💖 Heart Stones

The Adventure

What Is a Heart Stone?

Sometimes it's a painted rock left somewhere safe and permitted for another Traveler to discover.

A little color. A funny face. A heart. A ridiculous amount of sparkle.

A surprise waiting to happen.

Maybe someone spots it and laughs. Maybe they take it home. Maybe they leave it for the next person.

There's no secret message they have to figure out. No story they need to know.

Sometimes the whole gift is simply the surprise of finding it.

And sometimes a Heart Stone carries something more personal: a story, an encouraging thought, a question, or a little piece of Gold discovered along someone's trail.

A Heart Stone is something we choose to release into the world, creating the possibility for another Traveler to have an experience of their own.

We create the opportunity. The universe handles the Ripple.

No Backstory Required

Or Maybe You Just Want to Make Someone Smile

You don't need a difficult experience, a life lesson, or a dramatic personal transformation to make a Heart Stone.

Maybe you enjoy painting. Maybe you found a rock that looks suspiciously like a potato. Maybe you have a collection of googly eyes that has gotten completely out of hand.

You paint it. Decorate it. Add a message if you like. Then release it somewhere safe and permitted.

And suddenly you've created an Adventure inside an Adventure.

Will somebody find it? Will they keep it? Will it travel? Will you ever know?

You might walk past that spot next week and wonder whether your rock is still there.

The wondering is part of the fun.

A Trail Leading Deeper

A Little Chip of Your Rock

Sometimes life hands us a Rock. Not necessarily a literal one. Although, considering where we are, that would be understandable.

In the Sassiverse, a Rock is our own experience of something that happened: what we noticed, how we felt, and the story we've made around it.

Sometimes we examine that Rock. We ask questions, experiment, discover new words or perspectives, and find something worth carrying forward. We call those discoveries Gold.

And sometimes we choose to share a little piece of what we've discovered.

A chip of your Rock can become a Heart Stone.

Maybe it's a story about something difficult. Maybe it's a sentence that helped us find courage. Maybe it's something funny we learned along the way.

We're not handing another Traveler our experience and telling them what it should mean. We're leaving something they can discover for themselves.

The Rock is ours. The gift we choose to share can travel.

Wait. What's a Rock? There's a whole book about Rocks waiting in the Great Library.

Choose Your Heart Stone Path

Okay. How Did You Get Here?

Want to make one? Found one? Wondering where these things are going?

Choose your Adventure.

🎨 For Makers

I Want to Make One!

Grab a rock. We have supplies, labels, QR codes, and instructions for sending it on its Adventure.

🪨 For Finders

WAIT. I FOUND ONE!

WELL, HELLO THERE.

Something caught your attention, curiosity got involved, and apparently you followed the trail.

🧭 For the Heart-Stone-Curious

Where Are These Things Going?

Excellent question.

Heart Stones have notoriously poor itinerary-management skills, but sometimes they send Trail Markers home.

A Story from the Trail

The Little Rock That Wandered Away

The original Choose to Shine stone before it began its Adventure.

Years before the Heart Stone Adventure had a name, I painted a silver rock with three words: Choose to Shine.

Metallic pink lettering. A tiny heart over the “i.” And what I considered an entirely reasonable number of rhinestones.

One afternoon, I left it on a parking guardrail in downtown Saint Paul. Then I walked away.

I didn't know who would find it, whether it would make them smile, or whether I would ever hear about it again.

Then one day, while looking through a Facebook community where people shared painted rocks they'd discovered, something caught my attention.

WAIT A MINUTE. THAT'S MY ROCK!

Someone from Florida had found it while visiting Pikes Peak.

Winter snow had covered it. Spring had uncovered it. A Traveler noticed it.

They wrote that Choose to Shine had arrived at exactly the right time for them.

Then they carried it home to Florida and shared its story.

I'd left a rhinestone-covered rock on a guardrail in Saint Paul. Somehow, it had become part of another person's Adventure hundreds of miles away.

I got to see the Ripple.

Not because I planned its journey. Not because I knew what those words would mean to someone else.

I simply got a tiny glimpse of what happened after I let go. And I was absolutely delighted.

Beyond Painted Rocks

The Heart Stone You Can't Hold

Here's something I've been thinking about. What if a painted rock isn't the only kind of Heart Stone?

What about a story you write? A few words you share? A question you ask? Something you create because you want to put a little more kindness, humor, beauty, or possibility into the world?

You might never know who encounters it. You might never know what they discover.

But sometimes, years later, someone tells you that your story helped them find words for their own experience. Or something you created made them laugh on a difficult day. Or a question you asked stayed with them.

That's a Ripple, too.

And it might have started with a Heart Stone you didn't even realize you'd released.

Sassiverse Field Observation

Ripples Are Real Magic

Not wand-and-wizard-hat magic. Human magic.

The kind that happens when our lives touch in ways we can't predict.

A story can travel. Encouragement can travel. Laughter can travel. A question can travel.

Apparently, a rhinestone-covered rock can travel.

Sometimes a Ripple is enormous. Sometimes it's tiny. Sometimes we get to see it. Most of the time, we don't.

The Heart Stone Adventure isn't a contest to see whose rock travels farthest, whose message changes the most lives, or who collects the most stories.

We create the possibility. The finder gets their own Adventure. The universe does the rest.

The Heart Part

You Belong Here

You don't have to paint a rock to belong in this Adventure.

You might make one. You might find one. You might write a story, share something funny, or simply enjoy watching where other people's Heart Stones wander.

No application. No membership card. No requirement to be having a particularly profound Tuesday.

Different Travelers. Different creations. Different experiences.

And if all you ever do is discover a funny little painted rock and smile?

We're delighted you were here.

One Adventure in a Much Bigger World

There's a Whole Sassiverse Back Here

If a Heart Stone brought you here, welcome!

You've stumbled into a place full of Adventures, questions, stories, experiments, and an Australian Shepherd named Sassy who has appointed herself Chief Trail Guide.

We practice noticing what's right with the world. We explore the Rocks we carry. We experiment with language, possibilities, and becoming more authentically ourselves.

You don't need to understand the whole Sassiverse. You don't need to know where you're going.

Curiosity is a perfectly good place to begin.