Fyne Gems : SPINEL

A VARIETY OF COLOURED SPINELS

General Gemstone Details

Spinel is often called the great imposter of the gemstone world, being mistaken for all sorts of other gemstones, often on purpose. Spinel is commonly mistaken for ruby, sapphires and tanzanite.

Of the worlds crown jewels, most of what was thought to be rubies, are actually spinel. The most infamous is certainly Prince Edward's (the Black Prince, eldest son of King Edward III of Britain in the Middle Ages) magnificent 170 carat red "ruby" that currently adorns the Imperial State crown in the British Crown jewels, was discovered in the 1940s to actually be red spinel.

Another would be a 352 carat stone currently owned by Queen Elizabeth, the Timur Ruby, which has the names of all the Mighal emperors who previously own it, engraved on the face...turned out to be red spinel, as well....just imagine.

Spinel is now a gemstone that is treasured for its own beauty. It's wonderful brilliance, hardness and wonderful range of spectacular colors makes this gemstone a favor amongst dealers. It's colors range from reds, pinks, violet, and blues.

Due to the fact that it is actually spinels that are created in a laboratory to be used for imitation birthstone rings, most often people think "fake" when they hear the name spinel. It is a shame that a great number of people will never actually set eyes on the real thing.

Scientific Properties

Mohs Hardness of 8 with a cubic crystal structure.

Spinel is found in a wide range of colors, depending on the presence of various impurities and can present as transparent to almost opaque.

Spinel occurs in granites and metamorphic rocks, and is quite often found in conjunction with corundum. One of the ways to differentiate spinel from other stones is that spinel possesses no electrical properties when subjected to heat, yet the ruby and garnet do. Spinel has an amazingly high melting point of 2135 Celsius.

The name spinel is derived from the Greek spinther, which means sparkling. It was valued as a gemstone and protective stone by the Greeks and Romans due to it's sparkling colors.

Mystical Properties

Spinel is said to be able to clarify thoughts and creative ideas, as well as attracting the help that is required for any given situation.

Black will help one be in charge of situations and to handle other people in a correct manner.

Blue or Gray colored spinel will enhance discrimination, especially about friends and what situations we become involved in, also quite good for spiritual communication.

Dark Green is said to enhance communication skills as well as increase money.

Light Green is told to be worn when one feels fear.

Pink is the color that is quite good for couples in relationships as it fosters love.

Peach is said to build self-esteem and soften criticism towards others or oneself.

Red is excellent for increasing vitality, confidence and leadership.

Violet is used to avoid being victimize, and helps enhance communication between generations.

Yellow is said to be for those with low self-esteem as it fosters a stronger belief in one's own abilities.

Healing Properties

Spinel is a high energy stone, used to lend the body energy and to heal physical energy blockages. The beautiful gemstone has a calming effect on all kinds of inflammations, even neurits and it's symptoms are told to benefit from it. It will speed the recovery of all diseases associated with movement, including issues with joints, bones and muscles.

Spinel will actually grant strength to the wearer and increase her powers of self healing, this makes it possible for one to protect oneself from the troublesome influences of others.

Magical Properties

Energy: Projective

Element: Fire

Powers: Energy and money

Spinel is used in magic to lend energy to the physical body, it is also worn for the same purpose. It can be used to boost physical strength during periods of excessive exertion; it is also used in spells designed to attract riches and wealth.

Zodiac

Associations: Pluto

Not a traditional birthstone for any month.
Dark blue spinel is linked to Sagittarius, red is told to be effective for Scorpio, it symbolized purposefulness, and helps the wearer to recognize what is right for her as well as granting the energy to act accordingly.

Chakra Classification

Red spinel is most effective on the 1st, Root or Base Chakra, blue on the 6th, Third Eye or Brow Chakra and violet on the 7th, Crown Chakra.

Information Sources:
The Crystal Bible by Judy Hall, 2003
Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith, PhD, 2000
Crystal Enchantments by D.J. Conway, 1999
Smithsonian Handbooks Gemstones by Cally Hall, 1994
Crystal, Gem and Metal Magic by Scott Cunningham, 2002
Chakra Healing & Karmic Awareness by Keith Sherwood, 2005
The Illustrated Directory of Crystal Healing by Cassandra Eason, 2003
Healing Crystals and Gemstones by Dr. Flora Peschek-Bohmer, Gisela Schrieber, 2002

The information here is presented to you to use as you see fit, but is not to take the place of professional medical advice. Crystals, Gemstones and Metal can accent, help, negate, protect, encourage, strengthen, and balance and thereby promote healing. Their effects can be extraordinary, but use in addition to medical advice, and not as a substitute for proper care. If you are ill, we beseech you to seek professional medical attention from a qualified physician.

Information extracted, with courtsey from Shimerling Inc.

Fyne Gems : SAPPHIRE

TRILLION CUT NATURAL BLUE SAPPHIRE

General Gemstone Details

Sapphire is the second hardest crystal that Mother Earth has given us. Second only to the Diamond. Many of the large Sapphire deposits are literally the remains of metamorphic or igneous veins of granite and marble weathered away into stream beds and mountain valleys. Sapphire being stronger than granite or marble survive the weathering and large amounts of the stone are simply gathered from gem gravels in Burma, Thailand, Australia, North America, Brazil, Kashmir and Africa.

It's rare beauty and enduring strength made sapphire quite popular as a talisman among royalty. A medieval historian wrote that kings wore the crystal to protect them from harm, and to prevent jealousy among their court. A sapphire worn to the signing of a treaty was believed would ensure a true reconciliation and prevent further bloodshed. Lore also tells that a venomous snake left in a vessel with a sapphire would certainly die, as the gemstone provided protection from poison.

There is an ancient Persian myth which tells of a giant blue sapphire that Mother Earth rests upon, and that the sky is the reflection of this titan blue crystal. As you can see, sapphire, like its twin corundum, ruby, has etched a place in history, atop the crowns of kings and glorified in legend.

Scientific Properties

Mohs Hardness of 9 with a trigonal crystal structure.

All gem quality corundum that is not red (ruby) is called sapphire, although the name is commonly associated with the color blue.

There are but trace amounts of minerals which separate this crystal into different gemstones. Corundum is an aluminum oxide crystal that became included with a variety of minerals to produce a rainbow of colors. Chromium will turn the crystal red, classifying it as a Ruby. The treasured blues come from Titanium and Iron, Iron alone produces yellows, often times referred to as Oriental Topaz. Titanium and Iron combinations can also result in greens, while all three elements create a purple crystal believe it or not. A rare and popular Padparadscha (lotus-color) Sapphire gets is pinkish orange hues from a mixture of Chromium and Iron. A white Sapphire is perfectly clear with no inclusions what so ever.

Mystical Properties

Historically a star sapphire was used as protection from the evil eye In Europe it was used to reflect harmful or evil spells back to the sender. Magicians were known to utilize the gemstones to enhance and direct their magical powers. Alchemists long ago associated the sapphire with the element of air, and India considered it to be the stone of Saturn, and believed it to be a portal to the heavenly realms.

Sapphires can be used to open yourself up to receive heavenly messages, and aid you in clarifying just what the information you receive means to you.

This gemstone used during meditation can help you find your hidden potential, and sharpen the vision of your life's work, it will help you to clear a mental path so you can begin your journey.

Sapphires can help work with you to achieve your material dreams and desires, as well as sustain your wealth once it is acquired. The gem will also be of assistance in keeping a balanced perspective, allowing you to better organize your thought processes, ensuring continued success as your material situation evolves.

It will also promote fair play and loyalty amongst partners and employees, as well as bring about correct conclusions to potentially unjust situations, if you are in the right.
The yellow sapphire is a wonderful and gentle too for working through leftover wounds of childhood abuse. It provides a protective golden shield during the healing process and allows for safe expression of the words needed to release the pain.

Healing Properties

Sapphire is the most effective healing stone for the nervous system. It it told to regulate the function of the thyroid gland and is therefore quite useful as a remedy for lack of appetite and nervous heart trouble.

In the far East, it was used as protection against the plague. On a psychological level, it gives the patient focus and instills the intent to get well, which in turn assists healing in all levels of the body.

The gem may also aid in strengthening the walls of your blood vessels and stop nose bleeds. The green and blue crystals are especially helpful in healing energies. Green Sapphire possess a strong restorative energy that comes from its connection to Mother Earth.

Magical Properties

Energy: Receptive

Element: Water

Deities: Apollo

Powers: Psychic powers, love, meditation, peace, defensive magic, healing, power, money

The Greeks identified the sapphire with Apollo, and the stone was worn when consulting oracles such as the famous one at Delphi.

If you engage in vision work or channeling, the sapphire will aid you in better understanding what has been revealed to you, as well as in articulating those messages in a way that will be the most beneficial for the receivers. Healers can use a green or yellow Sapphire is a similar way, directing and focusing the incoming energy to achieve the best results for the patient.

Sapphire should be discharged and at the same time recharged in sea salt, if at all possible avoiding exposure to the sunlight.

Zodiac

Associations: Moon
Traditional Birthstone for the Month of September.
Blue sapphire is linked to Pisces, light-blue to Taurus, yellow to Gemini and star sapphire to Libra

Chakra Classification

Sapphire is most effective on the forehead to work with the Brow chakra or Third Eye to expand psychic awareness. Blue, purple and white Sapphires all are excellent for activating the Crown Chakra and clearing a path for the Kundalini to move freely through all your chakras.

White - activates the 7th, Crown Chakra, taps hidden potential and help guides you to your life's work, makes an excellent personal power stone

Blue - wonderful meditation tool, opens the Third Eye and assists in translating the meaning of messages received, also helps the 5th, Throat Chakra communicate the information to others

Lotus (Padparadscha) - opens up the 3rd, Solar Plexus Chakra, aids healers, associated with Grandfather Sun

Yellow - another good healer's crystal, also beneficial for healing childhood trauma, or assisting children through difficult illnesses, works well in abundance medicine.

Green - these crystals have strong restorative energies, will activate and balance the 4th, Heart Chakra, also good for prosperity energies

Purple - if you channel or work with the divination arts, a purple Sapphire crystal can help clear a path so that you receive your messages with greater clarity, raises your spiritual awareness and stimulates the Kundalini through meditation.

Information Sources:

The Crystal Bible by Judy Hall, 2003

Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith, PhD, 2000

Crystal Enchantments by D.J. Conway, 1999

Smithsonian Handbooks Gemstones by Cally Hall, 1994

Crystal, Gem and Metal Magic by Scott Cunningham, 2002

Chakra Healing & Karmic Awareness by Keith Sherwood, 2005

The Illustrated Directory of Crystal Healing by Cassandra Eason, 2003

Healing Crystals and Gemstones by Dr. Flora Peschek-Bohmer, Gisela Schrieber, 2002

The information here is presented to you to use as you see fit, but is not to take the place of professional medical advice. Crystals, Gemstones and Metal can accent, help, negate, protect, encourage, strengthen, and balance and thereby promote healing. Their effects can be extraordinary, but use in addition to medical advice, and not as a substitute for proper care. If you are ill, we beseech you to seek professional medical attention from a qualified physician.

Information extracted, with courtsey from Shimerling Inc.

Fyne Gems : RUBY

Raw Ruby (Natural State)

Heart Cut Ruby

Marquise Cut Ruby

General Gemstone Details

The gemstone ruby has enjoyed a most regal position in myth, legend and lore for thousands and thousands of years. It has for quite a long time been a favored talisman among royalty worldwide. Catherine of Aragon wore an infamous ruby, that was told had turned dark and dull the day before Henry VII announced he was divorcing her. King Henry V wore The Black Prince Ruby in his helmet as he fought the French at Agincourt in 1415. Later, it was discovered to his dismay that the gem was merely a spinel. Still now that spinel is set in the Imperial State Crown in London.

Engraved gemstone rubies were quite popular for attracting wealth and enhancing magical energies. Dragons and snakes were quite favored as engraving. As well, a ruby was considered to be one of the more important gifts to honor Buddha and Krishna with. The Hindu people believed that the gemstone's red glow came from an internal flame that no human could possibly extinguish.

Ruby, the name given to red, gem-quality corundum - is one of the best gemstone for jewelry settings. Rubies may be any shade of red, from pinkish to purplish or brownish red, depending on the chromium and iron content of the stone.

Frequent twinning of the crystals makes the material liable to fracture, yet ruby is a tough mineral, second only to diamond in hardness. In 1902, a Frenchman, Auguest Verneuil, produced a synthetic ruby crystal by exposing powdered aluminum oxide and coloring material to the flame of the blowtorch.

Still today, this member of the corundum mineral family, is up to ten times more valuable than a Diamond of equal carat and clarity. A perfectly translucent Ruby is rare. Stones larger than five carats and of perfect clarity are extremely rare and can fetch a quarter of a million dollars per carat at auction.

Scientific Properties:

Mohs Hardness of 9 with a trigonal crystal structure.

Corundums are aluminum oxide silicates that are colored by chromium, iron and/or titanium. A perfect corundum crystal is clear. Crystals that are pinkish red to plum get their color from chromium and are classified as Ruby. All others (pinks, blues, greens etc.) are cataloged as Sapphire. Gem wholesalers get into some very lively debates on where to cut-off the pinks and purples, as everyone wants their stones to be designated as Ruby.

Synthetic Ruby stones are quite common and very difficult to tell from natural stones. Only a trained eye can detect the differences in crystalline structures, all other elements are identical. When purchasing jewelry set with Rubies, be sure to ask if they have been heat treated or are lab grown.

Burmese Ruby are the most celebrated and sought after in the world, but beautiful crystals have been found elsewhere. Some of the mines in India and Sri Lanka are almost as old as the Burma mines.

Amazingly, new deposits of Ruby are still being found. In 1992 a brand new deposit of Ruby was discovered in North Vietnam. Some of the specimens so closely resemble the Burmese crystals that some scientists believe the crystals were formed by the same geological event.

It was at least 100 million years ago, during the Upper Carboniferous Age, when a huge mass of molten magma assaulted an ancient limestone bed during the mountain building process. The resulting "thermo-metamorphism" caused the calcium carbonate in the Limestone to re-crystallize as Calcite, while the left over aluminum and silicates crystallized into Rubies and Sapphires, often in a Marble matrix. Perfect trigonal Ruby crystals are found embedded in this Marble. The Patkoi Mountain range in this area is almost completely made of up these thermo-morphed stones.

Corundum of varying quality has been found in Australia, Kenya, Tanzania, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States. Some specimens mined in North Carolina, though small in size, rival the Burmese crystals in clarity and color.

Mystical Properties:

The ruby is quite certainly a wonderful gemstone for bringing fire into your life. For if you like to live your life intensely, but often find it difficult to keep focus, a ruby can help bring clarity and wisdom to your world. Instead of flitting from idea to idea, this gemstone will very well help you choose your most productive paths. With it's power, this gem will then fire your passions and keep you motivated. You'll be stronger when resisting self-destructive pattern that have crippled you in the past!

The ruby provides and incredibly power shield against harmful intentions. If you are caught up in a sticky legal dispute or personal conflict of some kind, this gemstone can aid you in manifesting the correct outcome. This gemstone can also guard you against psychic or physical attack.

One ancient tradition suggests that a 'ruby blessing' will protect your garden from violet spring storms, as well as blessing the four corners of your garden with the ruby should prevent damage from wind, rain, hail and blowing debris.

Sleeping with a ruby will help promote lucid dreaming, allowing your conscious mind to interact with your subconscious mind. Together, you can confront your demons and uncover the means to defeat them.

On the other hand, dreaming of rubies, may be a sign of an opportunity or money coming your way!

Healing Properties:

The oldest healing uses for rubies have been found to be the cleansing the blood of toxins and protection from the plague. It has also been told that rubies may prevent starvation.
The ruby may be most beneficial in stimulating the adrenal gland, as well as improving circulation and fighting internal infections.

Magical Properties:

Energy: Projective

Element: Fire

Deities: Buddha, Krishna (not to be confused with the modern expression of the Krishna-centered reverence)

Powers: Wealth, protection, power, joy, anti-nightmare

Working with this stone can remove all sense of limitation. Strengthens courage, selfless work, all spiritual endeavors, joy and many leadership qualities. Ruby helps to reduce resentment when you are required to care for others.

The ruby can create a strong sense and means of power within a person; this power should be handled responsibly or it may turn into anger and possessive thoughts.

Ruled by Mars, the gemstone ruby is worn during magical rituals to increase the inherent energies that are available to the magician, or it is placed on the altar beside a red candle to lend energy when feeling depleted or drained.

In a similar line of magical influence, wearing a ruby is said to increase the warmth of the body.

Zodiac:

Associations: Mars

Traditional Birthstone for the Month of July.

Stone of Aries, the stone symbolizes love and passion, and is associated with vitality and strong feelings.

Chakra Classification:

Meditating with a ruby will activate your 1st, Root or Base Chakra, sending a rejuvenating energy through all of your chakras. Legend tells us to use this gemstone's fire to light the way through our darkest fears. It is also quite beneficial to the 4th, Heart Chakra.

Information Sources:

The Crystal Bible by Judy Hall, 2003

Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith, PhD, 2000

Crystal Enchantments by D.J. Conway, 1999

Smithsonian Handbooks Gemstones by Cally Hall, 1994

Crystal, Gem and Metal Magic by Scott Cunningham, 2002

Chakra Healing & Karmic Awareness by Keith Sherwood, 2005

The Illustrated Directory of Crystal Healing by Cassandra Eason, 2003

Healing Crystals and Gemstones by Dr. Flora Peschek-Bohmer, Gisela Schrieber, 2002

The information here is presented to you to use as you see fit, but is not to take the place of professional medical advice. Crystals, Gemstones and Metal can accent, help, negate, protect, encourage, strengthen, and balance and thereby promote healing. Their effects can be extraordinary, but use in addition to medical advice, and not as a substitute for proper care. If you are ill, we beseech you to seek professional medical attention from a qualified physician.

Information extracted, with courtsey from Shimerling Inc.