Hello
Those that pay attention to such things may have noticed that I did
not send out a newsletter last dark moon. My apologies. I had planned
to talk about our trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula (which was awesome)
and then send a Lughnasadh special. Well, the dark moon and Lughnasadh
fell on the same day. The night before this day I was leading our holiday
ritual, which I spent the day before that planning. The two days after
the holiday I spent at Gibraltar Trade Center doing a show. Excuses?
No, just reminding myself to plan better next time, and maybe, just
maybe, write something ahead of time (like that's gonna happen!) I just
looked ahead and the next dark moon occurs the Monday after I am doing
another weekend at Gibraltar and Mercury is retrograding the Wednesday
before that!
In brief, the Keweenaw area is gorgeous, we saw a bear cross the road,
visited historic Calumet, saw several abandoned mines, toured the Delaware
Mine (I found copper in the rock piles there!), took a boat ride to
a lighthouse in Copper Harbor, drove along Brokeback....I mean Brockway
Mountain Drive, went through the A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum, and came
back with a ton of rocks! We didn't even see all we wanted to see. I
highly recommend this area for vacationing, especially if you are a
rock hound.
A Little Venting....
I have something to say about commitment. I am talking to all you vendors
at shows. If you have set aside a date, priced and packed, loaded, drove,
unloaded and set up....after going through all this.....why would you
then pack back up and go home before the show is over? First, you most
likely filled out a form that stated, some in all caps and bold, that
you had to commit to the entire time and could not start dismantling
your space until the show's ending time. Second, this is very unfair
to those of us vendors that are willing to stay to the end and to the
customers who arrive at the show later in the day.
I don't care if you haven't made table, how are you going to make anything
if you pack and leave? I have been at shows where I made several sales
in the last 2 hours. Not lately. The last few shows I have participated
in have resulted in someone deciding they weren't making enough money
so they start packing. Then someone else thinks "If they are leaving
early, so am I" and then it snowballs.
I know it is disappointing when you aren't selling as much as you thought
you would. I know the wind goes out of your sails as people trickle
in instead of crowds beating down the doors. But you made a commitment.
Make the most of it. Talk to other vendors. Make some new friends (or
enemies). Vendor to vendor sales are sometimes what saves a show's profit.
Bring a book, make more product, learn to knit, I don't care....just
stick it out.
Case in point, we did the Yoga for Peace a couple of years ago. This
is an outside event, it was a beautiful day except for one gust of wind
that blew down some tents. There was a group mediation for peace towards
the end of the event and the vendors who did not participate started
packing up. We did not and were rewarded when the group finished the
meditation and walked right past our booth to a field where they were
forming a giant peace sign. As they walked by, I sold 3 bars of soap
and my sister sold 4 cans of soda. After the peace sign, the crowd that
walked by bought more from us. This was actually 10 minutes after the
scheduled end of the event. More than half of the vendors were already
packed up and lost those last minute sales.
Another example, this past weekend my sister Val and my friend Alicia
went to a rock show up in Clio. The show was scheduled for 9 - 5 and
they got there at 3. There were three cars in the parking lot, that’s
it. They pulled up to one of the cars where someone was loading up and
asked what was going on. This person told them that due to low turn
out, some had started packing it up at noon. Well, this person who waiting
until the last minute to leave got something ....Val and Alicia’s
business. He allowed them to look in some boxes and both of them made
purchases. How many other late-to-the-show customers did these vendors
miss?
Not everyone is an early bird. Some people will come 2 hours before
a show ends, especially if there is no entrance fee. People are busy
or have to drive a distance to get there. Even if attendance is low,
you still made a commitment to be there. So.....be there!
Please pass this along to any person you may know that is crazy enough
to be vending at shows even with Michigan’s bad economy, thank
you.
Oils for Wealth and Prosperity
Now that I’ve vented, here is some helpful advice about oils for
prosperity. The following oils are associated with wealth and/or prosperity:
Cinnamon - very strong, if blending use only one drop, may irritate
skin
Patchouli - hmmm, I don’t remember hearing about any rich hippies....
Pine - any type of fir tree: balsam, spruce, even cypress
Cinquefoil (Five Finger Grass) - this one is hard to find in an oil
Clove - brings fast results, may irritate skin
Basil - also lifts your spirits, good for those who become discouraged
easily
Bergamot & Bergamot Mint - uplifts body and soul, very refreshing
scent
Jasmine - brings happiness too, true jasmine oil is expensive
Cedar, Cedarwood - for manifestation and brings success
You can use these oils in any combination that smells good to you
or just use one single scent. If you choose to anoint yourself (please,
I don’t want to know where), be sure to mix the oils with a carrier
oil such as almond, grapeseed or jojoba. You could put a drop on a
business card while visualizing your bank account grow, sprinkle some
in your cash box, anoint your flyers, whatever seems right to you.
For a show, I usually use my money blend as a perfume. Of course,
whenever possible we burn our Wealth
and Prosperity candle at shows too. I
made soap for myself using the oils in our candle and now sell it
as Prosperity
Soap.
Here’s a trick to scent your flyers with your prosperity blend.
Put several drops of your blend, or just one oil if you prefer, on one
of your business cards or on a cotton ball or two. Let it sit out about
an hour to dry. Place in whatever you have your flyers in, I use those
clear plastic envelopes but this works even if you have them in printer’s
boxes. Be sure whatever your flyers are in is closed tightly. Leave
for at least a week or until the next show. Your flyers should now have
a nice scent to them. One caution: even the scent of some oils will
discolor paper. Our cards for the White
Magic candle are now beigey-brown due to this scenting method. I
suspect its the clove, but this blend also includes cinnamon, orange
and ginger. Perhaps experiment with a small group of old flyers to be
sure no discoloration occurs.
Thank you for listening to my rant. I hope these oils bring you prosperity
in whatever form you wish for.
~~~ Laura
