by Mickey Hanson

“The Crystal Lady” from Crystal Light Source

For most of my life, rocks and minerals have fascinated me; so it was no surprise that I become a collector of these gifts from the earth. My earliest childhood recollections are of picking up any “pretty stones” I happened to come upon. In both grade and high schools, my science projects were always on rocks and minerals. I enjoyed doing all the research as I learned to identify stones through the Golden Rock and Mineral books.

As I went along in life and had a family, it was a joy to share the passion of what I had learned about the wonders from Mother Earth with my children. Through the years we took many trips to various collecting areas in Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado. These trips resulted in us having a large pile of agates and other “pretty rocks” living on the patio of our home.

As the years passed, my interest and fascination grew. Finally, in 1991 I went to work for a company that sold crystal jewelry and I learned even more. I first noticed that different people were drawn to different stones. I began to experiment for myself on myself. I picked up a piece of green gemstone that I thought was tourmaline. The intense feeling that came from the stone really surprised me. An electric-type shock shot up my arm, and it felt like I had a helicopter propeller on the top of my head. When I set the stone down the feelings stopped. I picked it up again and the electric shock and “propeller” returned. The next day I told my boss about my fascinating experience. First I found that I’d been mistaken about the type of stone. Instead of tourmaline, it was actually moldavite, a very interesting tektite from Moldavia (Czechoslovakia) which would have had a very different effect than tourmaline.  That fact piqued my interest even more. He then introduced me to a book about the “energy of the stones” and how they were used to help people heal. This new knowledge filled in a big piece of my life puzzle as I realized that all those years I’d picked up stones because they did make me feel better, calmer, more centered, and balanced when I held them.

Later I had an opportunity to work at a mineral and crystal store. The gentleman I worked with there taught me even more about the rocks I’d loved all of my life. From my own experience, I have come to believe each person is attracted to the stone they need most. Interestingly enough, each stone reacts differently to each different person. One type of stone may get very hot in one person’s hand while to the next person it feels very cool. It seems to be the same principle as when our bodies crave certain foods.

In “OUR FRIENDS FROM THE GEM KINGDOM” series I would like to share with you stones that are good to carry on your person, place in your home or car, or give to someone who just needs a little extra something.

Our first FRIEND is quartz, a hard and durable stone, which man has used for centuries. Quartz comes in a variety of types and colors. The color in quartz comes from the impurities present as the hot silica cools and crystals form and mass.

I’ll start with clear quartz crystals, a fairly common stone found in the ground in almost all of the states in one form or another. It can be clear crystals, mass rocks, found within other rocks such as granite and sand. The clearer the crystal is the fewer impurities it has. It can be shaped into artistic pieces, sharpened to cut, or just be enjoyed for the beauty of the crystals. It can be used as a focusing tool for healing energy or to bring rainbows into a room. Quartz attracts energy, filtering out the bad and amplifying the good. It can be programmed to match the intent of the person using it. In other words, you can ask it for assistance to help you complete something, attract a new project, or repel unpleasant situations. It can also return any negative energy to the person from whom it came.  Quartz is a silicone amplifier that has quite a variety of uses:

• In radios to improve response to frequency
• In watches for more accurate timekeeping
• In computers as vessels and bowls
• In utensils and lasers
• Lab-grown quartz was developed during the Cold War to use as lenses in the smart bombs

© Mickey Hanson, 2022, All Rights Reserved