Healing Stones

 

We have all encountered psychic vampires, whether we know it or not. Your aura will know it, because psychic vampires tear away little pieces of your chi, or life force, leaving holes in your aura. You can identify the places that need patching because they will become noticeably cold as you pass a crystal over them. Pick your favorite stone between amethyst, citrine, or any quartz and run it all around you at a distance of about three inches. Make note of the cold spots and lay the crystal on those places for about five minutes, until the spot feels warmer. You will have repaired the holes in your etheric body and should begin to feel a pleasant sense of renewed wholeness once again.

Here’s another technique: crystal combing. It sounds odd, but you will become an aficionado immediately after you have felt the wonderfully soothing results. The beautiful pink kunzite is amazing as a mental management crystal. Take the crystal and brush it in gentle, slow, downward strokes from the top of your head, the crown chakra, to the bottom of your feet. The next time you feel overwhelmed by anxiety, try this and you will feel more relaxed and in control afterward.

Kunzite is also a heart mender which touches upon the heart chakra to bring inner peace, clear away old romantic wounds, and get rid of emotional baggage. You can place a chunk of kunzite upon your chest and meditate with it to feel the healing energy flow in.

Tourmaline

Tourmaline is purity and positivity. It is a powerful crystal of great immediacy, quickly redirecting the energy of the mind and body. Tourmaline fights fearfulness and eliminates long-held wounds from the past, leaving you renewed and with far greater clarity. Whatever is weighing you down will soon be gone; your emotional baggage will be unpacked and lightened. Tourmaline is regarded as one of the best all-around healers. It is one of the most effective stones to use in overcoming a crisis or trauma and the accompanying pain. It relieves and releases sorrow and replaces it with joy. Tourmaline is also grounding, giving perspective regarding the very meaning of life.

The name apparently comes from the Sinhalese word turamali, the former name for “gems” in Sri Lanka. Tourmaline is found all over the world and comes in many colors, each one with distinctive properties.

* Blue tourmaline, known as indicolite, is highly sought after. This stone relates to the upper torso and is healing for the brain, the pulmonary system, and the immune system. As with many blue crystals, tourmaline is superb for spiritual growth. It is a visionary stone and opens the third eye, giving way to psychism. This crystal enables you to see how you can serve humanity with higher mind awareness.

* Green tourmaline, properly called chrome, is said to be the most powerful of all the tourmalines, and a great many healers believe it is the most powerful of all crystals! Green tourmaline is healing to the eyes and heart and helps with weight loss. Anyone who suffers from chronic fatigue should try tourmaline. This stone also abets the study of herbalism. This crystal is a problem solver. This is a complete balancer, touching upon each chakra as well as rejuvenating the brain, the nervous system, and the immune system. Green tourmaline is a creativity crystal and lends enormous energy and impetus so you can strive for your best work and art. Green tourmaline turns thoughts into actions, facilitating follow-through and helping you overcome any obstacle in your path. This is a confidence crystal, giving you greater compassion, inspiration, prosperity, and tolerance for others.

* Purple tourmaline is a stone of devotion. Lending the highest spiritual aspirations, this crystal works by connecting the root and heart chakras. It greatly enables the ability to love unconditionally and creatively. Purple tourmaline is a heart healer.

* Black tourmaline wards off negative energy and does not absorb it as most other black crystals do. If you sense that bad energy is being directed at you specifically and malevolently, black tourmaline will repel this psychic attack. Psychic vampires are also a problem, though they might be unconscious of it, but this crystal will keep them away and prevent them from draining you of energy. Black tourmaline is a guardian stone; keep it with you during times of stress. When held in the hand, black tourmaline relieves the symptoms of allergies within ten minutes. I would go so far as to suggest you keep it with you in your home, on your altar, and at your place of work, as it will make your personal space safe. This crystal shields against disease and strengthens the body. If nightmares or insomnia are any kind of issue, turn to tourmaline.

* Pink to Red tourmaline, called rubellite, is very soothing. This pretty crystal is an excellent one to use in a relationship that needs adjustment because it heals hurt and lends mutual understanding. Pink tourmaline can aid in overcoming inhibition in lovemaking; it provides trust in your own body and very gently allows you to let love in and to be able to receive love being shown to you. This is a stone of acceptance and release, paving the way to new experiences in love and in life. Pink tourmaline brings the most important kind of love of all—for yourself.

* Watermelon tourmaline is an exceptional combination of green and pink and is a stone of harmony and balance. This crystal is one to call upon when dealing with conflict. It gives you the ability to love yourself and others, to understand, and to heal. It is a peacemaker’s stone, more essential in this world than ever before.

* Clear tourmaline is the blending of all the other tourmalines. This clear crystal touches upon and opens the crown chakra, creating synergy between the etheric body and the physical body by aligning the meridian lines. It is a boost to the immune system and has been used for healing nervous disorders.

Rose Quartz

No other mineral has a color anything like the pink and rose colors of rose quartz, which are caused by titanium and iron. Rose quartz, thankfully, comes in large enough masses that is has been used in many sacred statues, obelisks, and spheres. Although these crystals come from India, Madagascar, Germany, and North America, the best specimens come from mineral-rich Brazil.

A truly extraordinary type or rose quartz is the kind with rutile needles that create a gorgeous star effect. I aim to get one of these, perhaps to celebrate and mark the publication of this gem book! Rose quartz is an emotion stone and is particularly good for matters of the heart. It is gently soothing, slowly allowing the release of hurt and negative feelings and memories. I strongly recommend keeping pieces at home and at work where you can see them and instantly get a lift every time you look at your chunks of love.

Rose quartz engenders self-love, which we must have before we can really love anyone else. Self-forgiveness and self-acceptance are made possible with rose quartz meditation. I have a very large piece with a light centered at the base of my bed, and the warm pink glow immediately makes the room a comforting cocoon. The heat of the bulb also causes the stone to release cheery negative ions into my bedroom. Rose quartz is a crystal of tenderness, nurturing, compassion, sympathy, and faith.

This rock has healing power over the heart and the circulatory system, naturally, as well as the reproductive and cleansing organs. Traditionally, rose quartz is believed to abet fertility. It is especially good for sensitive souls—artists, musicians, writer, poets, and anyone of a gentle and receptive nature.

Garnet

I love that the word “garnet” comes from granatum, referring to the color of a pomegranate seed—how mythic and romantic! (And much more appealing than the word coined by the Egyptians, “carbuncle.”) Garnet has come to be considered a wine-colored stone, but in actuality, it can come in green, yellow, or brown. Garnets are found all over the world and can make up a family of minerals:

• Almandite, the most common of the garnets and probably the favorite, is dark red with a deep brown cast; its rich color is brought on by the content of iron and aluminum. It is often cut as a jewel.
• Andradite is a combination of calcium and iron and varies in color from red to green to yellow to black. Green andradites are favored as gems.
• Grossular, composed of calcium and aluminum, occurs most often in a white or clear color. In Sri Lanka, there is a topaz-like brown grossular that is of jewel quality, and in Siberia, there is one that’s gooseberry green—thus the name of “grossular,” derived from the Latin word for this fruit.
• Pyrope is the most precious garnet, with the clearest red color due to the magnesium content. The most valuable pyropes come from South Africa, in the “blue earth” where diamonds are found.
• Spessartine is the rarest garnet, an aluminum-and-manganese gem with an appealing orange tint.
• Uvarovite is not very common. This grassy green garnet is usually discovered in calcium-rich serpentine rock and has a unique crystalline structure.

Red garnets are love stones. These sexy stones can help those with a lethargic libido tune into their passion. Green garnets are the real healing stones. These crystals offer protection to the chakras. You should wear green garnets as earrings or in a necklace to get the most benefit from the inner and outer healing power.

Garnets are conductors of past-life memories and are memory sharpeners in the here and now. They offer the welcome advantage of increasing patience. Garnets also promote compassion and awareness of the world and the self. They help a person let go, especially of self-loathing.

Diamond

 Now we come to the mighty diamond, a gemstone revered the world over and the lucky birthstone of the April-born. This is generally considered to be the highest and purest expression of gems. The clarity of diamonds and their ability to reflect light are peerless. Composed of pure carbon, diamonds are formed after thousands of years of great pressure and heat at great depth below the earth’s crust in iron-magnesium magma. Diamonds were first brought to the earth’s surface by volcanic flows and are now mined at great cost in Siberia, Australia, South Africa, and Arkansas. In Canada and California, glaciers have pushed diamonds near the surface, creating some great episodes in history.

When exposed to radiation, diamonds will phosphoresce and are generally considered to be the hardest natural substance. Poor-grade, or bort, diamonds are often used for industrial purposes, but gem cutters in India have become expert at finding ways to salvage these lower-quality diamonds for use in jewelry.

Diamonds are terrific healing stones; perhaps no other crystal can focus energy so purely and intensely. The lore surrounding the healing qualities of diamonds is vast, but most healers agree that the unique blue light of this gem is a help to the eye condition glaucoma. Diamonds are also thought to be a boon to male genitalia, bringing some interesting jewelry options to mind. Diamonds are superb in conjunction with other stones and will amplify the properties of any other gem. While this can be enormously helpful, it cuts both ways. If you are in a negative state of mind, diamonds will amplify that, as well.

Diamond has come to be a symbol of fidelity and is the traditional stone used in a ring for engagement, a pledge to be married and together forever. Since this gem is an aid to intuition, the ring itself will help the potential bride know if her betrothed is really “the one.” Diamonds also imbue courage and can help one face anything.

Calcite

Calcite, or limestone, is one of the more plentiful stones, coming in a range of colors from black to white, with every shade in between. Approximately 4 percent of Earth’s surface is made up of calcite. Calcite gets its name from chalix, the Greek word for lime. Marble is limestone formed from heat and pressure, and calcite is the cement in many sandstones and shales. Calcite is the basis for many formations found in caves, such as cave veils, cave pearls, stalactites , and stalagmites. Environmentalists are heartened by this because this oceanic biological activity can act as a carbon-dioxide filter and help stem the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere.

The crystals in calcite can take on a thousand different shapes by combining the forms of rhombohedrons, scalahedrons, prisms, and pinacoids, to name but a few. More than 300 forms have been noted in calcite, and the symmetry is nearly unmatched, with many twins.

Calcite is all over the world, but certain conditions have made for very special specimens. In Cornwall, England; Pugh Quarry, Ohio; and Elmwood, Tennessee, are beautifully clear, amber-orange pyramid shapes called dogtooth spar. Mexican onyx, banded with orange, red, tan, brown, yellow, and white and having an appealing marble-like smoothness, is a very common type of calcite used in carvings sold in gift shops around the globe.

Calcite is helpful to bones and joints and is a memory booster. In addition to aiding in retaining information, calcite is a calming agent that can bring clarity to decision-making processes. Green calcite is a terrific support to people in transition, bringing about positive energy in place of the negative. The yellow and gold calcites are quite useful for meditation due to their association with the sun and with light, the sign of the spiritual path and higher knowledge. It is said that these sunny calcites can even help with astral projection. Calcite is a healing stone and is highly recommended for physicians, nurses, and healers to keep at their offices.

Aventurine

Associated with the eyes, this crystal is most commonly found in green, but it also appears in blue, red, and brown. Aventurine comes from Russia, India, Nepal, and Brazil and was at one time believed by Tibetans to be able to overcome myopia, both literally and figuratively. In Tibet, aventurine was also thought to have the ability to open the third eye and to release imagination and perception.

Considered to be beneficial to the thymus and the nervous system, aventurine is one of those rare general healers that can offer wellness to any part of the body upon which it is laid. As a general healing stone, it can also be used in tandem with other stones, such as rose quartz and malachite. Combined with rose quartz, aventurine can help open your heart and soul to love and compassion. Used in combination with malachite, the benefits are clarity and raised consciousness. Highly recommended and an excellent boon for young children, aventurine is a wonder stone for the well-being of the whole family.

Amber

The color amber is named after the stone, indicating how long people have been using this gem. A fossilized resin, amber comes from the sap of trees dating back millions of years. It frequently contains other fossils—insects, plant fragments, and rocks. Amber is prized for its honey gold color, but Baltic amber has a green color. Amber has been held in high regard as a power and protection talisman for thousands of years and has been used just as long as a healing stone, said to draw out disease, particularly afflictions of thyroid, inner ear, spleen, brain and lungs. You should clean amber after you use it because it draws in energy, which could include bad or negative energy from the body or the environment. Due to its organic origins, amber is an earth stone. It is so grounding and centering that you should not wear it all the time.