Precious Gems of Wisdom by Sam Stevens
The New Age should also be called The Stone Age, because along with aromatherapy, healing with the vibrations and frequencies emitted by gemstones is at the crux of the movement. Below I have listed seven popular gemstones that also correspond with the divine energies of the Seven Archangels. I will do another article, in the near future that deals with inexpensive semi-precious stones, but chances are that many of you own jewelry already set with the following precious gems. If you don't own any jewelry you can obtain inexpensive, raw, unpolished in stores or on the Internet. Once you have the stone, it is best to wear it someplace your body, which is why so many of these are set in necklaces, bracelets and rings already. You also might want to practice psychometry, which is the intuitive art of holding the stone and sensing its vibration. Some people like to purify raw or unpolished stones, after they have purchased them, by dropping it in a glass of salt for a night. In the case of used jewelry or inherited things, you might want to do this to cleanse it of the energies of the previous owner.
Sapphire:
This stone, which is usually the color of the deep, blue sea, will help give you power, focus and determination. It is a great stone to wear when you feel yourself losing hope, stamina and perseverance. A sapphire helps you to concentrate on the tasks on hand and get things done. It improves your concentration and helps you stay centered throughout your daily activities. This is the stone to wear if you have trouble sitting down and writing 'A Things To Do List'. It is good for those who feel disoriented or spacey or have trouble with their eyesight.
The sapphire corresponds to the energies of the Archangel Micheal, who assists us with mental clarity, and protects us from accidents. So this is a good stone to wear if you are entering a potentially violent, risky or daring situation. It is also a good gem to wear while you are driving.
Yellow Topaz:
This clear yellow gem is the 'problem-solving stone'. It is for those who feel overwhelmed by life. You might have that existential feeling like there is no way out of a situation. Use this stone to help you reconnect with your higher self, as well as to help you physically and emotionally feel human again.
This stone is also good for those who feel 'numbed by disappointment'. It can help release frozen feelings; as well as help you detect the hidden sources of illness in your body. It can help you to embrace new ideas and accept uncomfortable changes. It is used by healers for protection from toxic energies and also to release those who feel oppressed by drunken or abusive partners. It can also help obsessive people learn to let go. It helps you recognize your patterns and see the 'big picture' in life.
Topaz also expands your field of awareness so it is a good stone to wear while sending out resumes or looking for a job. Wearing Topaz helps you connect to the energies of the Archangel Jophiel, who is the angel of Divine inspiration.
Rose Quartz:
Feeling low? Wear a rose quartz to increase your confidence and self-esteem. This light pink crystal heals the heart and promotes a sense of self-appreciation, self-appreciation and self-love. It also helps you open your heart¹s center so that you can give love,unconditionally without any expectation of a reward in return. It improves your mood and enhances feelings of joy.
The Rose quartz is a very warm stone and helps you put your own needs first, before others thereby getting rid of that feeling of being taken for granted or being taken advantage of. This crystal also helps those with circulatory and heart problems and because of its warm energy is said to be a tool for healing pain in general.
The rose quartz is also the stone that is carried to increase the circulation of cash flow in your life. It corresponds to the benevolent energies of the Archangel Chamuel, the Angel of Love. This is the angel that always makes sure that you have food on the table, shelter over your head and the tools for your trade.
Diamond:
Clarity is the key word to describe the uses of a diamond for psychological healing. This is the stone to wear if you have trouble making decisions, or are at a loss as to what to do with your life. It also helps those who start things all the time and never finish them.
The diamond is also a stone of communication and aids those who often feel left out of the loop to communicate clearly with others. It is good for those who feel consistently misunderstood or like they are socially invisible.
Diamonds have traditionally symbolized the commitment of one human being to another, but in this case they also symbolize a commitment to taking care of your higher self. The stone vibrates at a frequency that strengthens your intuitive abilities. It helps you perceive beyond surface appearance and understand the truth about another person.
Psychologically, wearing a diamond can help you manifest what you want in your life -- bringing airy-fairy ideals down into physical reality. This stone is excellent for artists, visionaries and inventors. The diamond connects you to the peaceful energies of the Archangel Gabriel, who helps you harmonize conflicts in your life.
Emerald:
This brilliant green stone is used to restore balance. Healers use this an anti-stress stone and to restore harmony to troubled or split personalities. It is good for manic-depressives, drama queens and others who go to emotional extremes.
Traditionally, an emerald was also thought to bring the owner financial security. It is thought to help you learn lessons, so you don¹t repeat mistakes as well as balance your checkbook!
If you have a problem with the opposite sex, the emerald can help restore the yin/yang energies in your own body and acknowledge your shadow side. It helps to heal such common wounds of the heart such as unrequited love, abandonment and death. It is also used in general to heal emotional upsets.
At the cellular level, the emerald is thought to restore balance at the cellular level. It is thought to reconnect communication between the left and right brain and is useful for those who suffer from inner ear problems or dizziness.
Wearing this stone connects you to the divine energies of the Archangel Raphael -- the Angel of Healing.
Ruby:
This is the best stone to wear when your finances are running low. The blood red light of the ruby helps to dispel feelings of discouragement and self-doubt and infuse your heart, mind and aura with the qualities of success, affluence, attractiveness and personal victory.
This is the stone to wear if you feel like you are drowning in self-pity. It dispels negative self-talk and is thought to increase confidence and beauty. Wear it if you feel like you are isolating too much and would like to participate more in your community. It can help you achieve a vibrant social life and attract the right friends. It teaches you to love and give and share with others out of a genuine sense of philanthropy and love.
The ruby also increases your physical stamina and endurance, so it is good stone to wear while working out. Physically, it enhances vitality in general and is thought to help those who have trouble waking up on time for work or just getting up in the morning. It is also thought to balance out hormones and the menstrual cycles.
The ruby corresponds to the Archangel Uriel; the Angel responsible for helping you let go of the forces of anti-love such as resentment, jealousy and bitterness so that fresher, loving and abundant forces can take their place.
Amethyst:
This beautiful purple stone that helps you let go of past hurts and relationships. It will help you access the truth that will set you free. If you are a control freak, this is the gem that will help you 'Let Go and Let God'. It will teach you to trust others and delegate tasks. If you are a meddling type, it will also help you to stop gossiping and mind your own business.
Amethyst has the effect of clearing up the clutter in your life. If you first have nightmares, after wearing one, don't be concerned. Amethysts help release fears and anxieties that might be lurking in your subconscious and preventing you from moving forward and brings them to the surface. It helps release fear and anxiety and also reduces tension and stress in the body. For this reason, it is also a good stone to wear when you have stage fright.
This is the stone you wear if you want to lose weight, quit smoking or halt any other self-defeating behavior. It aids those who are afraid of dying, experiencing the death process or who cannot move beyond the stage of mourning to joy again.
Wearing an amethyst helps you to access the energies of the Archangel Zadkiel - the Angel of Joy. This is the Angel that transmutes negative energy into positive light.
About the Author:
Sam Steven's metaphysical articles have been published in many high-standing newspapers and she has published several books. You can meet Sam Stevens at http://www.psychicrealm.com where she works as a professional psychic. You can also read more of her articles at http://www.newagenotebook.com where she is the staff writer. Currently she is studying technology's impact on the metaphysics.
http://www.aaarticles.com/article23582.html
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Magic of Pearls
The Magic of Pearls by Ian Harris
Pearls!
The word itself immediately conjures images of wealth, classic beauty and nobility. Throughout history, pearls have always been associated with power and money, for only the rich and powerful could afford them. All through history, pearls were valued more highly than gold or diamonds.
Pearls have become synonymous with high value in our language. We still speak of pearls of wisdom, meaning the highest form of wisdom, the wisest of the wise. Jesus Christ spoke of casting pearls before swine, in reference to the most wasteful possible use of a most valuable resource. And the entrance to Heaven? The Pearly Gates of course.
Why were pearls so valuable? Pearls were extraordinarily rare. Unlike gold or precious gems, they are not mined from the ground, but made by a living organism, an oyster or a mussel. Pearls do not appear in a vein like precious metals or gemstones. They are spread out over a wide area, and deep under water. Even in areas where there are many oysters, only a few would contain a pearl, and collecting enough oysters to find pearls was a difficult and perilous task. Also, oysters are susceptible to climate change and disease. Entire beds can be wiped out in a year, thus eliminating the possibility of finding any more pearls. All problems that don't exist with precious metals or gems.
At perhaps the most famous banquet in history, Cleopatra challenged Marc Antony to a wager to demonstrate that Egypt had a wealth and history that placed it above conquest, she said she would provide the most extravagant dinner in history and challenged Marc Antony to match it. When they met, Cleopatra took a single pearl, crushed it to powder, put it into a glass of wine and drank it. Marc Antony immediately conceded defeat, and declined the offer of his meal, the matching pearl to the one Cleopatra had just consumed. Pliny wrote in his famous Natural History that the value of the two pearls was estimated at 60 million sesterces, equivalent to 1.87 million ounces of silver. At today's price of $US7.25/oz, that is about $US13.5 million. An extravagant meal indeed.
At the height of the Roman Empire, the historian Suetonius wrote that the Roman general Vitellius financed an entire military campaign by selling just one of his mother's pearl earrings.
During the Dark Ages knights often wore pearls onto the battlefield. They believed that the magic they possessed would protect them from harm.
In the royal courts of Renaissance Europe pearls were regarded as a symbol of nobility. Since pearls were so highly regarded, a number of European countries passed laws forbidding the wearing of pearls by anyone not of noble birth.
With the discovery and exploitation of America, the discovery of pearls in Central American waters caused a flood of pearls into Europe. Unfortunately, by the end of the 17th century, the American pearl beds were almost wiped out by the demand for pearls in Europe.
The legendary Jacques Cartier bought his famous store on 5th avenue in New York in 1916. The price? Two perfect pearl necklaces.
All that changed in 1916, when Kikichi Mikimoto, the son of a noodle maker, patented his method for cultivating pearls in oysters. He was not, however, the first to invent the method. Two other Japanese men, Tokichi Nishikawa and Tatsuhei Mise, had independently discovered how to do it, and agreed to share the discovery in what became the Mise-Nishikawa method. Their technique was patented in 1907. Mikimoto could not patent his method without infringing the earlier patent, so he changed his patent application to make it a technique for making round pearls. This technicality allowed him to avoid infringing the earlier patent.
Mikimoto then set about building his pearl empire with a passion and dedication only seen from the likes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. A natural born businessman, promoter and entrepreneur, he soon purchased the rights to the Mise-Nishikawa method, and went on experimenting and improving his techniques until today Mikimoto pearls are the most famous and arguably the best quality saltwater cultured pearls available.
In more modern times, pearls adorned the bodies of famous movie stars, both on and off the set, A-list society ladies, and the wives of the politicians and the rich and powerful. Everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Jackie Kennedy-Onassis to the Queen of England have appeared in public, at one time or another, wearing pearls.
What is this fascination we have today with the pearl?
Lots of things. The pearl is the only gem that has lustre, the main determinant of a pearl's quality. Lustre is that shine, that light that seems almost like an inner glow that no other gemstone has. Almost as if the pearl were alive, perhaps a quality of its having been created by a living creature rather than formed by massive heat and compression millions of years ago as most gemstones were. The pearl is also the only gem that does not need any kind of treatment to reveal its true splendour. It does not need to be cut or polished, its beauty is completely natural and perfect without the intervention of man.
Perhaps it is because of these qualities that pearls, when worn against a woman's skin, seem to lift the life and vitality of the complexion and impart a warm glow just by being there, in the way no other gemstone can.
Whatever the reason, fortunately for us, the advent of cultured pearls, which can only be distinguished from natural pearls by an expert with a microscope, has meant that these gorgeous and flattering gems are within the reach of everybody. The price of a good cultured pearl necklace is a tiny fraction of that of a similar diamond necklace, and is every bit as beautiful, fashionable and flattering as a piece made from other gems. Pearls belong in every fashionable woman's jewellery collection. Make sure you have yours.
http://www.ezinearticles.com/?The-Magic-of-Pearls&id=36405
Pearls!
The word itself immediately conjures images of wealth, classic beauty and nobility. Throughout history, pearls have always been associated with power and money, for only the rich and powerful could afford them. All through history, pearls were valued more highly than gold or diamonds.
Pearls have become synonymous with high value in our language. We still speak of pearls of wisdom, meaning the highest form of wisdom, the wisest of the wise. Jesus Christ spoke of casting pearls before swine, in reference to the most wasteful possible use of a most valuable resource. And the entrance to Heaven? The Pearly Gates of course.
Why were pearls so valuable? Pearls were extraordinarily rare. Unlike gold or precious gems, they are not mined from the ground, but made by a living organism, an oyster or a mussel. Pearls do not appear in a vein like precious metals or gemstones. They are spread out over a wide area, and deep under water. Even in areas where there are many oysters, only a few would contain a pearl, and collecting enough oysters to find pearls was a difficult and perilous task. Also, oysters are susceptible to climate change and disease. Entire beds can be wiped out in a year, thus eliminating the possibility of finding any more pearls. All problems that don't exist with precious metals or gems.
At perhaps the most famous banquet in history, Cleopatra challenged Marc Antony to a wager to demonstrate that Egypt had a wealth and history that placed it above conquest, she said she would provide the most extravagant dinner in history and challenged Marc Antony to match it. When they met, Cleopatra took a single pearl, crushed it to powder, put it into a glass of wine and drank it. Marc Antony immediately conceded defeat, and declined the offer of his meal, the matching pearl to the one Cleopatra had just consumed. Pliny wrote in his famous Natural History that the value of the two pearls was estimated at 60 million sesterces, equivalent to 1.87 million ounces of silver. At today's price of $US7.25/oz, that is about $US13.5 million. An extravagant meal indeed.
At the height of the Roman Empire, the historian Suetonius wrote that the Roman general Vitellius financed an entire military campaign by selling just one of his mother's pearl earrings.
During the Dark Ages knights often wore pearls onto the battlefield. They believed that the magic they possessed would protect them from harm.
In the royal courts of Renaissance Europe pearls were regarded as a symbol of nobility. Since pearls were so highly regarded, a number of European countries passed laws forbidding the wearing of pearls by anyone not of noble birth.
With the discovery and exploitation of America, the discovery of pearls in Central American waters caused a flood of pearls into Europe. Unfortunately, by the end of the 17th century, the American pearl beds were almost wiped out by the demand for pearls in Europe.
The legendary Jacques Cartier bought his famous store on 5th avenue in New York in 1916. The price? Two perfect pearl necklaces.
All that changed in 1916, when Kikichi Mikimoto, the son of a noodle maker, patented his method for cultivating pearls in oysters. He was not, however, the first to invent the method. Two other Japanese men, Tokichi Nishikawa and Tatsuhei Mise, had independently discovered how to do it, and agreed to share the discovery in what became the Mise-Nishikawa method. Their technique was patented in 1907. Mikimoto could not patent his method without infringing the earlier patent, so he changed his patent application to make it a technique for making round pearls. This technicality allowed him to avoid infringing the earlier patent.
Mikimoto then set about building his pearl empire with a passion and dedication only seen from the likes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. A natural born businessman, promoter and entrepreneur, he soon purchased the rights to the Mise-Nishikawa method, and went on experimenting and improving his techniques until today Mikimoto pearls are the most famous and arguably the best quality saltwater cultured pearls available.
In more modern times, pearls adorned the bodies of famous movie stars, both on and off the set, A-list society ladies, and the wives of the politicians and the rich and powerful. Everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Jackie Kennedy-Onassis to the Queen of England have appeared in public, at one time or another, wearing pearls.
What is this fascination we have today with the pearl?
Lots of things. The pearl is the only gem that has lustre, the main determinant of a pearl's quality. Lustre is that shine, that light that seems almost like an inner glow that no other gemstone has. Almost as if the pearl were alive, perhaps a quality of its having been created by a living creature rather than formed by massive heat and compression millions of years ago as most gemstones were. The pearl is also the only gem that does not need any kind of treatment to reveal its true splendour. It does not need to be cut or polished, its beauty is completely natural and perfect without the intervention of man.
Perhaps it is because of these qualities that pearls, when worn against a woman's skin, seem to lift the life and vitality of the complexion and impart a warm glow just by being there, in the way no other gemstone can.
Whatever the reason, fortunately for us, the advent of cultured pearls, which can only be distinguished from natural pearls by an expert with a microscope, has meant that these gorgeous and flattering gems are within the reach of everybody. The price of a good cultured pearl necklace is a tiny fraction of that of a similar diamond necklace, and is every bit as beautiful, fashionable and flattering as a piece made from other gems. Pearls belong in every fashionable woman's jewellery collection. Make sure you have yours.
http://www.ezinearticles.com/?The-Magic-of-Pearls&id=36405
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