altar creation spread

If you didn't know, one of my passions is altar making. I have an altar 100% of the time on my bookcase in my meditation room. On one side, i always have a crystal grid going, just to raise the vibration of the room and my soul work. On the other side (because the bookcase is long and thin), I place a statue of a goddess or angel, or a picture, or a statue or fetish of the animal medicine I'm working with. Then more crystals, ones that work with the crystal grid or medicine wheel I have on the other side. I change it out depending on the holy day or sabbat, my soul work or journey work, shadow issues that arise, messages I am getting from Spirit, Animal Medicine, health or family crisis...whenever I am facing a new challenge, passion or phase in my life, I look to the altar first. 

I have been facing so many different exciting changes and circumstances. My health journey has been challenging this year. My work life has expanded with hibiscus moon and then my client base in harrisburg is always expanding and changing. My soul work has been on a nice even keel, and then I went to SouLodge Earth Medicine Gathering and uncovered many layers of what I need to do. Where do I even start with all this?

Well, that was my question. Where to start? Where does Spirit want me to start with all that information? Being an intuitive isn't always so clear cut. I get tons of messages. Right now, my dreaming is through the roof (Last night, i dreamed an incredible dream, and then when it was done, I decided to have that dream again, and then reworked it into a new dream with a new ending. Talk about lucid dreaming on steroids!) And sometimes I get that analysis paralysis, or rather information overload!

Because of all this soul work, I have rededicated myself to morning journaling and daily tarot pulls. AND WOWEE! it is awesome. What is awesome is finding a new passion for something I do so often for other people. When you pull tarot for clients, you often don't pull for yourself. Part of it is that i easily dismiss my messages--yeah, yeah, I need to stop being so hard on myself. Okay. Scoop up the cards, and immediately forget the message. So, journaling keeps you accountable, and I decided to play and explore some new decks beyond my beloved Rider-Waite, specifically the Chrysalis deck by Toney Brooks and Holly Sierra as well as Motherpeace by Karen Vogel and Vicki Noble. I've been using the BOOK! (I always joke with my students about getting OFF BOOK! and now I am back ON BOOK [and incidentally loving being on book. I even went on Rachel Pollack's book with the Rider Waite just to keep it going.]) 

All of this is to say, this morning, I tweaked a spread I do for myself for creating altars when I have a short attention span and cannot figure out what to focus on. It incorporates Oracle decks with Tarot; in fact, it incorporated four additional oracle decks--Visions Crystal Oracle, my own oracle deck called Cycles, of which there is only one deck and it is all about ritual, The Wild Unknown Animal Spirit deck and the Ascended Master deck by Doreen Virtue. Then I used the Chrysalis Tarot deck for my main work, which has guides in and of itself. (Such a fantastic deck. I was at first obsessed with the pips, but now, I cannot get enough of the Majors. Ariadne is stalking me, I swear. And Kali for that matter.)

Anyway, here is the spread as I pulled it:

So much of what this reading said to me was that it was time to allow transformation to happen. The shadow work here is around letting go, surrender and joy. I often struggle with joy. Joy is a bugger for me. So, this work with snake centers around this shedding of control and desire to figure it all out. The ritual card here is one I created called Enso, Imperfection. I used to have a fairly steady and daily enso painting practice. I don't paint ensos anymore--life got complicated with my adventurous two year old. But I decided to paint a rock to remind me of this for my altar, using this enso ritual as a jumping off point to explore an imperfect creative practice to funnel some energy.

Here is the altar and grid that arose from this spread:

You also can play with this spread, as I have compiled a little easy Tarot Layout for you to incorporate into your practice. In fact, I created a few of these for Pinterest, since I use SO MANY pinterest layouts these days, having not so recently discovered that they exist. Enjoy and share, if you can. It is great to have a Tarot community to bounce ideas off of. LOVE to YOU!

crystal storage

I acknowledge my poor neglected blog, so this year, I want to focus more energy on my blog, newsletter, and writing about my work (and maybe finishing one of those books I have started). I am going to mix it up with pieces about tarot, crystals, soul work, incorporating mysticism and shamanic work into your life, earth medicine, and earth centered parenting. So, I thought I would answer some of these questions on my blog, have some conversations with people in the community, and just muse on my own. So, send me your crystal questions, or tarot questions, or spiritual questions you'd like to hear me tackle in the blog. Now onto my musings for today.

When people who begin getting interested in crystals come to my classes, or email me on-line, the questions they generally ask me revolve around normal logistical questions. One of the questions I get the most is "How do you store your crystals?"

I have many ways of keeping my crystals. First, I have this beautiful cabinet that my friend gave me from her father's art studio. They kept his slides for artwork and inspiration. I have kept his letters, and now fill it alphabetically with crystals. I have one of these cabinets at work in my healing studio and one in my home, and yes, they are both filled with crystals. 

Inside this cabinet, I have each crystal in a bag labeled with the crystal name and sometimes the Moh's hardness, etc. These are things I like to know, and even though I am pretty good at identifying crystals, it is much easier to have them listed out and accessible in each drawer. It is my Earth-sign nature to keep things color-coded and alphabetized.

This is primarily for tumblies that I sell or give to clients. I often give little mojo bags to clients. I sometimes have rare smaller crystals that I have one piece of in these cabinets too. For gridding, I have bought art bins and storage bins for art supplies. I find that trying to come up with six crystals of relatively the same size and color can be difficult. I never seemed to have the right amount at the right time, and sometimes I have two extra-large tumblies and four small ones. So, I began collecting and buying crystals six at a time, or if I buy a nice pound or two for a class or the boutique at Alta View Wellness Center , I will nick six of them for gridding. I store them together in these containers. The top open one is for smaller tumbled stones. I always store six stones, as that is sort of the number I use for most of my gridding. The one on the bottom has bigger specimen pieces for gridding or tumblies for gridding. It is about 4" deep. I had them labeled, but they don't completely match anymore to their label. 

I do have larger specimen pieces that I use to center grids, or for altar making. I keep them in our old secretary with fossils, old bottles I collect and other curio items. I keep it them all in my meditation room, so the vibe in there is Ah-mazing. It is probably my favorite place in the house.  

For my crystal healing practice, I have to carry my crystals back and forth from my home to the office. I share the room with other healers, and one of them talked about how the vibration is too strong for her clients, so they began traveling. It isn't the easiest situation. Rocks are heavy, and I like to keep a variety available for my clients. So I found this perfect case for them and it has broken and cracked, and I still keep using it because I cannot find another that is exactly the depth and size I need for my practice. I took a picture of it this afternoon after weeding out the crystals I am taking with me to Tucson for the Gem Show, so it isn't as full as normal.

Again, I chakra coordinated it, and it holds nice thick pieces and also small ones stay together. I also keep full layouts I use on people in there. I keep this and some of my items I need for a healing session--like a huge magnetite, selenite wand, eye pillow, pendulums, and a box of lemurians, malachite, smoky quartz point, auralite 23 wand and another laser wand for special work--in a box carrying case from thirty-one bags. Someone once came to a class I had and saw my carrying container and snarkily said, "A shaman carrying a thirty-one bag?!? Now I have seen it all." I don't call myself a shaman, but other people do, and their ideas about what a shaman, mystic or healer is and is not is really none of my business (this should probably be a whole blog post in and of itself!). But my first response was, "Shamans are practical, and this thirty-one bag can carry a whole hell of a lot of stones." It is the most durable bag I have. Seriously! 

That was a serious tangent. A tangent supreme.

AT any rate, the whole reason all of this came up is that I am trying to find a way to carry a very pared down version of my healing kit to Tucson without exceeding the weight limit in my bag, busting crystals or otherwise causing crystal mayhem. So, I went searching on-line and found my friend and fellow ACM Paula Martin's etsy shop with these cute little chakra bags that zipper. Then I bought a cool larger bag from East and Market. And it fits everything.

I love that it is color coordinated, and I can easily find which crystals go where. It also fits my selenite wand and my huge magnetite, which I posed next to my normal size hand for perspective.

And unbelievably, it all squishes in there. All my chakra stones, a few five + inch crystals (lemurians and smoky) and other smaller crystal points for bridging chakras, plus fifteen hematite for a few layouts...it's amazing and only 8 pounds. (um, maybe I shouldn't say only.)

Eh, voila! So, these are the various ways I carry crystals and store them in my home. How about you? Where do you keep your crystals? How? Let me know in the comments, and don't forget to share what you want to read about on this blog and in my newsletter.

Love,

Angie

crystal healing

I don't love the term crystal healing.
 
This term "healing" filtered through our Western mind invokes this concept of "curing" people or even sound kind of like we are claiming crystals are a panacea. I was recently in a FB group where everyone was rebelling against this term "crystal healing" and more importantly, "crystal healer." They hate it, they said. And I get why. It is the "curing" thing, and the idea of the almighty healer.
 
So, I began looking up these words. Healing literally means "to make whole again." Or perhaps we can see it as re-membering--or bringing all these pieces back into a whole structure. The important part of healing is the whole, as in looking at the whole body, rather than just a single virus, thought, event making one sick.

So much of healing involves acceptance, processing, and dealing. We are re-membering who our soul is, and why we are here. When our bodies are out of alignment, our thinking becomes skewed, our emotions go up and down, our connection to Spirit strains against our suffering. When our body is out of alignment, everything is out of alignment. And conversely, when our thinking is out of alignment, our body is out of alignment. We cannot think of the mind as being separate from our body, or our emotions as having their own agenda, or the body as a traitor. It is all one. It is all you.
 
My friend Carol used to always say, "When you are sick, it is all you can pay attention to." And that is just it, isn't it? When we have pain, imbalance, cancers, illness, it is all we can pay attention to. When our hearts are broken, it is all we can pay attention to. When we have had a trauma, it is all we can pay attention to. When we are doubting God, it is all we can pay attention to. Our body works hard to restore balance and find homeostasis. And when it does, it shuts down the other noise. It is why we forget our purse when we are in raw grief, and why we forget to return calls when we are diagnosed with cancer. We shut down the noise. We reprioritize our life. We are searching for inner balance. We are looking to be whole again.
 
Healing is not one thing. Perhaps that is part of the rebellion with the term "crystal healing." Sometimes healing means releasing something, like literally cutting out a tumor, or like breaking up with a partner who is abusive, or quitting drinking. Other times it means bringing something in, like a medicine, or bringing yoga into the body or an affirmation that helps shift your thinking. But one thing I know is that I would be remiss if I told my clients that all they need is crystals and a prayer. 
 
In my line of work, it is damaging and wrong to steer people away from allopathic medicine or traditional therapy. We walk hand in hand, hopefully. That is not to say we are blind followers of our Primary Care Physician, ingesting every pill we are prescribed. But most importantly, we are not adversaries, as many paint us to be. The biggest gift we can give ourselves and our practitioners is to be informed, do research, and take responsibility for our own healing. And think of ourselves as having all these resources available to us for healing.
 
My clients come to me with a physical ailments. Other times it is an emotional issue--grief or heartbreak. Even further I have people with spiritual maladies, searching for God or a connection to their guides. And many times, they simply want to release from thinking, overthinking, analysis paralysis, stuckness. Crystals work for all these issues, because they are not focusing on the physical over the emotional, or the spiritual over the physical, but because they are re-membering. The stone medicine brings all of our Selves  (mental, emotional, physical and spiritual) into one, or rather helps us remember they already are one and re-member them, bringing them back into alignment. So, I don't prescribe a stone that only works to heal the physicality of a pain or bruise. I use a stone that works on many levels--the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual.
 
When we seek healing, we seek to bring it all into alignment with each other. If we simply seek the doctor to heal the physical body, we leave out vital parts of our re-membering journey. So we use doctors, medicine people, therapists, friends, yogis, dance instructors, artist teachers, mentors. We seek to make ourselves whole. We re-member our spiritual self, our mental self, our physical body and our emotional body, bringing it back into one being of light.
 
Healing may be a clunky term for our Western minds. But when we seek to be whole, we find ourselves on the journey to re-membering who we are and why we are here. Amazing work for a little word.

changes

We're so grateful for this deeply precious life. Looking around, we see your love in all things. Allow us to feel more blessed than baffled, more clear than confused, and to let go of the ropes we've bound so tightly around our own fighting arms.
-- Pixie Lighthorse From "Honoring Release" a prayer in her new book, Prayers of Honoring
 
My mentor Pixie Lighthorse just came out with a book of prayers called Prayers of Honoring. The humility in each word, the grace, shifts me. It makes me want to write my own prayers and songs, particularly of change, release, and transition, and so I do. As Vulture medicine comes in, transformation and change pushes right on my heart chakra, right on my back in between my shoulder blades. I sit to catch my breath sometimes. Shifts, reinvention, transformation, I mistake it for a person pushing, sometimes. Urging me forward. I have been looking at my offerings and classes, my ways of doing things, (including this newsletter,) my parenting and partnering, my self-care and diet. I can feel shifts, major earthquakes, within me, breaking me open, helping my spirit soar. It reminds me of what my friend Delfina says, "The ego cannot tell the difference between annhiliation and transformation." 

Nearly a year ago, I saw my first client at Alta View Wellness Center. We had just bought our wee farmette, and I was three months pregnant. I knew virtually no one in the area, yet Sharon Muzio took a chance on this earthy, knocked up, goofball mystic. She gave me an opportunity to offer crystal healing to Central Pennsylvania, offer classes in Tarot, art, and crystals, circling up women seekers on the moons with the deep medicine of the Earth. I will always be grateful for her trust in me. I have met such incredible women and healers here, learned about deep reserves of wisdom and medicine keeping within me.
 
As I began, Kate Pruiett and I partnered up just as she was finishing up her crystal healing certification with Hibiscus Moon. We have had an incredible first year here at Alta View Wellness Center, offering classes on crystals, monthly workshops and crystal healing events. It has been exciting to build this presence in Central Pennsylvania, and gather men and women who resonate with crystals to delve deeper into their connection. Through this year, Kate and I have enjoyed a fun and comfortable working relationship, building on each other's strengths, honoring the other's cycles and trials. Through co-teaching the crystal classes, we have shared our love of stone medicine with many people here.
 
As happens, life shifts and morphs, obligations from afar call us, and we shift and flow with life. Kate and I honestly looked at our work together and our future. Kate decided to step back from Crystal Healing at Alta View Wellness to focus on her passion, Reiki.  She teaches all of the Reiki curriculum at Alta View (Reiki II is offered this August 8), as well as leads the Reiki Shares and offers sessions throughout the week. I so enjoy teaching with her, but also honor her decision. We gratefully move forward as colleagues and friends. 
 
For my clients, I will still be offering crystal healing sessions as I always have. I will still be teaching the crystal workshops on the first Thursday of the month, albeit alone, and leading all the crystal healing events by myself. I anticipate they will also shift and change as I move into a rhythm of teaching and presenting as one person instead of two. I know I will be offering more Crystal Healing Events which are great ways of experiencing a group meditation and crystal healing session while I play bowls. I feel called to do more meditation and channeled work for those events, so stayed tuned.

from my last medicine bundle circle, our tools laid out for us.

For my other Alta View Classes, I am going to be revamping my medicine bundle circles and creating a more connected circle for those souls who choose that path. We will meet more often during the bundle work, as well as be connected throughout the process. It will be more expensive, but well-worth the money. The medicine is powerful, and those who sign up for that work need more support and more mentorship than I had been offering. In that vein, I will also be offering more moon circles that incorporate journeying and work with the cycle of the moon. These will be love donation circles so we can welcome more sisters into the fold here. It is a great way to connect with like-minded people. I was also asked to offer a monthly art workshop, and this is something I am still kicking around, but hope to start in Autumn. I have also revamped the Introduction to Tarot class offered in October of this year, making the classes longer and more in-depth. I am also publishing my newsletters as blog posts, so that you may comment on them there, joining a discussion. The link will be at the bottom of the email for you to connect to.
 
For my newsletter and on-line presence, I am committed to offering on-line Tarot classes in the upcoming months, so if you are interested, let me know. As always, I offer distance Tarot readings, and crystal healing sessions for those who live far away. They are powerful gifts. I also wanted your feedback, as I have been sending out my musings newsletter separately from an events newsletter. I have lost quite a few non-local people after my last events email, saying it didn't apply to them. I have created a local newsletter list for those who want information on my classes and events. If you want to opt into the Local Events, listing basically all my classes and events at Alta View Wellness Center, please fill out this opt in sheet. Otherwise, my events will always be listed at my website and on the sidebar of my email. And in case you missed it, my crystal mentor, Hibiscus Moon, interviewed me for her blog. You can read more about my philosophy of healing there. 
 

Thank you, Great Spirit, for this amazing holy day. Thank you for the dirt and the seeds, the fruit and the compost. Thank you for the bird and insect songs that fill the air--songs of family, of growth, of warning, of summer. Thank you for the process of emerging from shells, as difficult and uncomfortable as it makes us. Thank you for the process that builds our strength. Thank you for the mysteries and knowns and all that I experience in between. Thank you for the discomfort with those places, as I remember my own smallness in the wake of your large, unspeakable love. Thank you for the moon moving within me. Thank you for the heat, which makes us easy with each other. Thank you for this most amazing day.

 

 

vultures and septarian

One of my chickens stepped in front of me on Sunday, panting, wings semi-extended, clearly uncomfortable. Heat exhaustion. We splashed her hearty winter feathers with cold water, and got her into the shade. Energetically, the heat exhausts me too. The summer's long days and humid beauty hang on me like a cloak. I hide behind it, shield myself from the blaring light of July, from the summer people. I love the heat, but only when I am alone, drenched in her, digging deep into her wisdom. I find moments with tea and bathing, but it's not the same as in Winter. My children bicker, and give up on playing outside. The baby began to crawl, tearing through anything not nailed down--exploring, curious, ravenous for extremely tiny things that can kill him. I must be diligent and extroverted in my home. Meh, it is not my nature, but I'm not a monster. I adapt and shine and extrovert.

Midsummer and midwinter feel the same to me. Inward journeys with shadow and light. Introspective, deep. What needs tending? I ask myself. What needs nurturing? What does self-care look like right now? It is different in the different  cycles of the year, month and even day. My evening care is much different than my morning. My winter care is much different than my summer. Right now, my self-care looks like cleaning out closets, sparse meals with juicy sticky fruit, afternoon naps with the baby when I sneak them in, pulling weeds in the early morning, and reading snippets of books I love. I take a moment by the windows watching the butterflies drink from my Echinacea. Five minutes with a cup of tea and Women who Run With Wolves, or 78 Degrees of Wisdom. I refound the General Wolf Rules of Life, one morning, and nodded along. It is my practice to surrender to whatever comes my way. I tend to work less with many stones in the summer, and work more intensely with one or two.

 In June, I dreamt for three consecutive nights about Septarian, the beautiful stone that combines the energies of calcite and aragonite and dead sea creatures. I had no Septarian, but Spirit nudged gently. My Instagram feed showed three Septarians in one day, and an advertisement shows up on every website I click on featuring Septarian. Sure, there are logarithms, and techy bullshit that makes that happen, but I bite. I ordered one from my favorite on-line shop.

Dragon egg.
 
She looks like a dragon egg and I feel blown open by her energy, which is simultaneously grounding and cosmic. Through my work with Pixie's Earth Medicine school, I journey with her to the Lower World, and meet her as a goddess wrapped in black. Her energy came to me just as the energy of the beautiful Turkey Vulture entered as well. I no longer read books written by other people and their experiences with stones, I have been making my own notes and observations. As the Septarian fell into my receptive palm, I saw the shadow of the Great Mother, Turkey Vulture. She could be a black Dragon, I think, as I watch her circle above the cornfield. Could they be intricately tied?  And in the weeks that followed, two large vulture feathers crossed my path, literally sitting in the middle of the road to my house.

Last year, when we moved here, the vultures appeared. Thirty or forty of them resting on the hay bales down the street, wings outstretched like my heat-exhausted hens. It was the first time I ever worked with Vulture Medicine, and I shied away from it. Vulture? Really? I'd rather work with Owl, or Hawk, or Lion, something less, uh, creepy. As I shied away, the vultures stopped congrugating at the dead tree. My teacher Pixie often says, "If you don't honor the medicine, it will go away."
 
I missed the vultures when they left. I searched for them constantly, pointing them out way off in the distance to the children. I told the young ones in our kids meditation circle the story of Vulture.  Personally, I started intensely meditating on Mother Vulture and her role. How valuable, important, and amazing a creature the Vulture is. When she appeared again this summer, I was ready for her energy, dark and powerful as it is. I was ready to release what was not serving. Again and again, as many times as necessary.This time around, I ask Vulture to help me honor, release and transmute, so I don't have to do this particular bloody work again.
 
Releasing. Transmuting. Mothering the self. These are the medicine of Vulture, and now, perhaps, Septarian. As for me, Septarian and Vulture will be intertwined. We get lost, us caregivers, in the mothering of every one and every thing else in our lives. When we ask for our medicine to come, whatever shape that may be, we open to our own truth and comfort. We find self-care through the lessons of that medicine. We must find these moments in extreme heat and extreme cold to search within us for a safe haven, a place to rest our weary spirits and do the work of caring for our souls.

reading and writing about crystals

This piece has been reprinted from my newsletter shared last summer. 

I write about crystal healing a great deal, and exploring different topics on my blog. One thing I would be remiss not to talk about is the entire idea of writing about crystals to begin with. If you are interested in crystals, then you have no doubt perused crystal books in any number of metaphysical bookshops. There are quite a few established writers about crystal energies, and don't get me started on geological books about stones. So, where do you start? Who is right? How do they know?
 
There are some geological facts of crystals that are very important for you to know when working with crystals--Mohs hardness, crystalline structure, where the crystal is most likely found, and which minerals make up the crystal. Those should be consistent from book to book. I would expect, or perhaps, demand that my crystal book list these things. For someone working more in-depth for crystals, these things help when you are creating crystal grids, elixirs, or bathing with the stone. It is also important to know crystal structure and Mohs hardness for identification purposes. Knowing where the crystal comes from can help you from being defrauded when buying crystals on-line. For example, Chinese Fluorite is often sold as Chinese Chaorite--Charoite being a much more rare and expensive stone. Knowing that Chaorite comes from the Charo River region of Siberia would help you recognize that this might not be a real piece. Some books tell  you the rarity of a stone, which is nice, since I can't tell you how many times I went searching for a stone to find it the size of my pinky nail and sold for $300. I don't make that a deal breaker for a book though.
 
After these geological facts about a crystal, all the information in these books are gleaned from personal experience, traditional uses, and mythology. Some crystal writers, like Katrina Raphaell and Naisha Ahsian have channeled information about crystals. Judy Hall, a psychic and healer, prolifically writes her crystal information from a combination of the lore of the crystal, research, and intuition. Robert Simmons is a craftsman who began working with crystals through jewelry design and later really exploring their metaphysical properties. Melody, the author of Love Is In The Earth, is a scientist who claims all her metaphysical uses for crystals have been produced through a controlled environment and repeated three times.
 
As you begin to look at the same stone in all these different books with all these different writers, you begin to see discrepancies. Judy Hall says this, Naisha Ahsian says that. So, who's right? Maybe the answer is all of them.
 
These teachers, mystics and healers work with these stones for years. Taking notes, feeling energy, distinguishing reactions in themselves and their clients. They really embrace and embody curiosity--curiosity about their body's reaction to vibrations, curious about the stones. I may not agree with a writer's take on a particular stone, but I don't discount that the crystal resonates with that particular writer in that particular way. I have had crystal people tell me I was wrong about a stone, and I just laugh. This is how I work with this crystal. Just like perfumes smell differently on different people, crystals can also resonate differently with different people.
 
But these books give us starting points with stones. This is why I write my crystal blog. I pull from different sources after I have worked with the stone. I see what Judy Hall experienced. Or what Naisha Ahsian uses the stone for.  But in the end, I pull information that resonates with my own experience. And this is what I hope for all of you--that my crystal writing becomes a catalyst to learn more about a particular crystal or stone.
 
Vitally important to crystal work remains your own experience with the stone. Do not rely on my experience or sense of expertise. Yes, I am a crystal master, but I am just a human being, like Judy Hall and Naisha Ahsian. My beginning point with a new stone is to sit in meditation quietly with it. I remove any crystal jewelry or pocket crystals. (As I have gotten more into crystals, I wear FAR less than I did before. One crystal or intention at a time on my body now.) I take a notebook with me. Place it in my receptive hand (non-dominant).  And I listen.
 
So often the key to working with a crystal is just getting quiet. What are you feeling? What thoughts are popping into your head? What images? Where do you feel tingly in your body? What feels open? What feels closed? Sometimes you feel nothing. And that is cool. When that happens, I change the placement of the stone. I may lie down and place it on my third eye, or on my heart. Did that change anything? If not, I may decide to work with that stone for a few days straight. Keep it in my pocket. Take it to bed. Allow the messages to come all day, if necessary. What has been my dominant mood? What chakra does it work with?
 
When I establish how the crystal resonates with me, I then work with the crystal in sessions with clients, or with my amenable husband. How is my client reacting? I develop an idea of this stone. Often times, my experience with a stone mirrors another crystal teacher's or writer's experience. Sometimes it does not.  I think the best advice a crystal teacher can give you is to empty your mind in a store. Pretend to know nothing about crystals, and just be receptive. Where are you drawn? What crystal looks prettiest? What looks ugliest? Which one are you avoiding? Which one are you drawn to? And then buy the one that you feel strongest about (either repulsed or attracted.) Begin working with it. Great magic comes from that beginner's mind.
 

summer solstice

Ah, the Northern Hemisphere is starting to heat up on its slow crawl toward summer sostice. The Earth tilts toward the sun, honoring its beautiful fire. Solstice is a perfect time to explore your intentions, dreams, and set goals, like in my Creative Visioning class at Alta View Wellness. For each solstice and equinox, I create a seasonal altar and grid to help me harness that energy and maintain the beautiful vibration of the solar and lunar energy of this time. So much of the celebration of the solstices honor the Sun and the movement around the wheel of the year. 

I thought I would share some solstice stones to include in your Litha or Summer Solstice altars, celebrations and grids to help you harness that gorgeous vibration and work with it around this time. 

Let's start at one o'clock. Fire Agate captures the essence of fire. This stone holds the essence of physicality and strength. It is a stone of vitality and sexuality. So much of that sexual fire translates to creative fire. It inspires, ignites and intensifies one's passions and emotions. I couldn't think of a more apt stone on your Summer Solstice altar.

At five, I included raw Carnelian. My friend Joe from Crystals and Crafts sent me this beauty, which I have been working with in Medicine Bundle since the new moon of the Spring Equinox. The energy of Carnelian  vibrates at a physical level. It helps stimulate the first three chakras, and again ignites a kind of passionate dance with the Self. It's an amazing ally for courage and for self-realization. Creative fire sparks with Carnelian, and because of its help with certain literary homework in our house, it is nicknamed "the Poetry stone", as poetry and writing can't help but flow around Carnelian. I love Carnelian in all its forms, you have probably seen it in a thousand grids in my home, but I particularly love raw Carnelian.  

At six o'clockish, Sunstone beckons the long Solstice sun.  Sunstone stimulates that idea of enlighened leadership. Enlightened leadership utilizes this idea that true leadership is being of service, rather than being in control. And so Sunstone helps align self will and Divine will. It is a strong fire stone, again for Summer Solstice, it is important to honor the element of fire (and often water hand in hand.) Sunstone emanates, as Naisha Ahsian says, the Solar Ray. This is my experience of Sunstone as well, and I often use it in the center of Solstice Tarot readings, and other times I am invoking the sun and Father Sky.

At seven o'clockish is Citrine. This is a natural polished Citrine, and it does have a different vibration than heat treated Citrine, which is not to say one is better than the other. I simply prefer natural Citrine for Solstice altars and work.  It holds that pure fire energy, and emanates a golden ray. Most Citrine has smoky quartz within its matrix, and so that combination is amazingly grounding, helping one truly manifest one's desires and dreams, as it grounds the manifestor into realistically setting goals. 

At nine o'clock, Tangerine Quartz points toward that sexual, creative self. It inspires curiosity, playfulness and innocence. I used to always shy away from stones with fruit in the name. My teacher says most fruity named stones are dyed or faked, but Tangerine Quartz is an exception. This year, as I battle some sacral issues, I have really worked deeply with Tangerine Quartz. My personal specimen has both a past timeline and future timelink, which was incredibly helpful, as I was healing both my present sacral, past traumas and fears held in the womb, and then trying to heal any future trauma there. I love the lightness of being that Tangerine Quartz brought to my womb. It is a place of birth and creativity, not pain and fear. And Tangerine Quartz seemed to capture that for me. Whereas Carnelian can be a strong, masculine feel in the sacral area, Tangerine Quartz feels less violent and war-like. It is more like a gentle hand on the shoulder, rather than a full metal shield for protection there, and it is incredibly healing. 

At the eleven o'clock area here is Dogtooth Calcite, which is also called Stellar Beam Calcite. I just love this rock. My goodness. Stellar Beam is a wonderful ally for connecting with angels and guides. They are a stone of light, and connect the Higher Chakras with Divine Will. I included it with this grouping for Summer Solstice because they carry the golden ray, and in that way, connect with the power of the Sun.

Creating grids is my jam, you know. This Summer Solstice grid is simple and beautiful, and captures the fiery Sun energy for Solstice. Centered with a Carnelian sphere, the first circle includes natural Citrine, the second contains Sunstone, and the third contains Carnelian and white arrowheads to help direct my energy and cut through any blockages arising for me right now. I used a flower of life woods grid from Eternal Glyphics. Another wonderful way to create a grid is to include flowers in the grid itself. Of course, it doesn't last as long, but it is a wonderful addition to a Solstice circle or party.

You can also create your own gorgeous sun drink with Golden Milk. The main ingredient of Golden Milk is Turmeric, which is an anti-inflammatory. This is my main reason for drinking it. I am new to the whole Golden Milk thing, but I am in love with it. I could bath in it, honestly. Or marry it, even though my husband would be jealous. It is perfect. When I am taking in tea, juice or drinks as medicine, I like to create a wee grid around it, and charge it with Reiki. Not only does it satisfy my ritualistic itch, it slows me down, appreciate the small beauty we can create around us. And I am worth a little grid making, no?

Golden Milk is a simple recipe--a cup of almond milk, coconut milk or other milk product. I don't do dairy, so I made this one with coconut milk. One teaspoon of dried Turmeric, one teaspoon of Ginger, and a sprinkle or two of black pepper. Then honey to taste. I put the milk, turmeric, ginger and pepper in the blender, and mix is up. Then I pour into a saucepan and add raw honey to tast, warming it slowly. It is simply sun in a cup.

I wrote about Summer Solstice visioning in my latest newsletter. You can read that here: Visioning. I am promising to be on the blog more. I also am going to be rewriting/revisiting some old newsletter topics and re-publishing them on my blog, so let me know if you have some oldies, but goodies you are interested in seeing.

crystals for pregnancy

Okay, so I thought I would take this opportunity in my pregnancy to talk about some great crystals for pregnancy and fertility support. Again, crystal healing is a complementary healing modality, and can work vibrationally to help facilitate healing. I am not a doctor. But see a doctor too, particularly in pregnancy. Disclaimer over!

From 12 O'clock, Carnelian sphere, Garnet, Orange Calcite, raw Carnelian, and Fire Agate.

Crystals can be amazing allies in pregnancy and for fertility support. You can run the gamut with crystals for pregnancy support and fertility issues. Sacral Chakra stones often help support good uterine health and energies, so you can always turn to our tried and true favorites when you are trying to conceive--Carnelian and Orange Calcite are two perennial favorites of mine. I love the deep red stones also for Fertility support like Ruby, Garnet (Almandine and Spessartine are great allies), Fire Agate and Cuprite are some personal favorites. Shiva Lingam is a great support for all issues dealing with the reproductive system in both men and women.

Pregnancy itself is a time of great ungrounding. You are nauseated, headache-y, spacey...those are all signs of ungrounding. Things that make you go hmmmmm...so grounding stones can often be the best friend of a newly pregnant person. As your pregnancy progresses, we often find ourselves unstable from our new center of gravity, so these stones are wonderful for that too. Most of the time, I recommend the dark stones of Smoky Quartz and Black Tourmaline, but for pregnancy, think RED! Red Jasper is a great ally for this work, Mookaite as well, Red Calcite, and Garnet. 

For nausea associated with morning sickness and pregnancy, Golden Apatite is my Go-To. I created some gem water with Golden Apatite and steeped some ginger tea with it. Kicks out the swirly yuckies.

Stones for anxiety, high blood pressure and pre-eclampsia from Upper Right, Lepidolite, Lithium Quartz, Sodalite, Petalite in the middle, Rhodochrosite, Larimar, and two more pieces of Lepidolite. 

If you are diagnosed with High Blood Pressure, pre-eclampsia or are going through anxiety, some wonderful allies are Petalite (MY GO-TO!), Sodalite, Lithium Quartz, Lepidolite, Rhodochrosite, and Larimar. Any issues with gestational diabetes can be helped with Honey Calcite, Chrysocolla, and Sodalite. Anemia often arises in pregnancy and Bloodstone is wonderful for that, as is Tiger Iron.

For all around pregnancy support, my absolute hands-down favorite stone is Moonstone. It is associated with the Goddess and used during women's moon cycles. It is considered the healing stone for women, and with our deep association with the Moon, I find it healing, feminine and beautifully enhancing of my experience of pregnancy. My teacher Hibiscus Moon has a wonderful post on her take on fertility and pregnancy stones which include a great deal of heart stones. Crystals for Fertility and Pregnancy. Her go-tos are Jade, Rose Quartz, Unakite, and Moonstone--all beautiful resonance for a beautiful pregnancy.

My crystal recommendations have developed during this pregnancy. I'm looking down at ten days before my own labor and birthing for my fifth pregnancy. Yikes. What will I be carrying with me into labor? My Chrysocolla heart will be with me. I am going to be wearing my Moonstone pendants and earrings, so Moonstone out of the wazoo (literally). I think I will keep a piece of Unakite close. It reminds me of my mentor Hibiscus Moon and brings the heart and Mother Earth earth together. Garnet is a must-have for me. I might grid the bed in Garnets. Petalite in my bra to keep my blood pressure and anxiety down. And a Ruby to rub on my belly during labor. My children love doing this for me, so it will give them some good mojo for our laboring.  

My laboring bag will include from Left to right, Garnet, Petalite, Moonstone pendant on Labradorite and earrings, Moonstone Angel gifted to me from Peter Jarvis of L.A. Crystal Energies, and my Chrysocolla heart sitting in front of my beautiful Gaia statue given to me by my husband. 

So, what crystals have you worked with for pregnancy? What are your go-to for fertility work? Share your experience below and let me know what you thought of this post. Smooches.

using crystals in your environment

Tonight, my partner Kate Pruiett and I are honored as always to teach the monthly Crystal Workshop at Alta View Wellness Center. We are covering Manifesting Abundance tonight, and it couldn't be more needed and important right now for so many of us. We are going to be covering the root and solar plexus chakras, abundance stones, and changing our thinking that keeps up trapped in a poverty mindset. It should be a ton of fun.

This crystal bowl sits in my guest bathroom for guests to explore and use in their own ways.

One thing we touch on tonight is ways to use abundance crystals in your daily life. We talk gem elixirs, grids, Feng Shui, mojo bags, and more. One of my favorite ways to use crystals is to put them in my environment. In my extra bathroom, I have a beautiful bowl of crystals that I encourage my visitors to touch, explore, even grab and take a crystal that calls to them. These crystals I purchased in a pound of mixed crystals from one of my favorite shops. I used it in my early studies to learn how to identify some crystals, and now have the bowl as a way for my kids, family and friends to have to same awe I do at the variety and beauty of crystals.

I also keep crystals on my altar space to reflect the personal spiritual work I am doing. As I move into Visual Quest this month with Pixie Lighthorse, I constructed a creativity grid, and keep some powerful third and second chakra stones on my altar, including Tiger Iron and Fire Agate. Throughout the year, I keep my quartz cluster on my altar all the time, as a staple of the clarity I desire. These stones and the symbols I keep on my altar tend to reflect my personal work, but as a family, we also set intentions and focus on group work.

My current altar features a creativity grid with Carnelian and Clear Quartz. A Red Tail Hawk wing sits behind my Buddha with some owl feathers, a Tiger Iron chunk, two Fire Agates,and some clear quartz.

On my side board, I have two turkey wings, a Red Jasper Sphere, Copper and some pine cones and Pumpkins from our yard.

To reflect that family work and spirit, I keep crystals in our shared spaces. The heart of our family is our open concept kitchen, dining room and living room. Throughout the year, I change my side board and hutch decor to reflect the seasons, including crystals and symbols that are meaningful to my family. In our living, I always keep this beautiful wooden basket my mother gave me. I change the crystals inside the basket to reflect the Wheel of the Year and my family's growing and changing intentions. One of our favorite themes is abundance, and this is a great way to use crystals.

Choosing a beautiful vessel for your crystals is important. Something you love like a beautiful shallow pottery bowl, wooden bowl or basket, glass, or even a gemstone carved bowl filled with stones, herbs and important symbols for your intention. In an Abundance Basket, you might have Citrine, Green Aventurine, Pyrite, Tiger Eye, or Carnelian with Calendula or Sage with acorns (symbols of building stable roots) or feathers, symbols of working with your angels, or soaring high. Whatever you choose will be perfect for you. 

This Abundance basket contains Smoky Quartz, Citrine and Carnelian with sage.

I often include an intention in the basket, and charge it as a grid with Reiki or energy healing. My children love to help me with this. We always start with a prayer and a statement of our gratitude. We each list something we are grateful for, and I am the one that often thanks Great Spirit for the lessons we learned from the last time we set an intention. I often guide them in meditation by telling them to imagine that they are breathing in light from Father Sky through their crown and breathing up light from the Mother Earth through their feet. I then tell them to watch it mix in their heart and turn either a pink or green color (my son's favorite color is green, and my daughter's is pink, so there is a reason for this madness), and then breathe love into the basket. As they are breathing, I state our intention as a family and ask God to remove any obstacles keeping us from obtaining our goals. The kids love taking part in rituals with us.

Our family loves to gather in our living room in front of the fire, and we are always looking at the basket, charging it with our family's love and nurturing. Here are some sacred spaces in our home and ways we use crystals throughout our environment. Share some of your favorite ways to use crystals in your home and with your children.

how to heal the king of cups reversed

Hi Angie, 

I loved your description of the King of Cups posted on January 8, 2014 .

I live with a King of Cups.  She is an empath with strong emotions and equally strong resistance to them, meaning she cannot express them.  As a result, she has extreme difficulty relating to people and is literally breaking apart, spiritually and physically. How does the King of Cups heal himself?

She drew the King of Cups in position two, the crossing card.  I know that only she can heal herself but she has all but given up. Can you provide suggestions or reference material that may help?

Thank you, Yvonne

Wow, Yvonne, what a fantastic question. It really nails why I read Tarot and what I think the goal of Tarot should be--to read the energy around a situation and find a path to healing.

The King of Cups generally embodies both the positive and negative attributes of any suit. Remember that when you are reading and a Court Card comes up either in the upright or reversed position, most people aren't all positive attributes or all their shadow (though some people might project all shadowy elements in a certain situation, like work.) Particularly in the obstacle position, we can see how the King of Cups' shadow attributes can be the challenge for the person, rather than their strength. You can read about the King in this post, I am not going to rewrite what that person looks like. 

The Cups rule emotions, so the Heart and Sacral Chakras are really illuminated with Cups people. Though Heart is traditionally an Air element chakra, it seems more fitting to me and in Tarot work to be associated with Water. Emotions and what we feel are intrinsically tied to Cups people. Sacral chakra, ruling our sex relations as well as creative endeavors, is also a Water chakra, so we can see how our emotions and sexual relations often are fundamentally tied together. Empaths are often represented through Cups Court Cards. What you describe about empaths with strong emotions and equally strong resistance to them is entirely normal. We learn to survive our sensitivities and gifts. If your partner was not taught how to shield her emotions from other people, or not given healthy and strong boundaries as a child, she had to survive that experience through shutting down feeling of emotions. 

We must remember that this survival was necessary for her, rather than punishing it (I am talking more about her punishing herself for not feeling her emotions) to honor it in some way. I always like to do release ceremonies and to thank my shadow self for keeping me together at a time when I had no other allies or emotional tools. (The New Moon is a great time to do this type of ceremony, or the Winter Solstice.) I often thank my alcoholism for getting me through my life. Alcohol worked for me when I had no other emotional tools, but then it stopped working for me, and became the blockage to my emotional growth and connection to other people. When I do a release, I honor the ways in which I survived, but also how I truly want to live. So, release, then invite a new way of being into your life.

I am a huge fan of the book Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff. She has some great insights on how to become self-compassionate, and how to feel an emotion without falling apart, or allowing it to become an obsession. This is another of the reversed King's attributes--being obsessed with a story about a negative emotion. "So and So hurt me, and this is how they hurt me. Isn't So and So a terrible person?" It is being mind-centered, rather than heart centered, and it is a way of not feeling the feeling. Emotions change fairly quickly, but we often sit in the story, because it is more comfortable for us than the emotion. So a story about hurt, betrayal, or chaos becomes more comfortable than anger or forgiveness. I love Pema Chodron's article on anger. But if we sit in anger, and do not react to it, and get deeper with the feeling, we often note it is a deep childhood pain that has arisen again. Often, when someone is empathic, we often see them shut it all down, so they cannot feel emotions at all. But this comes at a deep cost of connection with other humans.

But as you have identified, the King of Cups is a ruler of his emotions, not an escaper. He embodies the wisdom of his Suit, meaning, he has come to understand his own emotions and how to feel the feeling and then move to the next feeling. Kings of Cups who have not learned this lesson come to deal with their emotions in escapist ways, like addiction through alcohol, drugs, food, other people, gambling, anything to get out of the feeling that is uncomfortable. Dealing with addiction, if this is what your King of Cups is facing, is a whole post in and of itself, but naming it, owning it, and getting help is so very vital. You can email me privately if this is something you are facing, and would like some help navigating this part of the healing for King of Cups. But on the larger issue, I would first suggest examining where the fear of emotions comes from--Was it picking up other people's emotions too intensely? Was it being ridiculed or punished for her emotions? Was there no one there to walk with your King of Cups, to allow her to feel her vulnerability in a safe place? There are probably a thousand questions here. Once you identify that, you can take a course of action. 

For the first question, I would say, learn grounding, shielding and empathic tools. There are so many resources online for empaths right now. I recently wrote about my healing work and empathic abilities in my newsletter. I also have written a ton about protection and grounding. This work is so so so important for empaths, healers, lightworkers and any of us who run away from emotions. Ground. Understand one's self. Great stones to help with grounding and shielding are Black Tourmaline, Hematite, Smoky Quartz, Onyx, Obsidian, Garnet, Dravite (Champagne Tourmaline), and Shungite among others. Get barefoot. Visualize your protection shield up in public and know you are allowed to feel your feelings, but not allowed to feel other people's feelings.

 If it was the second, then some healing needs to come around the childhood wounds of being a sensitive person. We often hear, "You are too sensitive" being bandied around as an insult, but it is a beautiful quality to have. To empathize and live in compassion. Of course, it is a detriment if we feel other people's feelings for them, and I have found Pixie Campbell's courses on Shadow work and Boundaries absolutely invaluable in learning about our shadow self and how it plays out in our daily life, and how boundaries are so vital to the empath. (I wrote about working with Shadow here.) Carolyn Myss also does amazing work around understanding and working with the Shadow. Her book Sacred Contracts is a wonderful resource for understanding how archetypes come to play out in our life. Tarot deals with Archetypes too, so I find a natural connection there. One thing that Pixie says is that you can talk to your Shadow self when it begins to rear up. When your King of Cups begins to shut down at an emotional time, she can talk to her Shadow child. "It is okay, babe. I know that used to work for us, but it isn't anymore. I got this one. I am an adult now, I can protect us both." She tells of the image of putting your protective Shadow self in a papoose and carrying her with you. It isn't a punishing stance you take with those instincts, but an understanding that they are no longer working for you.

For the last question, remember that our vulnerability, our authentic self is worthy, beautiful, and compassionate. She wants to emote, express, and be whole in front of someone. This is why she feels broken apart. She is literally broken apart. Her insides aren't matching her outsides. A great practice is to have your King of Cups choose someone to be absolutely herself in front of. This might be you, though do not take it personally if it isn't. We often first have to choose a therapist or neutral third party. Make sure the person is trustworthy. This is the thing-- Vulnerability is a Gift. Each person gets to decide who is worthy of this gift. (Of course, Brene Brown is a wonderful amazing resource in the world of Shame and Vulnerability. If you haven't heard her TED talk, run right now to hear it. I will wait right here.) It is a good thing to practice boundaries and not share all our intimate feelings with everyone we meet. But it becomes a problem when it is no one. Our human push is to connect with others, even us introverts. This person simply will hold space while the person gets comfortable feeling his or her emotions. They may prompt to go deeper into a feeling or story. What was behind that hurt? Go deeper. The most important aspect of this is to make sure this space is safe. The King of Cups's experience in the past was one of ridicule or punishment when they did express emotions, so it really is so vital to ensure she is safe in this space.  When the King of Cups emotes, it will simply be met with what works for her. She may determine that before the session. "If I cry, can you hold me? If I cry, can you cry with me? If I cry, can you simply close your eyes and breathe?" If you are abiding the person crying, resist handing them a tissue. That is often a mark to people that crying is inappropriate and needs to stop. Also know that if she doesn't cry, there is nothing wrong with her. Some people emote by laughing or screaming or moaning.

The goal is to become more heart-centered. What does that mean, exactly? Heart centeredness is, what my teacher called, the Highest Form of Spiritual Love, or rather the unconditional love towards the self and others. To achieve heart centeredness, we must release judgment of ourselves and others. We filter through the heart rather than the mind, and we often work actively to feel our own feelings and not other people's feelings. This work is lifelong work for the Empath. I can tell you in my crystal healing practice I often help my clients move into the heart space energetically through crystal healing, Reiki and simple space holding. Great crystals for heart work are Rhodonite, Rose Quartz, Rhodochrosite, Green Aventurine, Jade, Pink Tourmaline, Ruby in Fuschite, Kunzite, and Watermelon Tourmaline. I often manually open the heart chakra and allow my clients to cry. Touch is also vitally important for water healing, so think massage, Reiki and other healing modalities where gentle touch happens in a safe environment.

Your question reminded me of an episode of a local NPR program on WHYY called Voices in the Family. This episode features Brene Brown and Kristin Neff. Amazing stuff that might help shed some insight too. I hope this helps, and please let me know if you want some follow-up here, or if something doesn't make sense. 

Much love, Angie

angelite

A few months ago, I wrote a post about Angelic Communication. This included information about channeling and working with Angelic energy, and in that post, I wrote about a few stones that I like to work with for Angel work. But lately, I have been so drawn to working with Angelite in my jewelry making and crystal healing work, I thought I would talk a bit more in-depth about Angelite.

Angelite or Blue Anhydrite is mostly found in Peru with a Mohs hardness of 3.5. The blue of Angelite gorgeously resonates with the throat chakra, third eye and crown, making it ideal for channeling and angel work. I have a large, beautiful piece of Angelite, and the outside is a bumpy, strange looking white. Personally, I just adore the color, fall into it. It reminds me of something from space, or the deep ocean. In this way, it looks like peace, something that appears bumpy and difficult on the outside is a calm, blue ocean spreading over you.

The gentle frequency of Angelite makes it ideal in jewelry and for grids in the home that promote peace, tranquility and angel protection. It is a wonderful ally for working with one's angels, ascended masters, and guides. So, what does that mean exactly? It means Angelite is a wonderful way to interpret, hear, and channel angelic, master, and guide energy. It has a frequency that helps you entrain with angelic frequency. The only requirement from you is quiet listening, trust and belief, which is easier said than done, right?

Remember the throat does not just govern speaking, it governs listening. This is why the throat chakra is so vital for third eye work. Enter Angelite, which helps align all three of the upper seven chakras--Throat, Third Eye and Crown. Part of the draw of angels to Angelite is the serenity and peace it holds. It also attracts our loved ones who have transitioned, so Angelite is a wonderful ally for mediumship as well. In this way, Angelite is also an amazing tool for automatic writing and tapping into intuition. It is my belief that our guides, angels and ascended masters communicate with us constantly. They are the ones orchestrating your signs and symbols, gently guiding you on your spiritual path (the one you signed up with before incarnating as a human). You asked them then to guide you, so they do try. But so often, we stop listening to them. Angelite helps reopen those channels for listening.

Angelite helps in that state of meditation and receiving messages. Angelite assists with dream work, including lucid dreaming and accessing the Akashic records. This all doesn't happen without a bit of work, of course. Sleep with Angelite next to your bed, or under the pillow. Meditate with Angelite. Bring it into your bedroom and grid your bed. Create an Angelic communication grid. Take some mediumship and channeling workshops. Ask the angels for clearer hearing. I connected with Doreen Virtue's work early on my journey, and found her work to help me understand how to work with the angels in every aspect of my life.

Many of us are attracted to Angelite because of its calming and gentle frequency. And Angelite assists with our earthly concerns as well. Compassionate communication and gentle healing of Throat Chakra imbalances makes it a wonderful addition to your crystal collection. Placing Angelite in centrally located places during an event where words can get heated and uncomfortable is a wonderful way to use Angelite. It helps soothe gossipy and sharp tongues. If you are interested in bridging both the human uses and angelic, it would be only fitting to call in Archangel Gabriel to help you use compassionate language and to hear the person.

I use Angelite most often in grids. I find it resonates beautifully with Danburite and Kunzite for Angelic and Spirit Guide work. I also use it in grids for Distance Reiki. I always invoke the angels in this work, so it only stands to reason I use their stone. I find a natural connection between Angelite and Apophyllite, as well as Petalite. Something about their resonances feel similar to me, and so naturally pair them in grids and angelic work. 

What do you think of Angelite? Let me know in the comments.

calcite

Calcite treatment on my blog is indicative of a larger problem with amazing crystalline allies--we often take the best ones for granted. Calcite, I vow to do better by you!

How I've gone a year without talking about Calcite is mind-blowing to me, but here we are. Beautiful Calcite--abundant, useful, healing. It is tough to know where to begin with it. There are so many varieties of Calcite--colors and uses; each could get their own write-up. Rather I'm going to take a few of the lovelies I use in my practice and share their uses and wisdom. 

Calcite is a calcium carbonate mineral with a hardness of 3. It is one of the most abundant crystals, and is found on every continent. It occurs in countless colors and formations, but most Calcite works gently to remove blockages and cleanse the auric field, so it is a wonderful ally with its coordinating chakra. I've known many crystal healers that use full Calcite layouts, since there is a Calcite for each chakra. And certainly, you can find large Calcite reasonably priced. Calcite is often confused for other stones, like a gemmy Rose or Smoky Quartz, or even Snowy Quartz. Calcite has a waxy look to it, like it's been dipped in wax. For geologists, there are some ways to tell the difference. Some Calcite fluoresces under a black light, which always looks cool.  Calcite bubbles when Hydrochloric Acid is dropped on it. (Why, yes, I do have  HCl in my geology toolkit.) It is significantly softer than Quartz, which means it is easily scratched with a Quartz crystal, but not the other way around. (Of course, you then have a scratch on your Calcite.) My kids often come in my house with rocks that are treasure, and they claim it is quartz. These are some easy ways to tell the difference.  Some of the most useful varieties of Calcite are Orange, Blue, Green, Optical or Clear, Honey, Pink Mangano and Stellar Beam.

Clear Calcite, sometimes called Icelandic Spar, is colorless, and often comes in rhombohedral shapes. It is double refractive, so when you view something through the Clear, it looks like it is doubled. It resonates with all the Chakras, but like Clear Quartz is a particular ally to the crown, helping with insight, clarity and forgiveness. Calcite clears out those blockages, so think of clearing stones as one to pave the way for compassion, empathy and forgiveness. I most often use Clear Calcite, or Optical Calcite in layouts where I need clarity and focus around a topic, most often forgiveness layouts.

Blue Calcite resonates deeply with the throat and third eye, a wonderful combination for channeling and psychic work. It is incredibly calming, and helps empaths deal with other people's emotions. I find it to be incredibly spiritual and resonant. It helps remove blockages in the third eye, clearing the way for psychic work, dream work, and visioning. It also can help with clarity, but in a different way than Optical, though they would work beautifully together in this way. Blue Calcite helps remove that great "I" vision of only seeing things from one perspective, and is particularly useful for people who can't "see" the other person's point of view. 

Green Calcite resonates with the Heart Chakra, and all you have to do is hold this stone to feel that energy. It also has that beautiful calming energy on the emotions, particularly anger from heartbreak. Calcite's reputation for removing blockages isn't limited to the other colors only, Green Calcite helps remove blockages in heart issues, like resentments, anger, and unhealthy patterns in relationships. Like many green stones, it is great for physical healing as well, so you can place it on a bruise or strain and the pain dissipates. I love using Green Calcite in Metta meditations, or lovingkindness meditations. 

Orange Calcite is probably the Calcite I use most often in my practice as it beautifully works with the Second or Sacral chakra, and yet isn't as full-on as some other of those sexual and creative stones. Yes, it helps remove blockages to creative and sexual energy. I find it a wonderful ally to those going through menopause. It is an energetic stone, and helps to transmit a kind of passion and energy that doesn't overwhelm, but inspires. It is great for stimulating the metabolism and helping to add a little fire to the mix. Orange Calcite removes other blockages too. I find it is a wonderful ally for discerning what is not serving one's Highest Good, and for release ceremonies, particularly with fire.

One Calcite that my partner uses often, but is not in my toolkit is Mangano Pink Calcite. It also resonates with the Fourth Chakra, or the Heart Chakra. It is a stone of empathy from my understanding, and helps people who have difficulty connecting with their emotions. It is one of those stones I need to work with and understand more before I share more, so if you are tuned up with Mangano, share your experiences in the comments. These are the Calcites in my practice, but Honey Calcite is quite abundant, though I don't work with it often, resonating with the Third Chakra, or Solar Plexus, and Stellar Beam Calcite also a great metaphysical ally. And Red Calcite resonating with the Root. Let me know how you use Calcite in the comments. And as always it is my great honor to talk about crystals with you.

chrysocolla

A few months ago, working on a client, I had this amazing vision of Mother Earth knitting a blanket to put over a client. I often Reiki the feet, putting my sitz bones on the floor of my office to connect with Mother Earth during crystal healing sessions. I see the most incredible scenes of nature and healing in that space of quiet with a client. This one in particular was so intense and beautiful, I was almost drawn to tears. The blanket itself was knitted with moss, leaves, flowers, and dirt. As Gaia finished this incredibly healing blanket and placed it over my client, it turned into a heart--a Chrysocolla heart, to be exact--that warmed her in much the same way as a blanket would.

I have carried that image around with me since then, thinking of this earth-knitted healing we must do over our hearts. I'll be honest, I don't work with Chrysocolla much. I have a few tumblies for when my intuition pushes me to share with a client for their healing mojo bag. But with 4000+ types of crystals in the world, it is not surprising that most get left off my list of crystals I always work with. But this vision...I couldn't shake it. And a few weeks ago, while at my local metaphysical shop Heaven & Nature, I spied a Chrysocolla heart and scooped it up.

Chrysocolla is a copper silicate, which shouldn't be surprising with those amazing colors. It has a Mohs hardness of 2-4, which also means, beyond just the copper content, it shouldn't really go near water. It is often found with other Copper silicates like Malachite and Azurite, and sometimes has Cuprite in its mix. It resonates with the throat and heart chakras, and has a strong root connection. For me, it feels strongly feminine, maybe because of my vision of Gaia, and very healing, nurturing and maternal.

The connection between the throat and the heart is a strong, beautiful healing bridge. That bridge in and of itself can be empowering, if we can make that energetic flow possible. Chrysocolla seems like a perfect ally in this way, helping one express their power with heart-centeredness. When I say a stone is feminine, this doesn't mean it is off limits to men. Quite the contrary, feminine stones, I'm thinking Cuprite and Moonstone, can be strong allies for men to balance with the Divine Feminine within themselves, just as women can benefit from some masculine stones like Pyrite. Chrysocolla seems to open a channel to Gaia, or at least, that is what my vision seemed to tell me, to receive her Divine nurturing and love, as well as pass that onto those around you. Naisha Ahsian, in the Book of Stones, talks of Chrysocolla as a teaching stone, and a great ally for those in the speaking professions. "Chrysocolla is a powerful model for consciously considering the way one puts one's energy into the world," she goes on to share. "One can speak and say nothing, or remain silent and speak volumes. Chrysocolla teaches the value of both sound and silence." This to me was an AHA moment, as I am learning this hard lesson right now, as I navigate silence and speaking in new ways.

I'd love to hear how you interact with Chrysocolla. As with every stone, I am working with Chrysocolla to learn more about its energies and lessons, and invite you to journey with her.

stones for grief support

I have written about grief quite a bit. For year, actually, I had a blog devoted to discussing grief and parenting. It surprises me that I haven't written about stones for grief support. Why crystals for grief? We often feel helpless when others are walking through the Dark Valley of grief and loss. We ourselves feel lost and in a dark wood when we have lost someone close to us. I certainly walk through cycles of grief in my life. My daughter died on Winter Solstice, and the time when the day is shortest, I begin my descent into the cold world of grief. And yet, it isn't as desolate and cold as I imagine. Grief is the deepest expression of love and longing. We do not grieve that which is unimportant to us. Each year as it approaches my daughter's death day and birthday, I find myself remembering those dark days of comprehending the impermanence of the human condition, and the reality that we will live without her bright soul. I welcome that time. For most of the year, I live this life without her. It is an ache I have grown accustomed to. Yet there is something comforting and necessary about my season of grief. Rather than a sad time, it is a time for my family to come together and love her, honor her, parent her. We hold her together, our collective memory, our survival of this horrible situation.

This grief grid was created for grieving parents on Kindness Day in 2013. It contains Rose Quartz, Green Aventurine, Dravite, and Apache Tears. Under the center stone contains the names of the parents and the child they lost. 

We tend to label grief as BAD. But in my experience, grief opens a door to love. It is a heart-centered experience. And grief is not just one emotion. It is an experience of many emotions and thoughts--joy, gratitude, anger, sadness, longing, loneliness, guilt, pride, compassion, empathy, selfishness...I could go on all day. Remember it is when we suppress emotions, feelings, instincts, that our body begins to manifest dis-ease. But when we honor the emotion--good, bad, ugly--we honor all of our human-ness. That is why we are here, after all. A spiritual being having a human experience.

Crystal support during these times of grief is incredible helpful. Most crystals recommended for grief support help us remain heart-centered. The first stone mentioned with grief support usually is Apache Tear. Apache Tear is a form of Black Obsidian. The lore around Apache Tear dates back to the late 1800s. A group of Apache warrior in battle against US Calvary were outnumbered and facing defeat. They chose to ride off a cliff than be killed by the American soldiers. It is said that the women of the tribe cried tears on the mountain over their fallen men, and their tears turned to stone as they hit the ground. Apache Leap Mountain is where this took place, it located in Southeastern Arizona. It is quite beautiful there. You can read more about the legend here. Because of this lore, it is said to assist with grief and loss. 

Another beautiful stone for grief support is Dravite, or Champagne Tourmaline. It is a dark brown Tourmaline, and it is wonderful to help ground and emote. And also it is wonderful for self-care and self-love, which are two things most of find difficult in times of emotional struggle.

I am also fond of Smoky Quartz for grief support as it is a strong protector and grounder. Remember that most of our fears of emoting and feeling grief is feeling out of control, or that once we start crying we will not stop. These black stones actually help you feel safe, secure and allow you to emote. It also protects your feelings from others. Think of how vulnerable we feel when we are emotional or grieving. If we see a Hallmark commercial, we burst into tears. Well, these dark stones--Dravite, Smoky Quartz and Apache Tear--help protect your EMF and keep your feelings to yourself.

I also include heart stones in grief mojo bags or grids. Some great stones to includes are Rhodochrosite, Rose Quartz, Green Aventurine, and Garnet, which is not usually put into the mix here with grief, but I think it is a wonderful ally.

So, you have these stones, now what? I love to gift a mojo bag of stones to a friend who has just lost a relative, friend or pet. But grief is not limited to the death of someone. We experience grief when our marriage falls apart, or we lose a job, or get sick and face a new way of living. Grief experience should not be limited to one experience of grief--death. So, yes, MOJO BAGS! It is a great support. I also love to create grids for my friends who are experiencing grief or death anniversaries. And send them distance Reiki. I always ask permission (Number one rule of energy work!).

clear quartz

Writing a crystal post about Clear Quartz feels impossible. It is like writing a post on bugs, then only talking about ladybird beetles, lightning bugs, and butterflies. But I would be remiss not to talk about Clear Quartz as best I can. Last week, on my sister's WTER radio show Sacred Connections, I talked briefly about what makes Clear Quartz important and an all-around amazing stone.

But let's talk about the basics on Clear Quartz. Clear Quartz is a silicon dioxide crystal with a Mohs hardness of 7. It is one of the most abundant crystals on the planet. Nearly every person I know with a crystal obsession started by finding quartz in their backyard. Clear Quartz is colorless, hexagonal with naturally faceted terminations (though the terminations are not always a guarantee, because of the way it grows and interferes with the stones and growth around it.) Quartz crystals are known for their piezoelectricity, which makes it useful in radios, watches, computers, etc. Where crystals and crystal healing was traditionally found, you will find Quartz crystals. There are ancient South American carved Clear Quartz crystal skulls. It is found in tombs throughout Europe. The Australian Aborigines believed it mystical and sacred. All through the world, Clear Quartz has been revered and used in tools, healing, spiritual work, and for artistic value. 

Clear Quartz comes in so many shapes and formations, I thought I would show you a few. Starting at the top, this large Quartz cluster shows beautifully how clear Quartz is formed. When one of those points breaks off, you have what is called a single terminated quartz, or a clear quartz which was allowed to naturally terminate to a point. Clockwise  you see a wee cluster, next to a single terminated quartz, in the front, five o'clock position, this is a polished and shaped double terminated quartz, which means it was a rock crystals that was cut and polished into a six-sided. Very famous Vogel crystals are said to be cut and polished to a specifically cut angle to match the pyramids of Giza. They are quite expensive. This is not a Vogel. Next to it is an Elestial Quartz with Enhydros (hint, this is my favorite), a Tantric Twin, to the left is a naturally double terminated clear Quartz, and next to that another Twin. You can see my Clear Quartz sphere, which I use a great deal in grids. And then next to it and behind it, some cut and polished towers.

There are many varieties of Quartz; many of which I have covered in this blog already. Citrine, Smoky Quartz, Amethyst and Rose Quartz all started out as Clear Quartz, but through millennia have interacted with things in their environment to give them different color and attributes. Smoky Quartz was 

So, what is the deal with Clear Quartz? Well, it has many many many attributes. Because of its clarity, it is known to bring clarity and be a channel for Divine wisdom and love. It is said to raise the vibration to bring spiritual awareness. With the higher vibration, one clears the way for opening one's consciousness. Meditation with Clear Quartz is said to help manifest one's intentions and goals, by giving one the clarity to envision the goal being achieved.

Clear Quartz is a Crystal Healers main ally in work. It is wonderful for assisting in chakra balancing, opening and closing chakras, expanding consciousness, assisting in spiritual understanding, connection with guides, past life recall, manifestation, psychic abilities, peace, purification and cleansing of spaces. Clear Quartz also amplifies energy, so it is incredibly useful when you want to amplify your own positive energy in a space where others might not be so positive. That is why it is often worn over the heart chakra--to amplify the love vibration. Clear Quartz's amplification powers make it ideal in grids, as it helps amplify the crystals already working toward your beautiful intention. But its amplification qualities can also make it challenging. Particularly when you are trying to decrease an attribute or emotion. For example, if you were trying to release fear, you wouldn't want to use Clear Quartz as an ally, because it indiscriminately amplifies the existing emotion. Rather you might want to use a stone that helps transmute that fear like Black Tourmaline. Also, in public space, sometimes other energies can be amplified through Clear Quartz, so I am diligent about wearing it only on certain occasions. 

One of its most important characteristics is its programmability and storability. And that is probably something that boggles most people when I write it, but Clear Quartz can resonate to the vibration you are emitting and then store it beautifully. One can learn to program a Clear Quartz for a specific duty--chakra balancing, channeling assistance, anxiety relief, psychic surgery, cleansing the auric field of psychic debris...you think it, you can program it. I have some crystals programmed for my healing practice. If you Google programming a Clear Quartz crystal, you will no doubt find hundreds of opinions on how one can do this. I certainly learned a way from my teacher Hibiscus Moon which I think is the best way, but I encourage you to search for the way that feels best to you and from a teacher you respect. 

There are stones called Master Crystals, so channeled by Katrina Raphaell. She is the guru on this subject, and often the entire subject or idea of Master Crystals gets bastardized by others not completely aware or familiar with the lineage of this idea. Katrina Raphaell believes there are twelve Master Crystals that, recognizable by their particular formation, have been programmed by Mother Earth (or guides) for specific spiritual work. These formations are often small idiosyncrasies with the facets and formations, but I have to admit that when I find one of these, I can feel the difference. I talked about one of these formations a few weeks ago called Tantric Twin. Lemurian Seed crystals, another blog post from a month or so ago, are said to be programmed by the ancient Lemurian race. All of these crystals have different names, based on their "programming" but they are all Clear Quartz crystals. So don't get too confused if you are in a metaphysical bookstore or crystal shop and see what look like Clear Quartz crystals with the names, Elestial, Generator, Record Keeper, Laser Wand, Faden, et al. These are the names of the Master Crystals. Their formations make them more valuable. In the upcoming months, I will cover some of these Master Crystals more in-depth.

Again, this post seems woefully incomplete, but hopefully gives you some footing in the world of Clear Quartz. Please ask questions in the comments about anything in this post or anywhere on my blog. And as always, I am seeing crystal healing clients at Alta View Wellness Center in Harrisburg, PA. You can find more information about crystal healing on this website or Alta View's website. Also, my teacher Hibiscus Moon is getting ready for fall classes starting September 1st for both her Certified Crystal Master Course, and Advanced Crystal Master course. You can use the link below and tell them I sent you when you sign up. 

danburite

Every so often, amongst my group of crystal healer colleagues, every one seems to be working with the same stone. This was the case last fall when my fellow Advanced Crystal Masters were posting pictures of Danburite in grids, in elixirs, straight pieces, lovely meditation space dotted with Danburite. I had of course seen Danburite, but I hadn't worked with it on my own. Only a few weeks earlier, though, I had picked up a beautiful piece at a local crystal shop. As these things go, their enthusiasm and amazing work with Danburite inspired me to actually sit with the piece in meditation.

WOWEE! It is hard to believe I went so long without working with this amazing stone. Danburite's clean, high vibration works cellularly. It is truly an amazing stone, so I thought I would cover it today in our crystal of the week. Danburite is a colorless prismatic stone with linear striations running parallel to the length of the stone. At times, it can be a pale pink or yellow, but most often it is clear. Their terminations are usually chisel-shaped, and they are often four-sided. Their Mohs hardness is 7 to 7.5. 

Danburite resonates with the heart chakra and crown chakras, as well as the Etheric Chakras (8-12), which include the Soul Star. With this chakra combination, Danburite is a wonderful ally for work with guides, angels, channeling and astral journeying. When one is going through ascension or opening to channel, working with Danburite can help quell some of those transitional symptoms that plague some lightworkers in the early days. It is also a gentle and natural destresser and anti-anxiety. 

Danburite has a natural joy and uplifting quality to it that makes it wonderful for elixirs and jewelry. Naisha Ahsian has a wonderful statement about Danburite, "In healing work, Danburite assists one in overcoming fear of intimacy with the Divine." That nails it. It helps open your heart to the Divine when it has been closed due to past programming, religious trauma or prejudices with religion. It helps with heart opening and heart centeredness, so is a great ally in times when we are mired in unforgiveness or anger.

Danburite is a natural ally for meditation work and prayer. You can hold it in your non-dominant hand to help you receive guidance from angels, guides and ascended masters. Let me know what you think of Danburite and how you work with it in daily life, or in your healing practice in the comments below. And as always, any questions that arise, please put it below. You can also sign up for my newsletters right here. I also am a healer and practitioner at Alta View Wellness Center. My fellow crystal healer Kate Pruiett and I will be hosting crystal classes the first Thursday of the month at Alta View, so you can connect with crystal healing in your daily life. Stay abreast of these developments by signing up for Alta View's newsletter heon Alta View's home page. As always, you can book an appointment with me at 717.221.0133.

jaspers, agates, and chalcedony, oh my!

My bowl of mixed stones that sits in my guest bathroom. I have identified most of these, but I love when people put their hand in these crystals, and pick one they are attracted to. It is a wonderful way to invite your guests to check out stones, and it keeps stones in your environment.

If you have perused a crystal shop, you have no doubt come across a Jasper or two in your life. When I first began to come obsessed, uh, I mean, personally interested in crystals as an adult, I would order a pound of mixed stones so I could identify and play with some rocks. If you have done this, then you know how difficult this actually is. No amount of gorgeously photographed crystals can help you identify all these similarly colored beauties. Identifying the one or two Amethyst, Rose Quartz and Snowy Quartz is the easy part. It is the rest of the gang that becomes confounding. There is this whole grouping of "Quartz Family" crystals that all have the same Mohs hardness (sorry, that test won't work here) and even the same colors. In this grouping, you face quite a few Jaspers, and then a gaggle of Agates, and the cluster of Chalcedony. Some of these look quite a bit alike. So what is what? And what's the deal with Chalcedony, Agates and Jaspers? How in the world do you tell them apart?

All three of these crystals are a variety of Quartz with a Mohs hardness of about 7 (Jaspers can be about a 6.5), which means that they are all compatible with water. Always check Hibiscus Moon's Toxic Stone list to make sure it doesn't contain any minerals that might be toxic in water though. They are all gorgeously colored, because each of these Quartz varieties are silicon dioxide (Quartz) mixed with other crystals. 

So, let's talk about the differences of these words. Chalcedony is the general name given to any quartz crystal with a microcrystalline, or cryptocrystalline structure. When you look under a microscope at the crystal, you can see the crystal structure. If the structure is less than 30 microns(1/1000th of a millimeter) in size, it is said to be microcrystalline. Clear Quartz, Smoky Quartz, Amethyst and Citrine have a macrocrystalline structure, which you can see holding the crystal, right? That is the structure. So, when you look at a microcrystalline Quartz family crystal under a microscope,  you can see the same Quartz crystal shape that you see in a large Clear Quartz crystal, except it is 1/1000th of the a millimeter. This is why crystals are geometrically perfect and maintain a stable vibration. Crystals ROCK!

Blue Lace Agate on the left and Blue Chalcedony on the right. Note the banding on the agate.

So Chalcedony covers Jaspers and Agates under its umbrella, yet there are some crystals that are called Chalcedony. Carnelian, Bloodstone and Chrysoprase, as well as Blue and Purple Chalcedony are straight Chalcedony. They differ in their arrangement from Jaspers and Agates. Chalcedony are arranged in fibrous layers, unlike Jaspers which are arranged in grains. We'll talk about that in a little bit. Agates are also arranged in fibrous layers (making this even more confusing.) One way to distinguish, and someone correct me here if I'm wrong, but I believe that Chalcedony are concentrically banded and the banding is larger. Agates are banded as well, but Chalcedony often have bands that extend beyond the individual crystals, so they may be hard to see. Take Carnelian for example. Most people who buy small tumbled Carnelian, never see the bands. So, the way to tell the difference FOR THE MOST PART is this question: Can you see the bands? If yes, then Agate. If not, then perhaps Chalcedony. This is fairly obvious when you look at a Chalcedony and Agate next to each other. I chose a Blue Chalcedony and Blue Lace Agate next to each other. You can see the difference in their banding, no? 

Agate slice in a window of the cabin we rented last summer. Agate slices beautifully show the translucency that defines agates.

There is also a difference in the diaphenity, or the way light passes through the stone. Agates are translucent to semi-transparent, which means light passes through the crystal. You can often find dyed Agates at toy stores, or novelty shops for sale. They are thinly sliced, and look awesome in windows. I have a few in my meditation room. Whereas Chalcedony can be translucent, but also can be transparent and opaque. I have had Carnelians that are nearly translucent, but also had some cut too thick to be translucent, but you can tell, if sliced thinly, light would come through. Jaspers on the other hand are opaque. Light never passes through. So, you can tell by holding your stone up to the light. Can you see anything on the other side? Can you see light streaming through it? Does it appear to light up? When you move your hand between the stone and the light source, does it change the way your crystal looks? 

On the right, Carnelian, which is a form of Chalcedony. because of this large sphere, you can see the striations from its layers on this. Unlike the Red Jasper on the left, which doesn't have banding, but you can see the foreign matter, which makes Red Jasper so beautiful. In these two, you can see how the diaphenity differs between Jaspers and Chalcedonies. Jasper absorbs the light because it is opaque, while the Carnelian illuminates in the sunlight.

Jaspers are opaque, because they are an amalgam of silicon dioxide and upto 20% foreign matter, which is what makes Jaspers so gorgeous. Jasper comes from the Greek word meaning "Spotted Stone" so Jaspers often have different markings from Chalcedony and Agates. What gets confusing is some of the lasting misnomers in the crystal world. Moss Agate, for example, NOT technically an agate, but stays in the category. Same with Dendritic Agate. Those are the exceptions, though.

Jaspers differ from one another drastically because of the way they mix with that 20% of foreign matter. Starting in the front and moving clockwise: Unakite, Brown Jasper, Unsure of this jasper, but sure it is one,Red Jasper, two Yellow Jaspers, Picture Jasper, Leopard Skin Jasper, and Dalmatian Stone.

Jaspers are formed much differently than Agates and Chalcedony, which you can probably tell from just looking at them. Agates tend to form near volcanic activity where water rich with silica runs through fissures in igneous rock. This creates a kind of thick silica gel, which over time builds us on the wall and forms microcrystalline structure. This is why the layers develop. Jaspers on the other hand are formed by a kind of cementing, which you can see in Granites as well. Silica cements to other materials forming these amazing stones. A great example of this is in the Dalmatian Jasper or Unakite. You can see the cementing. Now don't get me wrong, Jaspers can be striated or banded, like Picture Jasper. But the key difference is the diaphenity. 

Metaphysically speaking, each type of Chalcedony, Jasper and Agate has its own properties based on color, weight, size, etc. Agates have the reputation of having a lower vibration, which is wonderful for stabilizing and grounding. As my blog progresses, i will be covering some of these wonderful Quartz family stones individually. Today, my plan was to talk about Red Jasper, but this took over my head, so I thought I would share. 

I love creating conversation, so join in the comments below and add your thoughts and experience with these stones. If you have a specific question about a specific jasper, agate or chalcedony, just leave it in the comments below.

tantric twin crystal

Last week, I wrote about Lemurian Seed Crystals and talked about the Master Crystals. I am actually traveling this week, but brought one crystal with me--my Tantric Twin Crystal. As the months go on, I will continue discussing these "Master Crystals" from time to time. Katrina Raphaell, the author of a trilogy of incredible crystal healing books, seems to be the first crystal healer to channel the information about the Master Crystals. People often throw that label around, saying that their primary crystal, or the one they work with for healing, psychic or meditation work, is their Master Crystal. It is fine to use it that way, but technically, the term Master Crystal in crystal healing circles has a very definite meaning.

Katrina Raphaell identified some formations of Clear Quartz Crystal, which are said to already be programmed by Mother Earth for specific uses in spiritual and crystal healing work. All of her information about these crystals has been channeled. She was certainly the first to name these crystals, but others independently have channeled similar information confirming her information. In the crystal healing community, her work and identification of these crystals is respected and used. Some of these you have probably already heard of: Elestial, Channeling, Window, Dow, Transmitter, Isis, Cathedral Library, Devic Temple, Record Keeper, Time link, Self-Healed, Tantric Twin, and Phantom. (I'm doing this from memory, so I may have missed one, or replaced it in my head with one I think is a Master.) Each of these are identified by the shape of the crystal itself, the shape and formation of the crystal's facets, growth striations or patterns or markings specific to that crystal. I have bought a pound of little crystal points and found amazing Master Crystals in them. Most stone shops don't check each crystal point to see if it is a Master, so some times you can search through them to find different formations. Once you begin to learn about Master Crystals, it makes Quartz Crystals even more fascinating than they once were.

Today, I am just going to talk about the Twin or Tantric Twin Crystal. Throughout the rest of the year, I'll bring some of these Master Crystals into our discussion on this blog. If you have one, you are interested in learning more about, just put it in the comments and I'd be happy to talk about it. 

If you already do not know, I am an identical twin, sharing my DNA and life path with my womb mate, Kellyann Satterfield. She is an incredible channel, medium and psychic in her own right, if you aren't familiar with her work. We are planning on teaming up in the next few weeks and months, so stay tuned here. (You can always find out information about my comings and goings in my newsletter as well, by signing up right here.)

Because of my twinniness, I have always been drawn to all things twin. Twin Crystals, or Tantric Twin Crystals are two quartz crystals of nearly the same size on a common base. Now, there are crystals that are simply two crystals on the same base, but Tantric Twin Crystals are parallel, and grow relatively the same rate. There is no true boundary between the two. As a collector of these amazing twin crystals, I have some which are the same exact size, and others which have some variety there. 

Tantric Twin is a metaphysical name. If you are at a gem show or rock hound shop, just use the name Twin Crystal. I once asked a geologist at his shop if he carried any Tantric Twin Crystals, and he looked at me disgustingly and said, "That is a metaphysical name. I only deal with geological names." Twin crystals, however, should work fine. This is a good tip anytime you are at a gem and mineral show, or shop. Most of those guys don't get us New Agers, as they condescendingly call us. So, as my teacher Hibiscus Moon says, Don't fly your freak flag when you want a deal. Try to find the geological name for the stone you are looking for--Dream Quartz, for example, you might want to ask for Quartz with Epidote inclusion.

Back to what the heck you use Twin Crystals for. This Master Crystal is programmed for relationship issues. It once had the reputation for only being used for romantic relationships, but that is just not the case. Tantric Twins are healers of all relationships, particularly soul mate and twin flame relationships. These relationships often get conflated, but they seem to have specific meanings. I consider soul mates to be people, not necessarily your life partner or husband, who you have incarnated with. They are soul partners. All of these people in your realm who are helping your soul grow, learn, ascend. These can be friends, coworkers, or family. I don't believe you have only one of these. I believe you have MANY of these. Hundred even. Twin flames were named such by mystics and philosophers. It was believed at the Soul's Creation, the soul split into two--Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine. These two don't always incarnate together, they sometimes incarnate separately. But they often get lives together. Their connection runs deeper than all others, and often has this feeling of completion when they come together. Twin Flame relationships don't have to be different gender, but more of a yin-yang relationships of complementing one another, rather than being exactly the same beliefs and ways of being. The distinction then is that there is one Twin Flame for each person and many soul mates. I make this distinction, because I find it fascinating, but also because these ideas get thrown around. You may read somewhere else that the Tantric Twin is for Twin Flame relationships. And it can certainly be used for that, but it can be used to heal ALL relationships. Tantric Twins are used in meditation to gain insight into the underlying issues of the relationship and the ways to heal those relationship issues. They are also wonderful allies when you want to direct energy toward healing a relationship, so you can use for grid activation with the intention of healing a relationship, or your relationships. You can also use it as a way to hold space during a difficult conversation about a relationship by using it as a talking stick of sorts, or placing it between you. You can often find rainbows in Quartz Crystals. These are particularly useful in Tantric Twins to project healing energy into the relationship. Tantric Twins are also wonderful for good, strong relationships, and holding the intention of keeping the relationship strong. Tantric Twin crystals also assist in attracting like-minded people or soul mates. In this way, that is how the erroneous belief that these crystals only assist in Twin Flame or romantic relationships began.

Let me know if you have a Tantric Twin and how you have worked with it. Or any questions below.

lemurian seed crystals

I could do an entire year on covering different formations and manifestations of Quartz Crystals. Katrina Raphaell named the twelve master crystals in her amazing trilogy of crystal healing books. Each of those could be a blog post in and of themselves. I haven't covered any quartz crystals in my crystal healing blog or newsletter. The topic is so immense; I admit that I am intimidated by it. But today, I thought I would cover one, very special variety, of clear quartz crystal--Lemurian Seed Crystals. 

I would imagine most amateur collectors have run across Lemurian Seed Crystals in their time in mineral shows, new age bookstores, or metaphysical shops. Like all Quartz Crystals, they have a Mohs hardness of 7. But Lemurians come from one particular place in the world--Brazil's Minas Gerais mine. The mine was closed in 2007. They are identified by striations that look like a ladder running up the shaft of the crystal. You can find Lemurians in different color varieties including clear, pink, reddish pink/mauve, and smoky. Each of these variations represent the same types of interactions all Quartz crystals can face--straight pink contain lithium, the reddish pink/mauve have iron oxide, and the smoky (like all smokies) has been exposed to radiation.

There seems to be some distinction between Lemurian and Lemurian Seed crystals (though those names are often used interchangeably), so let me briefly explain that difference in the way they look before I get into the healing qualities of the crystals. Lemurian crystals have a frosted look. They are tapered with deep ladder-like striations. Lemurian Seed Crystals have one shaft frosted, the next clear, then frosted then clear. They still have the ladder-like striations (That is the defining characteristic of all Lemurians.) The video below shows my small pink Lemurian Seed Crystal in the sun. I was trying to demonstrate the alternating clear side and frosted side with the distinctive striations of a Lemurian crystal. It is short, and shot in the wrong direction on my phone, but hopefully it will help.

Lemurian crystals hold much more than simply the Quartz vibration according to their lore. Because Quartz crystals are highly programmable, these Lemurians are said to have been programmed by the healers, mystics, and teachers of the ancient civilization of Lemuria. Lemuria is said to be a highly evolved and spiritually advanced civilization, centered more on the artistic, emotional, and spiritual than our mentally centered society. For many, Lemuria is a "symbol for an evolved state of Unity consciousness," according to the website Bridge to Lemuria.  Lemuria is said to have been based in the legendary Ring of FIre in the Pacific Ocean. There is no scientific evidence for Lemuria, but many channels and spiritual teachers have channeled information about Lemuria which seems to be confirmed by other channels who are separated by time and space. Lemuria often gets lumped into stories of Atlantis. Atlanteans were said to bring about their own demise by using their spiritual growth to become God-like. There is not as much lore about what befell Lemuria, but the same sort of catastrophe and fate is said to have come to Lemuria.

All the information modern teachers and healer have about Lemuria and Lemurian Seed Crystals comes from channeled information. Lemurian Seed Crystals were said to hold this ancient wisdom and the healing powers of this advanced society. Channeled information about Lemurian Seed Crystals say they were placed in loose sandy soil by Lemurian teachers and healers millennia before they were discovered. All clear quartz crystals are easily programmed--that is what makes them ideal to work with in healing and meditation work. Lemurian Seed Crystals are said to have been programmed by the Lemurian healers and teachers with Lemurian consciousness. In this way, they tap into that legendary heart-centered consciousness of the Lemurian people, unity consciousness, and aid in spiritual ascension. They are marvelous allies at balancing the spiritual, mental, physical, and energetic, so they are wonderful allies for healers. To access the wisdom on Lemurian, one is said to have to run one's finger along the striations, as though you are climbing a ladder. 

Lemurian Seed Crystals are said to be naturally tuned to align spiritual, energetic, and physical bodies. This is one of those crystals that the more it is used, the more powerful it becomes. It bonds with the crystal healer to help intuit vital information. Meditation with Lemurian Seed Crystals is incredibly powerful indeed. Another additional attribute to Lemurian Seed Crystals is the feeling of belonging that is inherent to its nature. Lemurians were said to be a heart-centered society, and to feel complete union with the Spiritual or Divine realms, so Angels, Ascended Masters, Divine beings like the gods and goddesses and of course our ancestors who have left the earthly plane. So Lemurian Seed Crystals can have a sense of coming home to them, as Naisha Ahsian puts it. I have found them amazing allies in tapping into my Higher Self during healing sessions with clients. I use a Lemurian to activate all my grids, and to work on my clients in crystal healing sessions.

Lemurians work best with the Crown and Soul Star chakra (all the transpersonal chakras 8-13 resonate amazingly well with Lemurian vibration). Lemurians are said to be feminine stones. I have certainly felt the heart-centered and nurturing aspects of Lemurian Seed Crystals myself. Lemurian Seed Crystals are not difficult to find, but I would suggest holding your Lemurian before buying it, getting a sense of its energy.

Whether you completely believe in the entire legend of Lemuria, or that we need to build a bridge to Lemurian consciousness, or you just enjoy the beautiful stories around Lemuria, or you find the whole thing bunk, (and I don't even know where I stand on this subject, honestly), Lemurian Seed Crystals are worth checking out and working with. From my experience, they have a unique and wonderful vibration, and do hold some powerful energy. Let me know what you think below. If you like this crystal post, share or like it. If you have any questions about Lemurian crystals or any other crystals, post it below, or send me an email at themoonandstone@gmail.com.

psychic protection

Hi Angie!

So happy I found your site today! I am in need of your help. I recently had a reading done, this lady was amazing and was right on about everything. However, she told me that a really good "friend" of mine..actually someone I consider to be my best friend was sending me MAJOR negative energy, had ill feelings towards me, is jealous of me and does not want me to succeed. This friend of mine is VERY negative I know it, she knows it and one of the reasons I went to this reading was because I was feeling very down, negative, depressed have no motivation to finish school am trying to find my purpose in life and am always down on myself, I've never felt this badly. I know black tourmaline will help me of this, just wanted to know if you have any extra advice..I will continue stalking your site now! lol..

Thanks again can't wait to hear the feedback!

Ashley

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Hi, Ashley,

I am so glad you are here, and that you asked this question.

What you described is WAY more common than people realize. I receive questions about psychic protection in my practice, in readings, in emails, and on this blog quite frequently. Sometimes people want to know why they are so exhausted when they are out in public, other people have issues with certain people in their life. Whatever the case, this is about protecting one's energy. When it is with one person, it is occasionally called a psychic attack, which is simply a purposeful projection of negative thoughts or energy on another person.

This grid is a powerful broadcaster of psychic protection. The center stone is a Smoky Quartz with six double terminated Clear Quartz radiating from the center. Smoky Quartz are in the six circles of Metatron's Cube, a sacred geometric shape that is perfectly suited for protection grids. Black Tourmaline creates the outer border with Smoky Quartz tumblies on the inside grid. It sits inside a copper pyramid which simply enhances it powerful transmuting abilities. I activated this grid with my Smoky single-terminated Quartz on the right.

Often the person sending the negative energy which drains, saps and hurts you does not even realize they are affecting you, even though they may be focusing or obsessing on you specifically. Though some of these kinds of attacks are intentional, more than likely, your friend has no idea how she affects you. Her jealousy or the feeling of being less-than, or unworthy (a very common belief for us in this society) creates this unstable vibration (negativity knocks your vibration into a chaotic resonance). For me, it is not about higher vibration or lower vibration, but rather stable vibration. Meditation helps you maintain a more stable vibration, self-care does too--healing work, prayer, sitting in nature, waterfalls (negative ions), soul work, yoga, gentle movement, crystal healing, Reiki, music, artwork, energy healing...all these self-care tools we have to maintain a stable vibration.

We entrain with the vibrations around us. When we are around happy people, we feel happier. There is simple science behind this. We are energy, and we all vibrate at a certain frequency. Humans have a chaotic resonance to begin with--our heart vibrates at a different frequency than our liver or our root chakra, which is why each chakra is seen by people who have this particular talent with different colors. Colors are also a frequency, right? Humans search for homeostasis, a word most of us have heard before, or rather, they look to stabilize their naturally unstable resonance.

This is why crystal healing is so effective--crystals are geometrically perfect and hold a stable vibration. So our vibration stabilizes and entrains with the crystal vibration whose dominant oscillary rate promotes healing of that chakra, or issue. Higher vibration is not synonymous with enlightenment or higher consciousness, though it is used that way often. The key is stable vibration. When we hang out with negative people, our vibration becomes more unstable--making us exhausted, sapping our energy, making us crabby, while your more stable vibration evens out your friend's vibration. Your vibration entrains with your friend's vibration. She feels better, and you feel worse. I also do believe that people who are sending off negative vibes directed to us can affect our vibration from a distance too. It is a purposeful negative thought against you, and it is the definition of a psychic attack. (If we can affect healing over distances, then we can drain energy over distances too.) Again, most people don't consciously send bad vibes, they just cycle in negative thinking directed at someone. It is particularly difficult for empathic, psychic, intuitive or sensitive people to manage this kind of negativity.

All I can say is that once we realize these things about the people around us, we can limit our interactions with them, or really bulk up our protection when we are around them. I understand that is rarely possible--we work with emotional vampires, we are related to negative people, we interact with strangers nearly every day. But what we can do is learn how to create boundaries--energetic, internal, and external--that can help shield our energy, protect and strengthen our electromagnetic field, keep us safe, and transmute negative energy. It means saying no to people who cross our lines, and keeping our self-care as our first priority. It also means treating ourselves to a daily protection regimen. It shouldn't take a ton of time, but it is valuable to invest the minutes it does take. This is about keeping our energy to ourselves, and other people keeping their energy to themselves. Psychic protection helps keep your energy and vibration stabilized no matter what chaotic vibrations are going on around you. You remain grounded. It is like wearing a space suit in the world--you control your oxygen, your core temperature, and your vibration.

For Ashley or anyone who is feeling some of these symptoms--depression, exhaustion, feeling drained, grumpy, like your energy is sapped (whether this is from someone you know, or if this is from being empathic, intuitive or psychic and being drained from every day life), or any symptoms of empathic fatigue, I would recommend a good aura cleansing and chakra balancing. If you do Reiki or energy healing, awesome. Do it on yourself with the intention of cleansing your aura. If not, you can find a good Reiki practitioner, or crystal healer in your area to balance your chakras. (You can certainly check out Hibiscus Moon certified Crystal Healers for some incredible healers. ) I would ask for an EMF blocking layout, or protection layout. Protection involves a great deal of grounding, so if you can, get barefoot and begin the steps of grounding.

This is such a vital aspect of our self-care. I cannot emphasize grounding enough. You can do some simple techniques for grounding like going barefoot, walking outside on Mother Earth, hugging a tree, getting your root on the Earth (sits bones [or your ischium bones you massage therapists out there] touches Pachimama). Drink lots of water. Eat clean food. Normal self-care helps clear up so much of our auric debris. Truly. When I set the intention to do anything in my life, I usually create a crystal grid to hold the intention. Protection grids are wonderful additions to your sacred space. Amethyst, Black Tourmaline, Smoky Quartz, Clear Quartz, Selenite, Onyx, Black Obsidian, Hematite as well as countless other protective stones are wonderful to work with for gridding. My grid above was to broadcast protectiveness in my healing studio.

But you can also absolutely cleanse your aura at home. So, I always always always take a salt bath after interactions with toxic people, or negative people. Salt is a sacred purifier and a wonderful ally for all. I actually have a heavy duty protection bath salt in my shop. This bath is precisely for this kind of circumstance. It is intended for empathic/sensitive people, of which you clearly are. It contains herbs and crystals for a high density auric cleanser.But you can create an effective salt bath with dead sea salt and epsom salt combination. (I use black lava salt in my protection bath). I always like ritual, so I light black candles (black is the color of protection) or white candle on two sides of my bath (like you are walking through them) In my bath, I call Archangel Michael for his protection and to clear my aura. I ask him to take away any negative energy that might have built up on my aura, or any energy not serving my Highest Good. I get a bowl of some kind and dump the water over my crown, making sure it is covering my entire body. Some people dislike baths. You can still use salt in the shower by making a salt scrub, or getting a wonderful salt bath soap to scrub your aura. Sage is also an amazing ally, and I am absolutely in love with Athena's Body Smudge Artisanal Soap. 

Visualization is an important technique in nearly all this psychic protection work. One important visualization tool I use is to literally zip myself up in a protective white cocoon. I close my eyes, and imagine myself in surrounded by white light. Sometimes I imagine stepping into this white egg shape, or like I pick it up and pull it up and around me. I then bend over and zip it up from my Earth Star Chakra to my Crown Chakra. I imagine this white protective shell repelling any energy directed at me, and it helps me maintain my own vibration.  

Smudging oneself with sage helps clear the auric field and takes away negativity. There are a ton of different herbs you can use for different reasons--Sage is great for blessing, clearing and cleansing negativity from your person or your space. You are literally brushing the aura, which is a great technique with a smudge fan or feather. This is good for after seeing someone draining, or entering your own home to cleanse the negative juju from other people off yourself. I smudge with Palo Santo when I want to bring positive energy in, or heal in some way. So, I might smudge with sage, then Palo Santo. Again, Athena has some kick ass smudge bundles and tools. Sage Goddess rules my roost. One day, when I have my little farm, I'll be growing and bundling my own sage, until then I trust Athena's amazing tools.

I began carrying these in my shop, because I wear black tourmaline pendants, and I always recommend them to my clients. Worth every penny!

As an empath and intuitive, I start my day with shielding and protection. One way I do this is to wear black tourmaline or amethyst around my neck. When I am in a situation around someone very toxic, I carry a combination of Black Tourmaline, Onyx, Obsidian, Amethyst and Clear Quartz in my pocket--a combination from my teacher Hibiscus Moon which I passionately endorse. I find Obsidian to be a heavy duty protector. Black Tourmaline is a wonderful transmuter of energy. What that means is that when negative energy comes at us, Black Tourmaline takes in that energy and transmutes it, or changes it, into useful energy for us. So, what does that really mean!? It means it takes chaotic vibration and stabilizes it beautifully. One way it does this is by grounding it, or helping it to stabilize to the Schumann Resonance. Wearing Clear Quartz helps enhance and clarify your energy, but it also enhances other energy, so if you are confident you are protected and zipped us, go for the clear quartz. Selenite is a protective crystal to wear. Black and grey stones tend to be wonderfully protective stones to wear--Smoky Quartz, Onyx, Black Obsidian, Snowflake Obsidian, and I love Hematite for helping to strengthen my EMF and to guard my own energy in public. It is my county fair stone, or rather, the stone I wear in public. Turquoise (real Turquoise) has the reputation as being a wonderfully protective stone for psychic work. Of course, I love wearing stone in jewelry, and one of my favorite combinations is Black Tourmaline on Copper--I have some earrings, a pendant I made...just a great combination. You can also create awesome protection grids with any combination of these stones.

One technique I use is cleansing my auric field with a Selenite wand. I created a little video to help demonstrate this technique for you.

There are literally a thousand more techniques for protecting your aura and energy from being sapped by others. These are but a few suggestions and techniques. Please post any questions or comments below. And if you have a question you would like me to cover in a long, drawn out blog post, please do not hesitate to ask me in the comment section here or anywhere on my blog. Or send me an email at themoonandstone@gmail.com, Abrazos, loves.