Meditating with rocks is one of the most quietly transformative things I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Since 2012, I’ve led hundreds of crystal meditations featuring all different stones. Guiding these experiences is one of my weird-niche talents.
By now, I’ve done so many of these experiences and heard from countless meditators that yes, there are expansive benefits here, that I feel this makes me somewhat of an expert about skillfully working with crystals, stones, metals and other denizens from the mineral world.
Which makes me bold enough to say this, categorically, about the much-maligned and denigrated practice of crystal meditation (in which some folks imagine that we just buy a crystal and then all our problems are solved by the crystal and IF the crystal “can’t solve it” then meditating with stones is delusional)…
Crystal magic depends (like so many things) on the depth of our open-hearted relationship with the stone or stones we are working with.
When we meditate with crystals we are activating and developing the relationship between us and the stone – and a new, third, thing is created… and that third thing – the crystal + our awareness (on many levels) is where the magic happens.
In other words, buying or being given a crystal is just the first step. From there, it is up to us – the non-mineral – to activate and develop the relationship between ourselves and the stone. In my opinion, meditation is the best way to do this.
I try not to let it, but it really bothers me when people joke about crystal meditation – especially that it “doesn’t work”, because crystal magic “can’t be proved”.
The mineral world is ripe with solutions. Minerals have been on earth the longest and have seen it all. They have the most access to the wisdom of the planet itself. This is why crystal meditations work on physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels in ways that many other modalities can only hope for.
I also hate the reductive way we, as a society, define humanity as they only inhabitants of earth who have wisdom to offer.
Usually this denial of stones and what they have to offer our planet is couched in “logic” and “reality”.
Humans love to have “incontrovertible truth”, and even I, with all my experience, generally have no desire to try to “prove” the efficacy of crystal meditation and other magical practices to anyone other than myself. (Proving it to ourselves IS important, and after we do that there is no need to make the case for anyone else.)
I think, deep down, our collective suspicion around things like crystal meditation has to do with our disconnection most modern people have from Nature.
We are so far away from knowing in our gut that we are earthlings on a planet that is a living being - a naturally magical place - filled with many teachers and guides, if only we will look.
We keep ourselves from understanding that we are naturally magical and so are stones, plants, animals, waters, mountains, the sky and so on.
In our hubris, it seems “too good to be true” that there are more-than-human beings on earth we can connect with.
It is also “so human” to not understand the ways of the mineral world and be so reluctant to meet it on its “turf” and timing.
Natural magic doesn’t want to be pinned onto a board like a dead butterfly to prove that it is “real”.
I will never say that a stone, on its own, is going to heal our problems.
Obviously, when we meditate with citrine or pyrite to help us pay our bills, we know the rock won’t be driving to the bank or directly writing the check. But, then, if we stay in relationship and expand our timeline and vision to match the mineral, when we look back we know the stone DID help us pay those bills.
It held an energetic pattern for us long enough for us to upgrade, expand and heal to the point that we could suddenly do what needed to be done for the bills to be paid.
So it is not the pretty stone on its own that does the magic. And, the magic done is more than the human could do on their own. The magic comes from the new, third thing that is created when the human and the crystal come together.
That new, third, thing – the conscious connection between the mineral and the human – is where the magic happens. Pretty hard to measure, or pin to a board, but over time the beneficial effects of spending time in that third meditative space with stones becomes super obvious.
In 2012 I started guiding crystal meditations by accident.
It happened that I was invited to do a weekly meditation series at a new (at the time) crystal shop called Spellbound Sky. It was (hilarilously, looking back) an afterthought to match a crystal with the theme of each week’s guided meditation.
Prior to this point I had never really “worked” with crystals. I had been given one important piece of rose quartz from my high school Spanish teacher that I had carried up to college and back home again; but I never tried to unlock its power (or even imagine that I could).
A year into this process of crafting crystal meditations – each week, getting to know a certain crystal and then downloading/creating a guided meditative experience around it – I realized that the magic of crystals had actually, measurably, made it into my real, daily life.
There was no fan-fare, one day I just looked at the stones on my nightstand and realized that, over time, each one of them had delivered some version of what I asked for. And, they had done these magical things in a “behind-the-scenes” kind of way.
The best way I can describe it is that working with crystals gives me access to as many “upgrades” (for my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual systems) as I am able to open myself to receive (even ones I had no idea I needed).
Maybe I’m extra-sensitive, but because I’ve had and have seen others have such extraordinary experiences (experiences of healing, bliss, massive creativity, accessing joy at simply being alive, profound connection to the natural world and all creatures, receiving messages from on high, etc…) it makes me sad when I see memes and things denigrating this powerful connective space – that third, new thing – that is created when we spend conscious time with stones.
It is so like mainstream society, to ignore our elders (in this case, the citizens of the mineral world) who sincerely wish to offer their wisdom and potential solutions for our world and our lives.
Crystals are extraordinary and I hope all of us take the time to tune in and turn on to what they want to say to us and how they want to help us grow and evolve.
One thing I know from working with stones for so long, they all are especially willing to help with our healing; healing ourselves, healing our human world.
Another thing I know from working with stones is that they have all the time in the world. They’ve been here forever and they have forever.
And…
If you want to try this at home, here, for my favorite Friday People, I give you Crystalline. Gather your favorite stones and crystals around you, like friends. Get yourself into the most comfortable position possible with your crystals close to you, pop on your headphones and join your stones within the meditation…
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