Befriend the Stone People

Befriend the Stone People

The magic of the mineral kingdom. Our indigenous friends call them stone people. The one I'm holding in my pocket is 350 million years old. Are you sure it isn't a being? Imagine what it must know, in its own way, after having been here 350 millions years. It was forged during the age of the dinosaurs. There's a fossil Orthoceras that I have, the fossilized remnants of an ammonite several hundred million years old. I can look at the husk of a creature older than my capacity to conceptualize time.

The mineral kingdom is conceptualized, by those who understand cosmic architecture, as being a higher realm, because it is in service to us. It serves the plant kingdom, which requires the presence of various elements in soil to flourish. It serves the animal kingdom: us. It's uses are too varied to name completely, but if we grow curious about it, and begin to create a relationship we can find nourishment in the stones.

Our indigenous friends call them stone people, heat them up in a fire, and use them to warm the heart of the sweat lodge: a purification ceremony. For millenia humans have been using them in ceremonies, wearing them as adornment, holding them to meditate.

The stone to the left, a slab of rainbow fluorite, has an astonishing beauty. If you find yourself drawn to stones, go to a rockshop and spend time holding various stones and noting how your body responds to them. Treat this as a mindfulness practice. The properties of various stones are well-noted and consistent. Lapis Lazuli has been used ceremonially by cultures ranging from the Egyptians to the Chinese. Some stones raise consciousness, some cool anger, some draw out negativity. Entering into relationship with the mineral kingdom is to open the door to a new world of study and relationship with something we've been taught to think of as inanimate.

I'll tell you an interesting story. My friend Adrian gave me a stone that I kept in my back pocket for several months. It was a cross-section of an agate with stripes of royal blue. One day I left it in our backyard for a couple of hours in the morning, inadvertently. The sun rose high in the sky, and when I picked it up several hours later the blue had become so faint it was almost indistinguishable. I had heard that some stones fade in sunlight–amethyst, for example, so while I was sad about this, I chalked it up to a property of the stone. I put it back in my pocket. When I drew it out several days later, the color had started to return. That's odd, I thought. And then, gradually, over about two weeks, it returned to its original color. I have a hard time explaining that according to any logic whereby I used to understand the mineral kingdom. But then, some things are just mysterious.