Juneteenth Celebration

Juneteenth is a beautiful example of a modern ritual that is reinvented and celebrated in a new and exciting way every year. Luisah Teish says this occasion celebrates “the flame as political power and divine inspiration.” Juneteenth is held on June 19, the date when in 1865 the news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached the plantations in the states of Louisiana and Texas. While the actual law had gone into effect two years earlier in 1863, nobody told many of the slaves. When these duped slaves finally realized that they were free, it was a cause of great joy. Nowadays, there are festivals that celebrate the contributions by Africans to America and the world. Picnics, barbecues, singing, dancing, theater, games, and parades take place within the communities of the United States.

Alexandrite

First found in the 1800s in Russia, this stone was names after the country’s czar, Alexander. It has since been found in Brazil and Sri Lanka. A mysterious green, alexandrite shines red under light. The phrase “emerald by day, ruby by night” illustrates the color changes of alexandrite. This stone can be of very great value and command a great price if the colors are pure. Alexandrite is good for the nerves and is calming to the wearer. This stunning stone is also a confidence booster and makes a great ring for making a commitment to yourself.

Lapis Lazuli—Babylonian Blue

Ancient Babylonians and their south-of-the-Mediterranean neighbors, the Egyptians, could not get enough of this bright blue jewel. The Egyptians named it chesbet and usually included it on their list of VIP items to be paid to nations under the dominion of the great kingdom of the Nile. The Babylonians, who piled lapis lazuli high in their tributes to Egypt, had access to a plentitude of this stone because they were the earliest people to mine it—back in 4,000 B.C.!

Lapis lazuli was so holy to the Egyptians that the high priest himself worse a pendant of the blue stone in the shape of their goddess of truth, Mat. The Egyptians seemingly wished to swim in seas of lapis, as they used it daily— as adornment, for funeral masks and tools, and as an ingredient in their art, traditions that lasted for many generations into the future. Lapis has the unusual ability to hold its pigment even when it is ground up, which leads to what is perhaps my favorite of all the myriad and wonderful uses of lapis lazuli: eye makeup. Can you imagine getting ready for a big night out by painting your eyelids peacock blue with a very expensive lapis lazuli-laced eye shadow? I love the idea, and I’m sure Cleopatra did, too.

Garnet—Noah’s Lantern

Garnets have much lore around them. The ancients believed them to have protective powers that prevented travelers from accidents and mishaps and also kept the sleeping from nightmares and bad dreams. It is said that the fiery glow of a garnet kept Noah and his ark afloat. A popular biblical gem, garnet was one of the stones used by King Solomon in his breastplate. In Asia, garnets were used as bullets, most notably in the rebellion in India in 1892. Garnet’s name comes from the Greek word for pomegranate, and the gem is associated with a Greek myth surrounding this fruit. Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, tasted three seeds from the pomegranate, dooming herself to spend half of the year in the underworld, married to Hades, god of the underworld.

Emeralds—Popular Protectors

Emeralds are believed to have been brought to Earth from the planet Venus. This precious stone is one of the only ones that retains its value, according to gemologists and jewelers, even if it is deeply flawed. Emeralds have a richly varied mythology attached to their glowing green history. For thousands of years, Hindu physicians in India regarded this stone as a benefit to many stomach-related illnesses—it was an appetite stimulant, a curative for dysentery, a laxative, and a treatment for too much stomach-irritating bile. In India of old, they also believed emeralds could drive away demons or rid a body of ill spirits.

Another antiquated belief about emeralds is that they portended events from the future, rather like scrying, or seeing things in a mirror or the glassy surface of the gem. Emeralds were thought to be foes to sorcerers, a belief stemming from a legend that emeralds vanquished all wizardry in their wake. The ancients loved emeralds and connected them with the eyes. Theophrastus, a student of Plato’s, taught that emeralds protected the eyesight. He was taken so seriously that engravers kept emeralds on their tables to look at to refresh their eyes.

Egyptians valued emeralds almost beyond any other stone and claimed their goddess, Isis, wore a great emerald. Anyone who looked upon Isis’s green jewel was assured of a safe trip to the underworld, the land of the dead. Egypt was the main source for emeralds until the sixteenth century. The Cleopatra mines, south of Cairo, were the mother lode, and emerald traders from as far away as India sought the stones, obtained at great human cost under wretched conditions of extreme heat and dangerous underground shafts. I hope the common belief that these stones also protected people from any poison and all venomous serpents was true here. Emeralds were anathemas to snakes, which would supposedly be struck blind by merely looking upon the stones.

In ancient Rome, emeralds were quite sought after by the wealthy class. Nero watched the games in the Coliseum through a set of priceless spectacles made from emeralds. However, with the capture of South America by Pizarro and Cortés, the Spanish in the 1500s made emeralds more available to the Europeans, who had an insatiable appetite for jewels and gold. The discovery in 1558 of the Muzo mine in Colombia uncovered emeralds of incredible beauty and size, prompting the Spanish conquistadors to take over the mine and declare the natives slaves. Perhaps part of Montezuma’s revenge involved the seizure of the emerald mines. Emeralds were a popular cure for dysentery in the sixteenth century when worn touching the torso or held in the mouth. As with all very valuable stones, the people who actually mine them have no access to them unless they are smuggled out of the mines. According to a recent article in National Geographic, however, this is done more frequently than one might think, especially with larger stones. “Almost every high-quality emerald was smuggled at some point in its history,” according to National Geographic.

Bedazzling Birthstones

For centuries, gemstones have been assigned as symbols of image and identity. Countries have national gems. The signs of the zodiac and the twelve months of the year, as we know, have special stone correspondences, as do the planets. These systems were established long ago by the earliest astronomers and scientists. Even the twelve apostles had special stones assigned to them with sacred meanings! The very gates of heaven are covered in precious gems, according to lore and religious rites. According to the Bible, God’s own throne is made of red jasper.

Birthstones carry a long and cherished history and tradition, and you contain your stone’s energy through your right of birth. See how you can bring more of that birthstone magic into your life. For example, if you are an Aquarius, wear your garnet birthstone to help put you more in touch with your emotions and enhance your relationships at home and at work. If you are a typical travel- happy Sagittarius, now you know your birthstone is specially equipped to protect you when you are far away from home. For romantic Libra women, your opal is a “man magnet.”

Study up! Aside from adding sparkle to your appearance, your birthstone is surrounding you with magic that you can access to your advantage each and every day. If you don’t have one, think about giving yourself your special and sacred birthstone as a birthday gift!

Setting Up Your Lunar Altar: Your Personal Power Center

Before there were temples and churches, the primary place for expressing reverence was the altar. The word “altar” comes from a Latin word which means “high place.” With a personal altar, you can reach the heights of your spirituality and ascend in wisdom. You construct an altar when you assemble symbolic items in a meaningful manner, focusing both your attention and intention. When you work with the combined energies of these items, you are performing ritual. Your rituals can arise from your needs, imagination, or the seasonal and traditional ceremonies that you find in this book and others. A book I draw much inspiration from has been Nancy Brady Cunningham’s A Book of Women’s Altars. I love her advice to bow or place your hands on the ground in front of your altar at the beginning of ritual work and at the closing, explaining, “Grounding symbolizes the end of the ritual and signals to the mind to return to an ordinary state of awareness as you re-enter daily life.” An altar is a physical point of focus for the ritual, containing items considered sacred and essential to ritual work and spiritual growth. An altar can be anything from a rock in the forest to an exquisitely carved antique table. Even portable or temporary altars can suffice such as a board suspended between two chairs for “rituals on the go.”