How Did The Idea Of Birthstone Start?

Birthstone

Many people wear a birthstone to show which month they were born in.

From very early times there have been superstitions about gems.  Ancient people thought that certain gems had magical powers and could protect them from harm and bring good luck.

Some gems were supposed to have an influence on love and marriage.  Others were supposed to strengthen such personal traits as courage, sincerity and loyalty.

The idea of birthstones came from old superstitions that certain gems brought good luck and good health to people, defending on their birth dates.  Each month was given a stone.

The birthstone for the month of May, for example, is the emerald.  Wearing this stone, people thought, would bring love and success to anyone whose birthday was in the month.

Not many people still believe that birthstones affect the wearer’s life.

But many do enjoy wearing their birthstones set in rings, brooches, and other jewelry.

Do you know your birthstone? – Dick Rogers

Human Quality - Quote

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the qualitiy which guarantees all the others - Sir Winston Churchill, British Statesman (1874-196)

Fearing Factor

Whenever I am alone with my quiet times, I’ve always wondered who is braver—the person who has no fear of the one who has much fear but overcomes it. I fall into the second category most of the time. Imagine you do too. Almost every day we face circumstances we think might be too much to handle.

I have known many people filled with courage. My favorite is my mother when she was still alive. A pregnant women who was about to deliver her baby after a month of her due date. But delivered it early. This was happened to her again as her first baby was also a premature baby. She knows that it’s a risk for the baby’s condition when she will be delivered in premature way. The women had all her courage to face it as she was aware that it could be the cause of the death of her unborn child.

A friend who face the full courage about her mom who was on coma. He had to be strong to accept what will be the result in the end, as he knew that very few were healed with this kind of illness. But with all the strength he manages to have that courage to face the will the truth.
A woman tells her spiritual voyage has taken her through the darkness and the light. She struggles a lot with doubt and how a high purpose overcome it.

The ultimate triumph of faith over fear, of life over death; yet even Jesus shivered in the Garden of Gethsemane. To be afraid is to be human. It is our faith that bridges the gap between fear and action.

Heroes (3)

Indeed, great sacrifices were required of these heroes. Hardship and deprivation, fear and anxiety, were all unavoidable circumstances in their lofty aspirations to fight for what is right. Threats of execution were living realities for them, and which fructified in the cases of Rizal, Bonifacio, Aquino and many more. But these images of heroism were accompanied by an enduring spirit even in the face of death.

To embody courage under the most gruesome circumstance, and many of them were tortured, they had to repress their fears of pain and death. To embody toughness, they had to repress their feelings of vulnerability and sacrifice their time with, and emotions for, their families. To embody toughness, they had to repress their sensitivities. To fight the demons of the times, they had to repress compassion for their adversaries.

But the greed and megalomania of tyrants, whom these heroes have confronted, will keep on re-emerging as evil has a tenacious conduct that cannot be banished from the world. Even laws will not suffice to prohibit such conduct as even lawmakers become privy to the evil, the greed, and the contempt for the suffering masses of our people.

But the lessons of history are clear and the lives of our heroes are sufficiently tactile in making us aware of ourselves in the shaping of our destiny. Awareness reduces the chances of being manipulated by plunderers. When we finally take action on our awareness, it is when the hero within ourselves blossoms. And when collective action takes place, it is when the demons of greed, plunder, and corruption, start quaking in their steps. ericfmallonga@yahoo.com

Heroes (2)

There are three other heroes, whom I know through some affiliation with their children.

Noynoy Aquino, now senator, was a classmate at the Ateneo de Manila University. He once invited me to join him on a weekend visit to his father. With awe, I had been able to watch on TV the only man with the temerity to insult the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in his confrontational speeches. Unfortunately for me, when I gathered the courage to want to personally visit this hero, he already had a heart attack and his whole family left for the United States for his cardiac operation. When he came back, Ninoy Aquino was executed on the airport tarmac.

There was also another classmate at UP College of Law, Chel Diokno, who once related to me his visits to his father, the great Pepe Diokno. Pepe Diokno and Ninoy Aquino were the only political detainees incarcerated in solitary confinement at Nueva Ecija. Chel told me that Pepe Diokno had grown so thin in detention that he kept on holding the back of his pants so that it would not fall. Pepe Diokno was my mother’s lawyer and I had heard him speak so eloquently at lectures delivered in UP.

Another classmate, Atty. Gwendolyn Pimentel-Gana, related to me her family life as she visited her father, who was detained four times during the Marcos dictatorship. Those were difficult years for the Pimentel family. Today, through Gwen, I have done some consultancies on her father’s bills on children’s rights. I have been privileged with these surrogate and actual brushes with national heroes, who have sacrificed so much for our nation. – Eric Mallonga; ericfmallonga@yahoo.com