Showing posts with label blue lace agate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blue lace agate. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Inside the Design: Sleep Well

So I've been thinking about other things I could write about in my blog that actually, you know, connect to the jewelry I'm making. Not that I disliked that giant religious/spiritual sidetrip. On the contrary, I plan on returning there often. However, since this is the blog about my jewelry, so I should talk about it too.

Enter the "Inside the Design" series. This will be a closer look at the stones I choose for the design (sort of a mini-Stonewise), why I picked them, and how I see them working together toward the specified goal. So here we go, let's see how this turns out.

I know some of this is already out there in other posts, so I'll try not to repeat myself too much.


Inside the Design: Sleep Well

The basic description of this pieces is, Sodalite and Blue Lace Agate help calm the mind, soothing you towards sleep, while Amethysts guard your dreams. A pair of Hematite empowers the Intention. And it's not a bad description, but when the average attention span of a web surfer is about 15 seconds, you don't get a lot of time for detail. So what does this really mean?

(Quick note...I put two pieces of Hematite in every bracelet, necklace and anklet that I make. It's become my signature. I do it because Hematite is a natural magickal amplifier, and so it doubles the strength of every other stone in the piece. So I usually won't mention the Hematite in a piece unless I use it somewhere else.)

Blue Lace Agate and Sodalite are both stones that calm emotions and promote balance and peace. However they are not the same, which is why I use them both. Blue Lace Agate I see working more on the surface. It is the cool shock that gets your attention and forces you to take that first deep breath. It works on the surface, easing tensions mentally, emotionally and physically. It lays the necessary ground work for the rest of the piece.

Sodalite is deep blue, like the very bottom of a clear lake. It is calm, tranquil, capable of sinking below the surface to work on the roots of the problems. There's something inexorable about Sodalite. You *will* calm down and you *will* like it. The two blue stones not only look beautiful next to each other, but I think their energies provide the potent double tap that makes this design so successful magickally.

However, there is no point in knocking you out if you're just going to have bad or unrestful dreams. This is what the Amethysts are for. The royal purple stones have been the guardians of dreams for a very long time, and it was a no brainer for me to add them to the design. Amethysts are also peaceful, calming, specifically connected to the spirit, and so it becomes another layer to the net of tranquility that I've built.

The resulting combination of stones has become my second most popular, and successful design (second only to Desire). I have had several people tell me that the bracelets have helped them go to sleep, stay asleep, take naps, change their sleeping patterns...I think the simplicity of the intention helps make this design one of my more powerful ones.

Sleep Well was the first design I put together, I did it specifically for my friend who suffers from migraines, but is violently allergic to nearly all migraine medications. She usually gets a shot of a heavy narcotic to put her out and hopefully sleep through the headache, but this time it hadn't work. I gave her the bracelet, and that night she slept 12 hours, successfully getting rid of the migraine.

As a side note...some of you might want to ask, "Do you really believe your jewelry made her fall asleep?" It doesn't matter what I believe really. The important part is that it worked. She slept and got rid of the headache. Was it magick? Was it autosuggestion? Mind over body? Truth is, don't care what the truth is. In whatever capacity my bracelet helped, which is my only purpose.

Well, I hope this was in some way entertaining and informative. I enjoyed doing it, so I will probably do more. :)

Till then, be well,
Red

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Stonewise: Blue Lace Agate

You guys are in trouble now...guess who got an updated copy of Ardriana's Stones for Christmas? That's right...this witch! *cackles*

So, since today's Shop Item of the Day over at Crystallized Intentions is my pair of Tranquility Earrings (ooh...shameless in 2010!), I thought that looking at Blue Lace Agate would be the thing to do.

So just what does Ardriana say about this beautiful stone?

A chalcedony quartz of delicate blue with swirls of white.

Magick: Wear or carry this stone for peace and happiness. Effective for reducing household and/or family quarrels. Useful in reducing stress when held in the hand. Stimulates foresight. Promotes all feminine qualities, intuition, caring and tenderness.

How I use it in my jewelry: It's funny, Blue Lace Agate was really low on my radar for a long time, till The New Pioneer got this amazing selection of larger (larger than a quarter) pieces. Richard, the awesome old hippy who runs the place, said that there was a new mine, and that with these larger pieces, people were starting to call it Blue Storm Agate.

I filed away the information, but the name never really stuck because there's nothing storm like about Blue Lace. It's to frosty, to subtle...I'm not really a pastel person, but there's something to the color of this stone that really appeals to me now that I know it better.

It is the first stone I think of when wanting something to promote peace. It's the main stone in my Sleep Well Bracelet, as one of the major problems that people seem to have is just not being able to relax enough to slip into sleep.

See that big, frosty stone in the center?

It's always so interesting to look at, with the bands of white and darker blue running through it. Ardriana suffers from migraines, and the Sleep Well wasn't helping, so I asked her what qualities she wanted in something to help...one of the first things she mentioned was the coolness of an ice pack on her forehead. The oddly interesting bracelet I put together has onyx, for a pain sink, blue lace agate, for the cooling, relaxing properties, and citrine (yeah, black, light blue and yellow...), to help keep one able to think above the pain. It's one that I would only make by request, as I feel it's function over form, but it seems to help (this is, of course, after she's taken her medication and laid down to rest with a real ice pack on...you have to do everything else along with the magick...more on that later though).

Where was I...oh yeah, Blue Lace Agate...I'm a pretty laid back person, and don't usually feel the need to calm myself further, so I don't have a ton of these stones. The few pieces I do have sure are beautiful however, and I am lucky to have them.

And now you know a little more about why I do what I do.

Till next time, be well,
Red