Stone Medicine

I have always been one drawn to stones and have found some awesome artifacts in my journey.  I have petrified everything from a dinosaur fetus, egg, insects, to buffalo bones.  I have found ancient tools.  Then, we started going to Yuma and I caught the semi-precious stone collection.  I have jars and jars of rose quartz, turquoise and every gem you can find in South West Arizona.  We hiked every mountain range in the Yuma area, collecting…finding and lugging stones to large rocks just barely able to be lifted.  I have always been attracted and attached to stones and always my mother was complaining about the washer being full of rocks.  I am definitely a rock hound.

Some of the kinds of stones and rocks I have, I will list and explain healing properties, etc.  As well, I have other stones so will share their properties as well.  Any stone has some kind of medicine in it.  It is not new to use stones (The Cherokee are Stone People and use many kinds of stones for healing).  I name a few and you will get the gist of how stones might, and how they might, offer assistance with healing.

Maine is known for amethyst and tourmaline.  First, Amethyst – Amethyst is known as Fairy stones.  Many use it when they want to feel close to one who has passed on.  It is very connected to mysteries, magic, intuition and the wisdom within.  Those who connect with fairies, you can use this stone on your altar or in your medicine bag, or around you.  When you need help in such areas, you keep this stone near you. 

Tourmaline – This stone works with self-esteem and when you are fearful of (fill in the blanks:  whatever frightens you, worries you) and you need a sense of protection from such.  Artists love to use this stone for creative intuition.  It helps balance the left and right brain.  If you tend to have moments of paranoia, and/or have problems with dyslexia or problems with coordination (fall over yourself as we tend to do for sometimes days, or have dropsy, etc.) this is the stone for you.  It is potent.

Fool’s Gold/Pyrite – the very term comes from Leprechaun legends.   They used, they say, fool’s gold’, to trick those trying to find their pot of gold at the end of the rainbows.  The Fool’s Gold was given when humans were kind to them.  What fool’s gold is good for is for spiritual goodness themes in your life.  It can also be used for abundance. 

And I have almost all of the main categories of Quartz – Used in many ancient cultures for healing.  Quartz is the keeper of past, present and future wisdom.  Carrying it, or keeping it near you or on your altar, helps us to dig deep into our very soul to find those things within us.  Quartz of any kind are cleansers, as well. 

Purple- Amethyst, lepidolite, spirit quartz, charoite, and sugilite are the most spiritually healing of the quartz types of stones.  This helps us clarify and connect to our divine self.   I use this often when I am creating a painting that really means something to me as a gift or one commissioned. 

          Clear Quartz – Healing for clarity, of course, energy, memory, as well.   

          Snow Quartz – It is gentler healer if Clear is too strong.

          Red Quartz - Red jasper, ruby, vanadinite, garnet, and rubellite. These blood stones are used for healing our basic human needs with passion and energy and vibrance.  Having them on us, around us, creates motivation.  It also heals us so that we can be brave and courageous again.

          Pink Quartz - Rose quartz, rhodochrosite, pink tourmaline, rhodonite, and pink opal gentle us, opening up the heart to warmth.  It is calming, heals our hearts so we can be compassionate, and makes us more kind.  I use rose quartz a great deal when I am trying to forgive a person, p[lace, or thing, so I might be free of the turmoil, guilt, shame that is evoked within when we carry such burden(s). 

          Orange Crystal - Sunstone, carnelian, orange calcite, sunset aura quartz, and amber are used to heal sexual and creative energies.  If change is happening in your life, to have the energy to be able to creatively get through the changes, these stones are great stones for that.  They are great for making decisions, as well.  

Yellow crystal - Citrine, golden onyx, honey calcite, yellow jasper, and sulfur quartz are great for healing relationships, for helping you see another side of things, for enlightenment, and for giving us more positive energy.  They are real confidence boosters as well.  

Green crystal examples: Malachite, jade, peridot, moss agate, and green aventurine are the color of trees and grass and attract financial needs being met.  We need abundance, physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually and this is the stone to draw such to us.  

Blue crystal examples: Lapis lazuli, aquamarine, blue lace agate, larimar, and azurite are water stones and soothe and calm like water.  They can also be the wild ocean storms, so are to be used wisely.  Expressing the depths of who you are are brought about by these healing stones.  They will help you speak your absolute truths while staying calm and cool and collected… or, if you are not careful with the sue of these stones, you can do it through fury.

Black crystal examples: Obsidian, black tourmaline, shungite, jet, and black kyanite are negativity banishers.  They heal our fears and banish our sense of insecurity.  They are also blocking crystals.  Wearing them on your person is a way to block negative energies. 

Smoky Quartz – This stone is super grounding.  The Scottish used this stone in connection with The Fey.  It, too, helps with astral travel (do not ever ask to do this if you are not ready and instructed, prepared and positive you wish to do it.)  

This little basket, next to my bedside, is one I made from strips of old shower curtain, way back in 2007. 

I have been doing this for many years.  Sometimes it is decoration, though, as I forget as life gets in the way…then, up comes something bigger than normal and I am busy placing my burdens in my Burden Basket, at night.  I should have done so last night, as I forgot, and boom, screaming awake nightmare moment.  Tonight, for sure, if I have stuff to lay down.

I used to have one going into my office, next to it were several kinds of rough stones and sign that said, “before you enter, lay your burdens down – choose a stone to represent your burden(s) and put in burden basket!”  At the end of the day, I would bless the stones and smudge them, and release the negativity of the people’s burdens from them.

As well, I have collected stones all my life, and I had a few appraised yesterday.  I am dumbfounded at the worth of these few stones, alone, and I have many:

Rough Emerald 390 g

Rutilated quartz 2 x 2 x 1”  114 g

Garnets totaling 1000 g

Stones have always attracted me and they meant ‘something’; to me.  As a little girl I would find a stone and I would have a sense of why it meant something to me.  My youngest daughter is the same since she was tiny.  She was given her traditional name in a naming ceremony that is “Rock Woman” (“O ko tok agi” in Blackfoot) and she, too has the most amazing stones and artifacts.

Have you researched the stones you may have collected?  Are you, like me, a Rockhound?  Do you assign meanings to stones?  Have you researched stones?

©Carol Desjarlais 7.16.20