens, landscapes, and strange figures in stone, he does not treat them as tricks.
He treats them as invitations.
His work can hold biblical reference in one hand and alien lore in the other without apologizing for the odd company. That is part of its charge. The sacred and the strange have always known each other. People just get fussy when they sit at the same table.
For Dale, the work is spiritual because creation itself is spiritual. Earth. Pressure. Time. Revelation. Nothing polished into obedience. Nothing stripped of its strangeness so it can be easier to explain.
And beneath the stone stories, there is family.
Dale speaks with deep love about his daughter, Rachael, who joins him in the world of cutting Thundereggs and revealing what waits inside. He describes her as a teacher of love: simple, pure, uncomplicated, keeping no record of wrongs.
That line stays with me. Some people teach through explanation. Some teach through presence. Some teach by showing you the world before you learned to defend against it.
Dale has also thought about the final cut. He says he always leaves a rock in the saw vise when he is done cutting. There is one there now.
That is honest.
A little death memento in the shop dust. A reminder that the work will never be finished, and the hand that does it is temporary.
The stone waits.
The saw waits.
The story waits.
Dale’s Story Stones™ remind us that meaning is not always invented.
Sometimes it is uncovered one cut at a time.
Now Haunting the Shop
Two pieces are in the shop right now for Seekers who want tools that cut clean and quick.
52 Weeks with the Dark: Indelicate Prompts from Your Shadow
This is a Shadow-work prompt book for people who are done writing around the truth.
It offers a year of dark journaling and art prompts organized through seasonal descent: spring’s rupture, summer’s exposure, autumn’s decay, and winter’s bone-deep quiet.
Use it when the hidden material starts knocking and you are ready to stop pretending no one is home.
Get a Guide to Trusting Yourself on Life’s Creative Battlefield
This workbook is for artists, Seekers, and survivors rebuilding self-trust through creative practice. It is not a confidence pep talk. No glitter. No “believe in yourself” confetti haunting the furniture.
It gives you prompts, archetypes, reflection, and art-based exercises that help you build confidence by making contact with what is real.
You can also grab the paperback of The Art of Confidence: A Guide to Trusting Yourself on Life’s Creative Battlefield over on Amazon.
From the Shadow Seekers’ Journal
If this issue stirred something loose, these pieces are the next stones to turn over.
How to Integrate Your Shadow Without Fearing What She Holds
The Dark Mirror: What Jealousy, Cringe, and Obsession Reveal About You
Erotic Energy and the Dark Muse: How Desire Fuels Creativity
Healing Through Art: A Guide to Creative Expression, Emotional Processing, and Personal Growth
Shadow Desires: Secret Fantasies, Sacred Longings, and What They’re Really Trying to Tell You
Energies for Shadow Work
Shadow Revelation and Stabilization
Some shadow work begins as pressure under the surface.
A thought that keeps returning.
A dream that leaves its muddy boots on the bed.
A reaction that feels too large for the present moment.
This combination is for Seekers who are ready to confront buried truths, difficult realizations, or hidden patterns while still needing protection, steadiness, and intuitive access.
These materials are symbolic supports. They are not treatment. They do not diagnose, cure, or fix anything. They help hold the shape of the work while you do the work.
As inconvenient as ever.
Obsidian grounds spiritual energy, shields against negativity, and helps surface hidden patterns and truths.
It is the knife at the seam. Sharp, protective, and unwilling to flatter the illusion.
Use Obsidian when you are ready to see what has been moving beneath the surface, especially when the old story has gotten too comfortable calling itself fact.
Labradorite is linked to transformation, intuition, and surfacing repressed memories.
It strengthens you to see what has been hidden.
Where Obsidian cuts, Labradorite catches the flash in the stone: the strange color, the sudden knowing, the glimpse of something that was there all along and only appears when the angle changes.
Use Labradorite when the work requires courage and perception.
*Valerian promotes calmness, supports dream work, and protects psychic space.
It belongs near the threshold between waking and sleep, especially when truth starts arriving sideways: in dreams, symbols, fragments, and the strange little messages your conscious mind pretends not to understand.
*For gentler symbolic substitutes for valerian, consider chamomile, passionflower, lavender, or lemon balm. Use valerian symbolically and cautiously. Do not combine it with sedatives or alcohol. Avoid it if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, preparing for surgery, managing liver concerns, or choosing materials for children under three.
‘Til Next Time
This one started in the dark because that is where hidden things keep their shape.
Stone. Desire. Memory. Meaning.
None of them reveal themselves because you demand it. They reveal themselves when the cut is clean, the hand is steady, and you are willing to look at what was waiting inside.
I am scaling back on social media so I can keep my focus where it belongs: on the work that matters. You can still follow along on Pinterest for updates, new releases, and whatever shadow-drenched thing claws its way out of the studio next.
Until next time,
Kellie Jo Close
Artist & Author
For Women Who Want to Know Exactly What They Buried. And Why.