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Magic and minerals

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

18:34 / 05.10.07

I thought this idea would be interesting to discuss, and not just because I've been reading Metal Men.

Searching for similar topics on Barbelith was unfruitful for me, though others may know better where to look. I caught some slight references to Alchemy and to texts which mention working through the three kingdoms of nature (plant, animal, and mineral.)

I'd like to see not only personal experiences of working with specific kinds of minerals (is Granite a good foundation for stability in a working? do Igneous Basalt and Obsidian remember their firey origins?), but also a more general discussion (what's different about working with minerals as opposed to the other two, for instance?)

03:22 / 06.10.07

I think with alot of materials, the best way to get to know them is by handling them. Steel for example, its strength and pliability, these things can be best utilized by actually working the substance (I've been welding alot recently). As for crystals, I'd just go into a shop and look for one that called to me, then listen to it to find its power. A piece of something to be carved will already have the power and significance of the finished work inside it for example. I'm sure there are many others that that use crystals and the like more often than I, but there are some metals and some other isotopes that I'd love to be able to get my hands on

13:51 / 06.10.07

As an amateur geologist... (very amateur), I've always been fantasticated by gemstones and rocks, and over the years, have built up a big collection of all sorts of stones I've collected over the years, whether they're from shops or from the side of the road, from the flawed emeralds to pumice rock to some unidentified rock swiped from someone's gravel path, I like to think that every one of them has their own power or signature.

I would tend to think that minerals, out of plant/animals, would be the most stable - rocks don't move, do they? (except for some of those "moving" rocks out in the salt fields in the US) Depending on the stone, you can charge them up and use them indefinitely, and use the centuries-wrought descriptions to your advantage (i.e. rose quartz, the ultimate romance stone). And I agree with setfree, carving could enchance its qualities even more so.

I have a box of stones I've picked up, and to some people, they may look ugly, unidentified, unnoteworthy "rocks". But each of them has power in the stories they tell me - I can name the places and days I picked up each of them, and in sort, they become charged themselves, becoming something of talismans.

23:24 / 08.10.07

I went to the NY Harvest fest this past Weekend. I bought a small, black stone with shiny pieces in it. I found a roulette wheel and put my money on 13. I spinned the wheel and tossed the rock I had bought. It landed on 13. And I wasn't the only one that saw.

05:21 / 09.10.07

I, too, am a very amateur gemologist (I can't say I'm an amateur geologist, because I really don't bother with anything less than semi-precious).

And I'm sort of fond of crystals.

But the work I have done with them hasn't really been in a context that paid close attention to their unique mythical properties on any deep level. What I like rocks for is that when I'm doing a complex working on my own, I can trust a good set of appropriate crystals to hold parts of the working in place while I move on to the next part, so that I can work in stages without needing partners, or having to hold multiple layers in my head all at once, running the risk of confusing the issue.

Normally this amounts to my digging through my stone collection for appropriately-colored rocks to hold each of the four Western system elements, and then, when I get to the raising energy phase of my work, pulling each element sepparately, and setting the stone to hold that element in place. The other thing is to hold the sides of a temporary or snap ward in place. However, while it addresses usefulness of stones in magic, it doesn't address usefulness of specific types of stones.

--Ember--

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

19:14 / 09.10.07

I haven't done too much work with specific minerals myself. My experiences have been more along the lines of Earth, as opposed to Fire, Water, etc. Solid, stable, strong. The foundation on which you build other stuff. Too much Earth in your life might mean you don't have enough energy, are too resistant to change. I'd assume this would be the difference between mineral and the other kingdoms as well.

Here in NYC I feel pretty distant from most rocks. After starting this thread I thought about trying to work with urban stuff - glass, concrete, asphalt? didn't appeal to me much, but I'll ask the city about them.

20:43 / 09.10.07

Red, this may interest you: Manhattan Schist in New York City Parks

Keep in mind also that concrete is made from quarried aggregate (often limestone), so in a sense it's still rock, if pulverized, slurried and then resolidified according to the dictates of the human economy. But yeah, there seem to be some opportunities to connect to the raw bedrock on which all of New York City (as both physical conurbation and metaphysical idea) stands.