Smoky Quartz and Black Obsidian: Feet on the Ground, Head in the Stars

In my last post, I talked a little bit about how you can use the traditional rainbow colors to help you develop  a stone meditation kit . It may seem a little out there, but I've found that you have to get out of your own way and just let the magic happen when you're working with stones. I won't try to explain how a crystal can capture the imagination. Nobody can explain that. We just know that it does.  You're focusing on the beauty of the stones, rather than your own issues.

Today I'd like to take a closer look at the "grounding" end of the rainbow. There are certain "dark" stones that many peoples all over the world have traditionally used to blast through negativity or to ward it off in the first place. Smoky Quartz, in particular, seems to be a very sympathetic stone. Need to be a little more chill? Try placing a large Smoky Quartz anywhere you need a little more peace in your environment. Smaller Smoky Quartz can be worn as jewelry or carried in your pocket.

By the way, Smoky Topaz is just an old-time jewelry store name, before the laws about truth in labeling were really enforced the way they are now. Your grandmother's Smoky Topaz? It's Smoky Quartz. And that's fine. It's a great stone. It's actually a blessing that it's so inexpensive because it means that it is widely available to anyone who would like to use it.

A lot of people also work with Obsidian, especially Black Obsidian like the famous Apache Tears. I like it for a pocket stone, but make sure you wrap it well in a silk or satin bag. Obsidian is volcanic glass-- naturally formed from lava flows. Since it doesn't have a crystalline structure, it scratches quite easily, just like manmade glass.  From time to time, I have scratched a pocket Obsidian, which I take as a sign that I need to put it on the "to do" list to go back in the tumbler.

If you squint at my photo down below of some of my tumbled black stones, you'll see a reddish and black Obsidian on the left side of the photo. That's Mahogany Obsidian-- also a good lower grounding or root chakra stone. I may have a lot more to say about it in a later post. 

I have now published a complete book containing my thoughts on working with the chakras using crystals to enhance your prosperity. You are free to read this blog online but if you'd like my thoughts all in one convenient place, you can buy the ebook here:



You can buy the paperback here:

Crystal Cash Chakra Magick: The Rainbow Path to Prosperity

Stone Meditation Kit: A Peek Inside

Want a look inside my rough-and-tumble meditation kit? I like to include a variety of stones, in a variety of forms, so that I'm ready to go wherever my intuition and my creativity may lead.  I like to choose between beads, faceted stones, cabochons, tumbled stones, and even 100% all-natural crystals.

If you're not sure where to start with your crystal meditation, here's a suggestion I like. There are seven colors of the traditional rainbow, which corresponds to the traditional New Age Chakras. I also like to have two more stones, one at my feet and one over my head. That's a total of nine stones to place on the chakras for the meditation. The honorary "colors" of clear/light and grounded/dark are placed at the ends of the traditional ROYGBIV rainbow of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. Make sense?  It goes something like this:

Overhead -- a white or clear crystal like the Herkimer Diamond or another high quality quartz
The crown chakra -- a Violet stone like this Amethyst Crystal from Vera Cruz, Mexico
The "third eye"  -- an Indigo(ish) stone like this North Carolina Ruby
The throat chakra -- a Blue stone like this Sodalite
The heart chakra -- a Green stone like this Malachite
The solar plexus -- a Yellow or Golden stone like the faceted Citrine from Brazil
The belly chakra -- an Orange stone like this Carnelian
The root chakra -- a Red stone like this Banded Hematite
Grounding -- a black stone like this faceted Smoky Quartz also from Brazil



I have now published a complete book containing my thoughts on working with the chakras using crystals to enhance your prosperity. You are free to read this blog online but if you'd like my thoughts all in one convenient place, you can buy the ebook here:



You can buy the paperback here:

Crystal Cash Chakra Magick: The Rainbow Path to Prosperity

Photo Notes:  Stones from the Peachfront Press collection, copyright 2016, all rights reserved

Peek Inside Some Crystal Books for Free

My books are meant to be short, actionable guides aimed at the prosperity worker.









But there are many other good books out there with a more general focus. Here are some of my favorites:

Topaz: Stay the Course

A little while ago I got tweeted one of those stone magick tips which informed me that Imperial Topaz is a good choice to wear or carry if you are meeting a lot of resistance and you need courage to stay the course. There's no doubt that this is a traditional use of this stone.  Topaz has always been there to support your courage and your determination on the path to ultimate victory.

If you are certain that your path is righteous, then go ahead. Slip this stone in your pocket, or wear it in a ring, and stay true to your course.

But what if...?  Sometimes, the reason we're getting a lot of roadblocks in our path is because fate or higher spirit is trying to tell us that we're on the wrong road to begin with. Sometimes your best move to find your good is to get off the wrong road and start heading in a more positive direction. How do you know?

I'm not a big believer in just "programming" a stone to do what you already have in your mind is the right thing to do. Sometimes you need to calm your mind, put your pre-conceived ideas out of your head, and let the stones (or another magickal tool) suggest what you should be doing.

I've tried a lot of different techniques to get insight and direction from the universe outside of me. Tarot, astrology, the Ruins, etc... some of these work better for me than others. Again and again, I have returned to the Tarot. Try resting your cards with a small Amethyst and a small Quartz crystal on top of their box for a few days before you do a reading. You might be amazed.

I've also put together a stone Tarot kit that I use from time to time for quick readings. Maybe in a future post I'll photograph my kit and show you how it works.

Photo Credit: Imperial Topaz photo by Karen Neoh under a CC by 2.0 license

Neon Blue Apatite-- The Experiment Begins

If you're read my book Crystal Cash: Fast Easy Money Magick Using Popular Stones-- and if you haven't, what are you waiting for? -- then you know that my special gift seems to be prosperity workings. Maybe not "win the lottery" levels of abundance, but I seem to do OK with drawing in unexpected sources of money. I've had a lot of fun playing with the old stone folklore. It just seems to come naturally to me.

However, there's a lot of old stone folklore. Drawing financial security and prosperity is just one part of a balanced life. There's also a lot of folklore that deals with drawing love or health or long life. As it happens, someone sent me a big package of Neon Blue Apatite. As far as I know, it isn't a prosperity stone. So I'm open to insights and experiences about what people are doing with this stone.

As far as I know, Neon Blue Apatite wasn't identified as a separate crystal during ancient times. Any stone worker cutting it would quickly figure out it was much softer than sapphire, but that doesn't seem to mean that anybody knew what it was. In fact, I just read that the word "apatite" came from a Greek word for cheating stone, since evidently apatite was sold as a more valuable stone and thus just succeeded in getting the buyers/stonecutters really peeved off. Uh oh. Doesn't mean the stone is no good. It's beautiful. Just means that people got burned, and thus they formed some unpleasant associations with it.

If you have any information about positive ancient uses of this stone, please give me a shout on Twitter Tweet to @AmethystQu
But for now, I'm going with the assumption that the positive uses of this beautiful teal-colored stone were discovered by workers in the 20 and 21st centuries.

Here are some of the uses people have reported for their Neon Blue Apatite:

*Meditate with the stone on your "third eye" chakra or keep it on your desk when you're working or studying online to help you focus. I've used flourite (an even softer stone that comes in purple, blue, and yellow) for a similar purpose, but haven't yet tried it with apatite.

*Throat chakra for speaking truth. "Speaking" in modern times can, of course, include writing or blogging. Anything you use to get the word out. You could wear it on a chain at your throat. Or, again, meditate with the stone on your throat chakra.

*Psychic development. Really need to communicate with someone at a distance? In the era of the smartphone, you may question why we "need" telepathy to send mental messages when we can instantly send a text. Trust me. There are situations where you really, truly can't send a text for whatever reason. It could be cool to experiment with this one. Hey, you never know.

*Some people say it helps with lucid dreaming too. I've tried to get away from lucid (controlled) dreaming and let my dreams "happen" a little more than I was doing in the past, but I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on that too.

*Weight loss. I've read of people using it as a pocket stone, but I'd put it in a little protective silk or velvet bag first, since it's fairly soft with a Mohs hardness of 5, so it's possible to scratch it.

What's (Lucky) In YOUR Wallet?

I thought it would be fun to dump out my coin purse to give you a look at what's in MY wallet. Here are the stones and luck items I trust to help me draw prosperity every single day. If you have read my books, Crystal Cash Spells and the original Crystal Cash: Fast Easy Money Magick Using Popular Stones, then you are probably not too surprised to see the Green Aventurine, Bloodstone, and Quartz Crystal point in that mixed bag of luck items. (And if you haven't read those books, why not? Crystal Cash Spells is a super-short book that I put out for free, so try it if you want a taste first.) I actually ended up with a couple of Aventurine pebbles because, well, just because. If one Green Aventurine is lucky, then two Aventurines are double the luck, right?

Bloodstone may not be as widely celebrated for its place as a prosperity stone, but it's a strong stone that you probably won't be willing to do without once you've played with it a little.

Arkansas Quartz Crystal is, of course, the classic all-purpose stone ready to accept any positive intention-- and, in this case, it's intended to multiply whatever money happens to come into its aura.

The Japanese coin is a bit of urban folklore, based on a legend I heard that "holey" Japanese coins were lucky.

The four leaf clover is a charm I found that seemed perfect for the job. In days gone by, I've found and dried four leaf clovers from the lawn between the pages of a book. When it's nice and dry, you can put it in your wallet with your paper money. Eventually it crumples away or just disappears, so you have to keep replacing it fairly often. But that's good too. It keeps you focused on a positive mentality where you're always looking for four leaf clovers-- the lucky side of life.

Green Aventurine Prosperity in 2016

The very first object I brought in my house this year was this five pound mega-whopper Green Aventurine. It's a classic specimen, a soft "money" green with lots of gold flash that comes from included mica crystals. But it's more than an oversized addition to the mineral collection. It's a magnet on the metaphysical level, meant to draw plenty of new money into my house.

Here's a question. Is it more important to release your hopes for the stone and sort of forget it's there and let it do its magick?

Or should you visit with the stone every day, maybe repeating a short affirmation of its purpose? "My green aventurine super-crystal is a true money magnet pulling ever more and more money into the home."

Hmm. Most of the time, I prefer to "set it and forget it." I feel like if I have to keep affirming, if I have to keep "reminding" the stone of what it's supposed to do, I'm demonstrating a lack of trust in the magickal process. I find, for me, it's important to get out of the way and just let the magick happen.

But different techniques work for different people. If you've been carrying aventurine as a pocket stone for awhile-- long enough to mostly forget it's there-- and you still haven't seen much change in your financial outlook, there's nothing wrong with purifying the stone and starting over with a new technique.