Start an online business! It will be easy! You’ll make so much money, without working hard, and you’ll be your own boss!

– the entrepreneur’s Kool-Aid –

I started Moonrise Crystals in 2014.  I had no idea what I was doing and by all rights, I should have failed.  Did you know that 90% of online businesses fail within a few months or years?  Only 10% will last a decade and surprisingly Moonrise Crystals is one of the lucky few.  My first decade is complete!  Here I stand and here I hope to remain.  It has definitely not been easy.  My saving grace is that I am both curious and tenacious, a delightful combination that has served me well in the past decade.

In my last personal update, I wrote about some of the intellectual and emotional challenges of ethical sourcing in 2023.  I wrote about attending a conference and a gem show, as well as the natural disasters and the war that broke my heart. This is a continuation of that story, a behind-the-scenes look into my personal journey.

Here’s what happened in Year 10 at Moonrise Crystals.

It’s September 2023 and Google is mad at me

I was sitting at the airport, on my way home from the Denver Gem Show, when I checked on my website traffic. I had just spent a lot of money buying new crystals and I had plans to travel to several countries in Africa to take my ethical sourcing work to the next level.  Suddenly, Google is mad at me and I don’t know why.

Moonrise Crystals is an online business that relies entirely on organic traffic.  I don’t advertise.  I don’t pay to rank higher.  My website ranks highly because I actually follow industry best practices and do good work.  Abruptly traffic is crashing and it’s taken me completely by surprise.  My first thought was that maybe my website was hurt by Google’s most recent core update.  But… why?  There’s no reason for that update to hurt my rankings.  Nevertheless, traffic is falling.  Sales are falling.  I am falling.

I must figure out what’s going on and fix it, or else all my business dreams and ethical goals will fail.

I will go on to spend countless hours researching and experimenting.  Nothing helps.  The website looks nicer and it works better.  Google doesn’t care.  Traffic is falling.  I hire several experts and they promise solutions.  Some of those solutions look good and solve problems.  Google still doesn’t care.  Traffic is falling.  I can give up or I can keep trying.

I keep trying.

No matter what I do, Google doesn’t care.  Traffic is falling and it doesn’t make sense.  It really doesn’t.  Something is wrong, but I don’t know what it is.

It’s January 2024 and I sign a book deal while at the Tucson Gem Show

One of my favorite suppliers is a business run by two friends with a stone polishing factory in India.  They’ve been in business for 35 years and we go out to dinner while we’re in Tucson.  We laugh about how hard it is to build a business from scratch.  They tell me stories from their first decade and I ask them, “when does it get easier?”  They tell me, “15 years.  It gets really good after 15 years.”

I tell them the good news.  Just that morning, I had signed a contract to write a book about crystals.  The publisher has been courting me for almost a year.  They are a large and well-established publisher in London and my contract includes translating the book into several languages.   I’m very excited!  It’s going to be beautifully illustrated and they specifically want me to write about ethical sourcing.  This is a dream come true!  I’ve got a gorgeous and detailed plan in place and it’s going to be unlike any other crystal book.

Google might be mad, but I’ve got a book deal!!!

It’s February and my editor is gaslighting me

I’m so confused.  What the hell just happened?!?  We had agreed to a plan and now the editor is asking for something completely different.  Now they are asking me to write a book that is basically Healing Crystals 101: For Teens!  Instead of beautiful drawings, they show me ugly and very dated graphics.  They give me wrong directions and then say “oops.”  They waste my time and make me want to pull my hair out.  They said they wanted me to write about ethics – but not really.  They want to greenwash.  They don’t want anything to be real.

Before I signed the contract they were talking about how they don’t want pseudoscience and they want young people to be resilient and emotionally intelligent.  Now they want just another generic healing crystal book.  Exactly like all the others that already exist.  They have the final control and I’m getting really worried. If they put out a bad book with my name on it, it’s going to damage my brand.

They also haven’t paid my advance.  This is a big-name publisher, but they’re acting like they’ve never published a book before.  I’m gobsmacked.  I feel like I’m going crazy.

Google is mad at me and traffic is falling.

My editor is gaslighting me.

This is not what I was expecting for my 10th year in business.

It’s Spring 2024 and I’m struggling

I’m doing my best to figure out what’s wrong with Google and to get out of the book-deal-from-Hell.  I’m doing my best to take care of my own little world.  Every so often I feel sad that I’m not doing more, but then I brush that nonsense aside.  I’m doing what I can right now.  Sometimes we just have to survive.

Survive.

I’m thinking a lot about survival right now.

I stay away from the news to protect my mental health.  If I want to know something, I have to actively look it up, rather than be passively exposed to it.  Every few weeks, I look up one question. It’s the same question every time: “what’s the death toll in Gaza?”  I just want to know the number.  Without even looking, I can already guess the rest.  Of course it’s a genocide.  The moment the war started, I knew what was coming.

I find myself struggling with my identity as a member of the Palestinian diaspora.  I have Palestinian blood, but was raised as an English-speaking white American.  When I was a teenager, Yasser Arafat offered to give up “the right to return” for the diaspora, in exchange for reparations and peace.  My parents told me that if Israel offered me even a single $1 to take it.  Palestine is the past, just forget it!  That was the day I realized I was Palestinian and belonged to the diaspora.

Sometimes PTSD looks like constantly remembering the past and all its horrors.  Sometimes PTSD looks like burying the past and pretending it never happened or that it doesn’t matter.

During college I studied the history of the Holy Land.  I took classes as a student and later taught classes as the professor.  If I was taught any propaganda, blame the University of Utah and the many dry academic textbooks I read.  Now, decades later, the war in Gaza is breaking my heart.

I have Jewish-American and Israeli friends.  We struggle through it together.  They talk about the propaganda they were taught as children.  I talk about the silence I grew up with.  We try to be so careful with each others’ hearts.  We are sons and daughters of generational trauma.  They talk about visiting the beautiful city of Tel Aviv, including a district called Jaffa.  That’s where my family used to live, but I’ve never been there.  My grandfather owned a grocery store in Jaffa.  He was a small business owner, just like me.  I have a vague memory of being told once that his store was famous for its oranges.  My Israeli friend texts me Arabic music videos and I see one that is filmed in Jaffa.  It’s a lovely place, a harbor town on the Mediterranean Sea.  I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Jaffa.  I stare in fascination.  With all my boundless curiosity, I’ve never once been curious about Jaffa.  It always felt forbidden.  My grandfather had to flee during the nakba (Arabic for “the catastrophe”) in April, 1948 and then was stuck in limbo for decades in a refugee camp in Lebanon.  He died there, before I was born.  One of the few things I know about him, is that when people fought inside the camp, my grandfather was a peacemaker who calmed people down.  He had a gentle nature.  He encouraged his children to immigrate and our family scattered across the world.  I don’t know the name of the refugee camp, I’ve narrowed it down to two camps, but I’m not sure which one.  That knowledge too is forbidden, we must never speak of it.

Why do I share this?  What could it possibly have to do with Moonrise Crystals?  Surely this is way too PERSONAL, it’s not BUSINESS, and has no place here.

Moonrise Crystals encourages healing and promotes ethical behavior.  If I am going to advise people about healing and ethics, then its only fair that they know who I am and what has shaped my opinions.  I find myself thinking about where I come from.  I’m a first generation immigrant, but I’m also a daughter of the American Revolution.  My many-times great grandfather was a Captain of the Middlesex Militia in New Jersey. The British burned his house down in 1779 because he was a patriot.  He paid a high personal price, but independence was worth it.  I claim all my ancestors with pride, they helped make me who I am today: the gentle healers, the brave fighters, and the dreamers who believed that a better world is possible.

In the 21st century, an online business should be on social media, but all year long I struggle with that.  I don’t know what to say.  I keep thinking about giant things that are not in my control.  It feels so incredibly messy.  No one can understand why I can’t just post on Facebook about pretty rocks.  I can’t explain it.  I’m just struggling.

But, hey! Check this out, during the spring Moonrise Crystals is recommended by the New York Times! Happy Dance! Google likes that!

It’s Summer and I’m still dealing with Google and the editors

The book deal is still a problem.  According to the contract we signed, we should be able to just part ways peacefully.  I didn’t write the book.  They didn’t pay me.  Why are we still talking?

The editors want me to sign a release that says I will NEVER write a book about crystals or ethics EVER in the future for any other publisher.  This is absurd!  They try to intimidate me.  They think they’re so powerful.  Turns out, I can read a contract and I have a lawyer.  They are so surprised by that!

In the end, we release each other from the contract.  I just needed a lawyer to write a “scary lawyer letter” to make them behave right.  The book was supposed to be a fun adventure, make me some money, and get out my message about ethical sourcing and emotional intelligence.  Instead, I paid my lawyer hundreds of dollars to make a publisher follow their own contract.

Ugh! Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Another publisher reaches out to me.  Would I be interested in writing a crystal book? They think I would be perfect and they love my ethical stance.  I ask them what kind of book they want.  It’s another version of Basic Healing Crystals with a little greenwashing for fun.  Thank you for your consideration, but I’ll have to pass.  Maybe I’ll write a book someday, but not right now and definitely not that.

Meanwhile, traffic is still falling and I keep trying.  It’s demoralizing to be constantly improving everything, while watching the traffic go down.  We hit rock bottom in June – I’ve lost 80% of my website traffic.  I hire yet another expert and he gives me some sensible advice.  He lives in Ukraine and one day he apologizes because it took him 48 hours to reply to one of my questions.  A Russian missile attack near his home had briefly knocked out his electricity so he couldn’t get online.  I tell him he doesn’t need to apologize for that – please be safe!

Slowly the traffic begins to go back up.  The whole thing never really makes sense, but I’m glad it’s going back up. I hate that Google has this kind of power over me.  Traffic = sales = money to pay my bills.

It’s not enough to dream a big dream, it’s not enough to try really hard.  We have to be lucky too.

I cross my fingers for luck and return to the Chicago Responsible Jewelry Conference.  I keep learning about ethical sourcing.  I keep putting what I learn into practice.  One thing that I’m proud of that happened in 2024 is that I was able to bring woman-mined healing crystals to my store.  Adding these stones and writing about why it matters was satisfying work.  This is the kind of work that I love to do.

It’s Autumn again and I finally find the answer

After more than a year, I finally figure out why Google was mad at me.  I had been #1 on Google and someone decided to sabotage my website and take me down.  Someone spent a significant amount of money to sneakily sabotage me for six months straight, pointing over 50,000 bad backlinks at Moonrise Crystals.  These backlinks come from the lowest part of the internet, it’s like they invited 50K crack addicts to camp in my front yard.  My website was looking like the ghetto, so Google punished me.  The saboteurs must have been laughing as they watched my traffic tank and my rankings fall.  Even after they stopped actively hurting me, it took months to stop the momentum and to begin to rebuild. Once I identified the sabotage, it took thousands of dollars more to clean it up.

Who did it?  Was it a direct competitor? Maybe.  Was it someone who hates my work in ethics? Maybe.  Was it random? Unlikely.  It was too targeted and it lasted too long for that.  It looks deliberate and the experts I consulted with agreed with my assessment.  I don’t know who did it, but now I know to watch out for this sort of thing.

Thank goodness, in the autumn Moonrise Crystals is recommended by The Sierra Club!  Google likes that!  Happy Dance!

Healing the Healer

2024 was not the year I wanted, but it was a year that made me a lot stronger and smarter and I think that bodes well for my future.  I was blessed that I got to hang out with the crystals every day.  In 2024, I especially loved the stones that heal generational trauma, like Ancestralite, and stones for resilience, like Isua.  Whenever I thought about politics, both in the Holy Land and in the USA, I would sit with Greenlandite and pray that we can learn to live together in peace.  On my toughest days, I talked things out with a therapist and with a life coach.  My coach was originally a customer.  She reached out to me and asked if I could use some support.  Turns out, her specialty is helping passionate leaders protect their mental health so they can fulfill their mission.  I feel so incredibly lucky to have so many good people and focused tools.

During the weekends, I took art classes in charcoal and oil painting, mostly realistic portraits and figure drawing.  This style of art is very good for me. The teacher keeps repeating, “slow down” and “draw what you see, not what you think is there.”  It’s very soothing to my heart and mind.  When I’m standing at my easel, my mind is quiet.  It’s blissful.  I just draw what I see.

Doing good ethical work has the same kind of energy.  Slow down.  See what is actually there, don’t presume what it should be.

During the year I also become fascinated with math for the first time in my life.  I’m a historian, I don’t do math.  I find myself reading math books when I’m not painting and I LOVE it.  There is a gorgeous logic that I’m unlocking and I can feel it changing my brain.

Doing good ethical work has the same kind of energy.  Be logical.  Work the problem.  Find the correct answer.

It’s now January 2025 and my business has begun its 11th year.  I’m still here.  Traffic is stabile and for the moment, Google likes me.  Every morning before work I read a passage of stoic philosophy and wrestle with it.  I’m currently obsessed with the philosopher Epictetus (50-135 CE).  He was born a slave in the Roman Empire and worked in the palace of Emperor Nero.  He wrote about understanding what is in your control and what is not.  As a former slave, he experienced control at that most visceral level.  His teachings are incredibly grounded and I love grappling with his philosophy in my everyday life and in my business.  Considering the current political situation, his lessons are very timely.

Doing good ethical work has the same kind of energy.  Know what you can control and what you can’t. Endure what you must. Choose good habits and take great care of the present moment.

Today’s passage from Epictetus ended with this line, “If you are supposed to be a reader, read; if you are supposed to be a writer, write.”

So here we are.  Bring on Year 11, I’m ready for it.

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