by Mo Davies…….
The Crazy Crone…..
If you rolled your eyes at my article last week click here about my work with crystals and you thought I was a bit flaky, fear not, because it’s exactly what my husband does. He is very logical and I’m very off-the-planet. In fact he was quite mortified when I suddenly hopped into the crystal work and is still threatening to dig a big hole and bury my crystals. But since I threatened to pile all his n-gauge model railway gear on top before he filled the hole, we’ve reached a bit of a truce!
I know that for many people the idea of working with crystals in our daily lives seems quite whacko but when you look through the annals of history, you can see that people – from ordinary through to kings and queens – have felt drawn to have crystals and gemstones in their lives. Indeed, the more expensive the gemstone – diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald, etc., – the more it’s been a symbol of royal or very wealthy status.
Lapis Lazuli – mostly composed of Lazurite, Sodalite, Calcite and Pyrite – is a rich medium to royal blue with gold flecks (pyrites) and has been associated through the ages with royalty, gods and power, spirit and vision. In today’s times, just think of the jewellery collection of the Queen of England and you can see how stones like the Koh-I-Noor diamond are not only renowned for their value but also the history of the stone’s powers.
I’m happy to say that my own collection of rocks, stones and gemstones is on a far more modest scale. Happy because they are relatively inexpensive and happy because I haven’t needed to insure them nor have fears about burglars breaking in to steal the valuable gemstones which don’t exist in my own collection!
Before I go any further, I felt it would appropriate at this stage to talk briefly about our logical and intuitive qualities which, hopefully, might make working with crystals more easily understood. As you can see from the graphic, the left side of our brain governs our logic, words, analysis, mathematical skills, and so on. The right side of our brain governs imagination, intuition, creativity and so on. Neither one is better than the other, but we work more effectively if we can combine the two and achieve a balanced approach to our way of living.
As an example, when I sold crystals I’d often get people come in who’d read a book about crystals (using their logical side), picked out the one they thought suited their needs, only to walk out with something completely different because it was that one that drew their attention (using their intuitive side). You can read all the logic you like in books but once you start inter-acting with crystals, intuition kicks in whether you like it or not and your feelings draw you to the crystal you’re meant to interact with.
So on to what I’ve collected over the years. This past week I’ve revamped my work studio so I thought I’d share some pics of my crystal collection and talk generally about how I work with crystals. Most of my stones have been bought on eBay in the US, Australia and the UK, as well as at gem fairs in Australia. I always wait until I’m attracted to a stone then consider purchasing it. It does, of course, have to be within my means as I’m on an age pension and many is the time I’ve lusted over hugely expensive crystals in the knowledge I’ll have to admire them from afar due to their cost. I’ll give you one example – crystals from the Messina mine in South Africa very often have the rare papagoite and/or ajoite included in the clear quartz but, as the mine has now pretty much been exhausted, prices for these stones can go into the thousands of dollars. I do have some ajoite and papagoite but in a very cheap form rather than the papagoite- and/or ajoite-included quartz pieces.
I have always worked on the basis of gathering rocks to my collection to which I’m drawn rather than for their name or rarity, and it’s worked well with me. I started off by voraciously reading as many books about crystals as I could but, over the years, I’ve come to understand that the only rules that count are ones that suit you. And I’ve reached this conclusion not just from my own experience, but from watching people interact with crystals and rocks.
When I started selling crystals, I’d usually have bowls of the relatively cheap tumbled stones of amethyst, clear quartz, amethyst, aventurine, jasper and so on. All the stones looked alike but people would fossick through them until they found one that they’d grab and state was for them. And as I wrote above, people would come in for one stone, and go out with a completely different one. So it seems to me that, while you might have a general consensus that rose quartz – a lovely pink stone, readily available and cheap too – relates to love. But within that paradigm, each stone has a unique energy for a particular person.
I have dreamed about crystals and connected with them the next day – the first time up in Scotland where I dreamed about a stone beginning with “i”. I wasn’t sure whether it was iolite or indicolite, both blue stones, indicolite being blue tourmaline and very expensive. The next day I went to a mind, body, spirit fair in Aberdeen, asked a lady at the first gemstone stall I saw whether she had any indicolite and she had one piece, a polished tumble stone, which was just within my budget and which she hadn’t yet displayed. The iolite I found later when I had moved to the north of England and came across a gem quality pendant, small, again within my price range, and which I won on an eBay auction.
Another piece was what is called a growth interference clear quartz crystal which I saw on US eBay the next day and won in the auction.
It’s only one form of clear quartz crystal so in my next article I’ll look at the various types of clear quartz as there’s a huge variety of shape and form.
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