Having a mentor available can bring years of experience at your disposal so that you can accomplish unimaginable task in a very short time. A mentor can show you how to use tools and talents you have never seen before. Guide you through the steps necessary to an end result you never even thought was possible.
A mentor can provide a safety net of courage where you have none and provide the strength of knowledge to replace the ignorance of doubt.
To illustrate this I would like to tell you a story of how I turned rocks into treasures many years ago without even knowing I had the slightest shred of skill to do so. How I was taught to spend my money and get a world of benefit from it.
When living in Clovis, NM I met an interesting elderly gentleman, he was tall and thin with a very long handlebar mustache a classic miner type old timer.
By sticking a rock in my face, he surprised me while I was working on a picture frame in a craft shop. He said with a very gruff voice "look at at" and pulled it back, then licked it. He then stuck it back in my face saying "At's wha it gona look like when it all shine up"
I was a little taken aback from his in your face approach and slightly irritated from his interruption on my very delicate woodwork. So I answered with “Yea right, that’s nice”. He smiled as he twisted the end of his mustache and said “See ya later” then walked off to another part of the craft center. I got right back to work and soon forgot about the man.
About two hours later I decided to take a break from my woodwork and stretch my legs. I walked trough the building to see what kinds of crafts the others were doing. There was a photography darkroom, a ceramics shop, painting etc. on my way back to the woodshop I passed a door where the old man shouted out “Com in heer, et me sho ya sumpin”.
Not wanting to offend the man I stepped in the door and took interest at what he had to show me. I was shown some polished rocks he called Jasper, Moss Agates and Fire Agates. I actually did find them beautiful with colors and shapes that could only be painted by god himself.
He then picked up a dusty gray rock and put it in my hand as we went over to a very dirty machine. It had mud and water all over it. He explained the water was to keep the blade of the saw cool. Turning it on, he told me to cut the rock and see what I could find.
I sliced the rock right down the middle and again cutting a piece about a quarter inch thick. It was a piece of Moss Agate which is milky white with green copper deposits running through it. The veins of green looked like Moss which grows on the trees in the southern USA. This is how it gets its name.
You could find all sorts of shapes and designs, like looking for objects in the clouds; your imagination was free to see what ever you wanted. After a few minutes of studying the rock I found that right near the center and off to the right a bit, was the most perfect oak tree sitting on a hill.
I imagined a green field of grass with a gently curved hill on the horizon, a single tree growing strongly and spreading its limbs in the sky. It was the perfect shape of a fully matured oak tree. I showed it to the old timer and he shouted “Perfect!... ets cutter out”.
He handed me a template with different shapes on it and asked me to choose the one I thought was right. After laying the template on the rock I soon found an oval shape which framed the tree as if it were a picture.
“This one” I said as I showed it to the wrinkle faced man.
Handing me a piece of aluminum wire with the end sharpened like a pencil, he explained that the aluminum would mark it and would not wash off when cutting it on the wet saw.
He showed me how to trim the excess away and get close to the line. We then heated a glob of hard wax on the end of a piece of dowel rod which was about six inches long then stuck it to the opposite side of the rough cut oval slice.
After cooling, it then had a very sturdy handle for the next step.
Moving to another odd contraption an axle with four or five wheels of different abrasives going from rough to an almost smooth texture I began to shape the slice to its final shape. First taking off the rough corners left from the wet saw. Then taking off the excess and getting as close to my line as I could without grinding it away.
Starting from the roughest wheel and working to the smoothest I ground it so the sides were thin and the middle was thick, to the shape of the oval outline. The tree was in the center standing proudly on the hill. It became a smooth mounded stone with a dull finish.
At the end of the grinder was a spinning disc of what looked like rubber or leather. A small jar of polishing compound was nearby so I could occasionally dip my piece of art in and replenish the polishing wheel. After polishing we changed the disc to a buffer pad and in quick order it was a shining masterpiece.
My mentor inspected my work and slowly his long mustache began to rise from the grin beneath. ”Wonderful job!” he declared. “Let go fine a prop er setin fer it”. He quickly guided me to the display counter I was asked to pick one out. I found a gold oval setting that looked as if it were two gold ropes framed around the shinny oak tree sitting on a hill. Kind of like a cameo necklace.
I was instructed how to install it permanently and was given a moment to admire my newly created master piece. The attendant then told me the price of the setting. I quickly dug out my wallet and delivered the cash.
I thanked the old man for the lesson and headed back to the woodshop to pick up my picture frames. This was the first of several trips to the lapidary shop and I made many pieces of jewelry from old dusty rocks.
Now you may think that the old man had found a way to relieve me of my money but the experiences I had and the knowledge I gained was priceless. I found some wonderful landscapes and hidden remnants from the past.
The family times I would not trade for all the money in the world. My Kids and I spent a many a wonderful day scouring the New Mexico countryside for hidden treasures. I gave my wife the proud oak and had great times learning from the long mustached old timer.
Sure he talked funny and looked funny, but he was filled with a wealth of knowledge gained from an interesting and long life. I learned lessons in marketing and lessons of life that I would not have learned in any other way.
The moral of this story is “You never know what gems are inside of a common rock, until you look deep inside the rough exterior”
Success comes from visualizing and manifesting treasures from what others see as common useless rocks.
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