gems: a symbolic inquiry

We could in some way judge the height of her place and the greatness of its glory if we could remember the precious stones and the virtues of the gems - indeed if we could even remember their names - she so wondrously described which the Lord has named when He showed them to her.
--from The Life of Marie D'Oignies (1177-1213) by Jaques Vitry


image, above: saturn swallowing the stone substituted for jupiter

At last Rhea, his wife, in order to save Jupiter, her sixth child substituted for him a rock enveloped in swaddling clothes--which Saturn, ignorant of the deception practiced upon him, immediately swallowed. Jupiter was concealed on the island of Crete until he attained manhood, when he forced his father to disgorge the five children he had eaten. The stone swallowed by Saturn in lieu of his youngest son was placed by Jupiter at Delphi, where it was held in great veneration and was daily anointed.
--from The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928), Manly P. Hall


image, above: the pythagorean signet ring

The number five was peculiarly associated by the Pythagoreans with the art of healing, and the pentagram, or five-pointed star, was to them the symbol of health. The above figure represents a magical ring set with a talismanic gem bearing the pentalpha, or star formed by five different positions of the Greek Alpha. On this subject Mackey writes: "The disciples of Pythagoras, who were indeed its real inventors, placed within each of its interior angles one of the letters of the Greek word ΥΓΕΙΑ, or the Latin one SALUS, both of which signify health; and thus it was made the talisman of health. They placed it at the beginning of their epistles as a greeting to invoke a secure health to their correspondent. But its use was not confined to the disciples of Pythagoras. As a talisman, it was employed all over the East as a charm to resist evil spirits.
--from The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928), Manly P. Hall


image, above: the 5 wounds of christ

At first, the Cross was a sign only. When formed of gold or silver, the five wounds of Christ were signified by a ruby or carbuncle at each extremity, and one in the centre. It was not till the sixth century that the Cross became a CRUCIFIX, no longer an emblem, but an image.
--"Sacred and Legendary Art" (1848), Anna Jameson

pillow of labradorite

Best Field Indicators are occurence, twinning striations and labradorescence.



The Spaniards found amongst the ornaments of the Indians, dwelling upon the shores of the Amazon, grotesque figures formed of this mineral, supposed to have been exhumed from the tombs of the old Peruvians. It is now found principally on the norther coast of Labrador, and was priginally sent home by the Moravian missionaries.
-- Edwin William Streeter, Precious Stones and Gems: Their History, Sources and Characteristics, 1898



In the Writers' Apartments with their labradorite entrances it is like doomsday,
The floor where they put you depends on your standing.
--Dorothy Hewett



Gem-quality labradorite is known as spectrolite, while a colorless variety, darkened with needlelike inclusions, is often called black moonstone. Spectrolite is a dark, opalescent blue with shimmer when the light hits it. It was discovered in Finland during World War II. Another name for this stone is falcon's eye.
--D.J. Conway, Crystal Enchantments

if a girl was a geode

All geodes dry and certain ones are astringent. A geode will purge matter which may cover the eyes and when mixed with water and used as a salve it reduces inflammation of the breast and testes.
--De Natura Fossilium (Textbook of Mineralogy), circa 1546



His voice, a clarinet; his eyes, blue geodes; the tilt of his head; the hair tumbling down his brow; his dazzled expression; his small translucent teeth; his pointed tongue; his straight back; the vein running down his inner thigh; the ankle and the arch. He is already breaking into parts.
--Robert Gluck, from Margery Kempe



Even the iron that pierced the flesh of trees had a voice. It was deep, metallic, and sank heavily in the human dreams. At night, the iron spoke most eloquently, recognizing the kinship of darkness in sky and earth. The nails sang of geodes in the heart and the gathering of elemental forces only vaguely understood. When the iron sang, humans slept, troubled, their hands remembering the first iron. The spear, the knife, the sharp edge of death.
--Anita Endrezze, from "Ponies Gathering in the Dark"



But the impervious geode
Was entered and its inner crust
Of crystals with a ray cathode
At every point and facet glowed
In answer to the mental thrust.

Eyes seeking the response of eyes
Bring out the stars, bring out the flowers,
Thus concentrating earth and skies
So none need be afraid of size.
All revelation has been ours.
--Robert Frost, from "All Revelation"

today, the sky smoky as the quartz

Soon, amid the clothing and the smoke on the sunken table, like a shuffled deck of cards, there appears the human soul: quartz and sleepless nights, tears in the ocean like pools of cold. [....]
[...] dew has for a thousand years been leaving its transparent calling-card on the branch that awaits it: O heart, O shattered
brow among the pitted expanses of autumn.
--Pablo Neruda, from "The Heights of Macchu Picchu"