Witching Stones, Goddess Crystals and Feminine Wisdom with Nicholas Pearson

What if the most powerful stone you could work with isn't a glittering amethyst or polished rose quartz—but a simple piece of flint you found in your backyard? Crystal expert and author Nicholas Pearson joins Rose to reveal the ancient magic hidden in witching stones, the sacred wisdom of the crone archetype, and why choosing crystals intuitively might be the most important thing you're not doing.

Whether you're new to crystals or a seasoned practitioner, this episode will completely shift how you see—and work with—the mineral kingdom.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• The real difference between crystals, minerals, rocks, stones, and gems (and why it actually matters energetically)
• How to choose crystals intuitively—and why the ones that make you uncomfortable might be exactly what you need
• How to set intentions and "charge" your crystals for specific, powerful results
• The stones most powerfully linked to the crone archetype and women in their wisdom years
• Why lepidolite (the "grandmother stone") is a must-have for navigating midlife transitions, anxiety, and uncertainty
• The mythic and alchemical significance of emerald and its deep connection to the divine feminine
• Hagstones, obsidian, jet, and moonstone—and how to work with them for transformation and psychic awareness
• How many crystals to keep by your bed (and what happens when you have too many)
• A sneak peek at Nicholas's upcoming book, Reiki Rituals

About Nicholas Pearson

Nicholas Pearson is among the foremost experts on crystals, combining nearly 30 years of experience in the mineral kingdom with extensive training in mineral science, Reiki, and the mystical arts. A Reiki Shihan (master teacher), Nicholas studied mineral science at Stetson University and has worked for years at the Gillespie Museum—home to the largest mineral collection in the southern United States—where he currently serves as curator. He is the author of more than a dozen books including The Witching Stones, Stones of the Goddesses, Crystal Basics, Crystals for Psychic Self-Defense, and Foundations of Reiki Ryoho.

🌐 Find Nicholas: theluminouspearl.com | @theluminouspearl

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Rose Wippich is an Energy Alchemist, Reiki Master, and host of Chat Off The Mat—a podcast exploring energy, empowerment, and transformation for women. She helps women embody their Empress energy and rewrite the narrative of aging through her book Empress Rising: Own Your Energy, Trust Your Wisdom & Rewrite the Rules of Aging.  👑

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Produced by Rose Wippich | Chat Off The Mat Podcast

© 2026 Rose Wippich

Transcript

Welcome & Why Stones Matter

Rose 0:00

Welcome to Chat Off The Mat. I'm your host, Rose Wiippich. This is where we explore energy, empowerment, and what it means to embody your Empress energy. Forget what you think you know about crystal magic. Nicholas Pearson reveals why flint, fossils, and lead and hagstones hold more witching power than the prettiest amethyst and the ancient secrets hidden in stones you can find in your own backyard. Today on Chat Off The Mat, I welcome Nicholas Pearson. Nicholas is among the foremost experts on crystals, combining nearly 30 years of immersion in the mineral kingdom with extensive training in mineral science, Reiki, and the mystical arts. A Reiki Shihan master teacher, Nicholas studied mineral science at Stetson University and worked for years at the Gillespie Museum, home to the largest mineral collection in the southern United States, where he currently serves as curator. As the author of more than a dozen books, including The Witching Stones, Stones of the Goddesses, Crystal Basics, Crystal for Psychic Self-Defense, and Foundations of Reiki Ryoho, Nicholas offers a unique blend of scientific rigor and spiritual wisdom. His work explores everything from the geological formation of minerals to their role in ancient folklore, alchemy, and modern witchcraft. Welcome, Nicholas. Welcome to Chat Off the Mat. I'm so happy that you're here. Me too. This has been many months in the making, hasn't it? Yes, it has. You know, I was recalling last night the first time that we met at Omega Institute during the Reiki retreat, and I'm just so grateful that we had a chance to connect and get to know each other then. So yes, I'm so happy that you're here. If it's okay with you, I would like to just dive into some of the questions. And the first question is for listeners who may not who may be new to your work, how did you first come to work with crystals or gems or minerals? So if you let us know a little bit about your background and how all that started.

Nicholas 2:07

Yeah, so I think in many ways I was kind of a predictable stereotype. I was the kid who picked up rocks everywhere. The beach, a family vacation to the mountains, the grocery store parking lot. You know, when when a bit of the earth spoke to me, I was kind of compelled. And my grandfather, having observed this so many times, gave me my first piece of quartz and my imagination ran wild. I have always loved folklore and fairy tales, world religion, mythology. And this kind of spurred me to learn as much as I could about the the kind of folklore and cultural attitudes about gems. But it wasn't until my teenage years I discovered that like Crystal Healing was alive and well today. And so I started pretty intuitively. There wasn't a lot of material accessible for a 13 or 14-year-old by the time I had, you know, the ability to go out and go to the bookstore myself and pick up books. There weren't a whole lot of crystal books you could find in my tiny little town in Southeast Florida, but I read voraciously and ultimately I listened to the stones. And one of the things that I'm really grateful for, really, really happy has worked out, is I've always had a kind of parallel interest in science. And so, you know, some weeks I might be devoted to the magic and myth of rocks and minerals. And the next, it's about mineralogy and geoscience and things along those lines. And when I went away to university to study music, originally the goal was to do a music ed degree and teach music for the rest of my life, which rapidly I realized was not the life path for me. Music is lovely, it's important. My music teachers changed my life and no uncertain ways for the better. But that's that's not the calling I have in life. But I was, as the paperwork says, I was randomly assigned to work at an Earth Science Museum on campus. I didn't even know it existed. But when I showed up, it was just magic. I suddenly had access to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the United States. At one time it was billed as the uh, I'm trying to remember the former president of the university's words. He said something to the effect of it is the finest collection south of Washington and east of Texas. And he traveled extensively, and that was that was his synopsis. And while there are a lot of other great collections around today, it is pretty historic. And here we are more than 20 years later. I actually work for that same museum doing earth science and curatorial work as a collections technician, which is phenomenal. And it allows me to continue growing in the science part while still fueling my interest and wonder in that kind of spiritual part as well.

Minerals, Rocks, Crystals: Clear Definitions

Rose 4:44

Wow, that's amazing. That to know so young kind of felt that guidance to follow this path and and then being exposed to it. And I'm just trying I'm picturing you here in this in this space, you know, just wide-eyed and young and just like, wow, this is amazing. Because, you know, stones and crystals and minerals, they all have energy. So they just spoke to you. And I love how you said the stones spoke to you. Your books explore stones, right? So we're gonna talk, I'm gonna mention stones. So stones is like a broad category, right? So so crystals, a lot of people talk, say crystals, but they're all classified differently. Can you just talk about that a little bit? Like minerals, crystals, stones. Yeah.

Speaker 5:25

I'm among other things, I'm also a little bit of a language nerd. So I I find a lot of value in understanding where words come from and what they mean. Understanding, of course, that language is fluid and flexible and changes over time. And we're allowed to say things colloquially that don't have to match a textbook definition. But if we go back to those textbook definitions, let's start with the piece that is crystal. So a crystal is usually a solid substance. There are exceptions, it's beyond our pay grade today. But there are solid substances that have regular compositions and repeating symmetrical structures. In other words, they're always made out of the same ingredients, and those ingredients are arranged in very orderly manners. We call that kind of underlying structure its crystallattice. Now, if a crystal is made by an inorganic process and is naturally occurring, we call it a mineral. Maybe said another way. Minerals are the naturally occurring compounds and elements that are formed by inorganic processes. So they've got to be this crystalline component is a big part of it. So some examples, quartz, we could talk about pyrite and calcite and the whole garnet family and tourmalines and lots of things that have much longer names that end in ite that we don't have to try to pronounce on air. But there are also things that aren't exactly minerals and yet are still crystalline. We have calcium phosphate in our teeth and bones. It is more or less chemically identical to the mineral appetite, but we made it in our bodies, even if we didn't mean to, it's still there. And it's an organic process that yields it. So we wouldn't really classify that as a mineral in the strictest sense. Now, when minerals come together, they form rocks. So rocks are usually described as aggregates or mixtures of one or more minerals. You can have something like limestone, which is almost pure calcite in many cases, or quartzite, which is nearly pure quartz. You can also have things like diorite and rhyolite and granite that are more complex in their composition. So if the elements on the periodic table are the building blocks of minerals, minerals, therefore, are the building blocks of rocks. And so we get this kind of increasing order of complexity and variability. And then at the end, we're left with two words that don't necessarily occupy as narrow a bandwidth on this spectrum here, and they are stone and gem or gemstone. Stone comes from a really ancient root that predates Sanskrit, and it means to harden, to congeal, to stiffen. And there's really some hidden wisdom in this because all rock, all mineral, begins as something not solid. Deep in the mantle, we have, you know, liquid rock, a magma that is yet to cool and crystallize. And when it does, it yields something hard and durable. So a stone is any solid bit of the earth that's that's pretty open-ended, it's great. Sometimes the word stone connotes something that is shaped or changed by human hands. We think standing stones, gemstones, stone tools, and so on and so forth. And then gems are any of the above categories that are used ornamentally. So some gems are like discrete mineral species. We can talk about diamond, we can talk about ruby, a variety of the mineral corundum. Other gems are actually rocks. So nephrite and jadite, the two varieties of jade, are both mixtures of things. They're metamorphic rocks. Lambus lazuli, another metamorphic rock made out of calcite, yes, calcite, pyrite, lagerite, and then as many as a dozen or more other accessory minerals that we can't see with the naked eye. So if if we fashion it into something and wear it or otherwise use it for its ornamental purposes, it is transformed into gem. And what I love about this is that gem and stone kind of become cultural designations and they demonstrate a relationship that we have rather than just the material science trying to measure or define something that is external to us.

Rose 9:12

Yeah, that's interesting. I I wasn't aware of all these specifications, but I know in your book you do you do go through that when you do talk about the stones, gems, rocks, minerals that you took talk about. So you do give that science foundation for for what it is. And I think someone f like myself who has loved these crystals, I'll just use them, I'll just use the term crystals because I think a lot of people will identify with that. Knowing more about the science behind them, how they're cultivated, where they're from, that intrigues me more now. It's like I want to add another layer of that.

Choosing Stones: Intuition Vs Prescription

Speaker 9:48

Right. And and it informs how we can interact with them. Whether or not something is a rock or a mineral, it's not important that you call it the right name because you know, the International Mineralogical Association is going to knock on your door and say, well, actually, that is not a rock. Nobody's gonna do that. Call them whatever you want to. But at least understanding the difference between this specimen you're holding being a rock and this one being a mineral is kind of like the difference between listening to an entire choir, lots of different voices, lots of different crystalline structures and chemical compositions working in harmony, versus a soloist who's singing on their own. And that's the kind of difference energetically between, say, a piece of granite with its quartz and mica and feldspar and probably other stuff, versus just that one piece of smoky quartz. They have their own kind of signatures to them. It's not that one is better or worse than the other. I I love listening to a chamber group, a full symphony orchestra, a massive choir, as well as, you know, a tiny soloist on their own on a stage. Like both both are beautiful, but just knowing the richness and the nuance that each has is a really great way to approach how we expect the energy to interact with us.

Rose 10:59

A lot of people ask me, how do I know which crystal to buy? And I always say the ones that you're drawn to. Can you elaborate on that? And what are your thoughts on on that question?

Speaker 11:10

Yeah, you know, there's so many ways that we can select crystals. We can get prescriptive. We can read something in a book and go, oh, that sounds like what I'm looking for and go out into the world and track that down or buy it on the internet. And that works pretty well, some of the time at least. But you know, the challenge is not getting too prescriptive about it. It is so easy to kind of like memeify and and get things really reduced to just the fewest words possible. And we can't describe our lives in that way. So we shouldn't expect to describe the tools that transform our lives in the same way. I'm I'm all for short descriptions being accessible in the beginning, but then we got to start thinking like what's really happening in my life? It's not just I want a stone for confidence. It's what is my personal obstacle to feeling confident? It's not just that I feel tired all the time. It's, you know, what is going on in my life setting me up for that? And then we can really get specific about the right tools. So if we think that way, then the prescriptive route works a little bit better. But until we have that knowledge base, until we're ready to do that self-inquiry and have the language and everything that we need to kind of wrap our heads around that, we can absolutely work intuitively. And this is usually where I encourage people to start. Ignore what the little pretty memes say on Instagram. Don't read the descriptions of the stones in the crystal shop, at least not until after you've picked it out. Uh, I tell people the first time you go to a crystal store and you're trying to find crystals, especially if maybe there's not a specific thing you're trying to accomplish, you just want to start your journey. Ignore everything you see written about the stones, except for two pieces of information, the name and the price. Obviously, you don't want to break the budget and it's good to know what you've got so you can then you can look it up later. But start with what you're drawn to. For some people, it's color or appearance or the way it feels in the hand. Others, it's an inner knowing. People who are energetically sensitive might kind of sense whether something is harmonizing with your own energy or not. And those are often really good stones to begin with. But part of this conversation, I think, that is not embraced deeply enough is also the stones that make us feel uncomfortable. There's this kind of popular wisdom that says, oh, if if it doesn't feel good, it's not for you. Like, I don't think running feels good, but I know I gotta get some cardio. So, you know, sometimes the crystals that do feel uncomfortable, that feel like we'd we'd rather not occupy the same space as them, they can absolutely not be for us. They can also sometimes represent the kind of wisdom or lesson or energy that we've never integrated in this experience. And that's why it feels so uncomfortable because it's alien to us. And as we integrate its energy, as we work through whatever it's bringing up, as we partner with it, collaborate with it, then it starts to feel really comfortable. And I've had some stones in my life that started out in that category of, no, thank you. Like I'll buy the piece because it's beautiful. It's gonna stay on the shelf in the other room. I'm not, I'm not working with that. And now, now that you kind of sit through the discomfort, oh man, how some of those are some of my best friends.

Rose 14:09

Yeah. Yeah, I'm drawn to stuff, particular crystals at some point, and then um, you know, I buy them for for their their prettiness. I I've been told, and I do this, that when you do get a crystal after cleansing it, that you set an intention with it. Or is that an is that so a specific intention in working with that? Can people do that or should people do that, or or just allow the stone to kind of show up how it's supposed to?

Intention, Programming, And Results

Speaker 14:36

Yeah, both of these are really valid routes, and I I engage both at different times in my life. So this this notion of setting intention is tied to conversations using words like programming and charging. A lot of times, because our technology has changed, society and culture has changed, our understanding of the word charge has also changed. This once meant, among other things, to carry something out. You are charged with the responsibility of showing up to work on time and so on and so forth. So charging your spiritual tool was not like plugging in your phone to replenish its battery. It was instructing it on what your goals, your intentions, your your wishes were to have fulfilled in life. And without charging it with the responsibility of aiding you, it's it's doing work nonspecifically. Now, sometimes all you need is that nonspecific work, just having that piece of celestial in your life is bringing you a sense of peace, and that's good enough for you. Wonderful. But if there is a specific facet of what a crystal does, no pun intended, that you'd like to bring into your work, just like people, crystals work best with specific guidance. If you look at, you know, we can get really reductive about what crystals do and in a dozen words or less paint a picture of its energy. I also just published a book that is like 200 plus pages long and it only talks about 14 stones. So actually, those are much longer descriptions. So, what are we not conveying in those short form discussions of what crystal energy does? If we start to think in terms of the broader context of what crystals do, any part of that could be what's happening if we're nonspecific. And maybe that's fine. Maybe I just want a piece of obsidian in my pocket because I want to explore its energy. And my intention is just to receive what it has. Other times, maybe the specific reason I'm carrying my obsidian is because I would like to become more aware of where my baggage, my personal story, my kind of psychic and psychological junk is getting in the way of my growth. And obsidian is going to reflect that to me if I ask it to. So getting specific with our crystals is of great benefit to us. And the reason is twofold. It's not just that the, you know, the rose quartz knows that maybe specifically you want to work on forgiveness rather than attracting new romance. It's also so you know what you're working on. And the best programming, the best kind of charging process for use doesn't just program the crystal, it programs us. And then we're on the same wavelength and we get so much more out of that relationship. I love that.

Rose 17:02

Oh, that's great. Thank you for thank you for that. That's really, really helpful. I know personally, like I love, I'd love all crystals, but I've had this not aversion, but this resistance to working with rose quartz for a long time. And I know why now, because I need that forgiveness, self-forgiveness, forgiving others self-love, but I resist that. You know, so it's I'm forcing myself really to work with that crystal even more. Um, let's talk about your your books. So, you your latest book that you you just mentioned, The Witching Stones. You focus on 14 stones, some of which are more recognized, like uh are not as recognized like amethyst and rose quartz, but like flint, hagstones, amberjet, and some fossils, right? And you talk about quartz, moonstone, and emeralds in here. So, what inspired you to write this book, this amazing and brilliant book?

Speaker 17:52

There are a lot of kind of threads woven into the background of the tapestry of this book. There are a lot of things that contributed to the inspiration. I had this incredible trip to England in 2023, where I got to work very deeply with some of the stones specifically mentioned in the book: Emonite and Hagstone and the fossil urchins and flant are prime examples. Also, you know, there is another book whose title is pretty darn similar to mine called The Witching Herbs. Um, some years ago, it was like uh when I was working on my pandemic baby, we all we all had some new project in the pandemic. Mine was a book on flower essences. So I was reading voraciously about plant lore. And one of the books that I just loved was The Witching Herbs by Harold Roth. And it's 13 chapters of each one a different plant. And I thought, wouldn't this be kind of a brilliant treatment to give to stones? And I just never got around to it. I never got around to it. And then, you know, push came to Chave. I was invited to write an essay, a contribution to another book being published by Weiser. And um, I had such a great time doing it. It is a part biography, part autobiography and memoir by um Christine Cunningham Ashworth, who writes about her, her older brother, the late Scott Cunningham, who was a trailblazer in the kind of witchy and and wiccan scene of the uh 80s and into the early 90s. And um he passed away very young, very sadly. And I I was asked to write a little essay about his legacy in the world of crystals. He he wrote what is probably the first modern A to Z directory of of crystal properties. So, you know, without that format, my books don't exist, right? He he did something that laid the foundation for so many more of us to come. And I had a good time writing that. It was probably like the best writing I'd done that whole year because I was really kind of stunted on another project. And I loved working with the team at Wiser. And so I thought I'm not done with some of these stones from the retreat. And I really loved the idea of this other book. What if I could just do this this project? And it was like the carrot I dangled at the end of the stick because I couldn't start it until I finished writing the book that was in progress before that, which came out earlier this year, January of this year, uh, called Crystals for Psychic Self-Defense. And I mean, it it worked. I love what Crystals for Psychic Self-Defense became. And I also really enjoyed the process of writing the Witching Stones. So it was, it was kind of all these things merging together to set the stage for it.

Rose 20:19

How were some of these stones traditionally used by women in magic and rituals or daily lives?

The Witching Stones: Origins & Aims

Speaker 20:26

This is this is a really great kind of framework for this. You know, the thing about magic historically is that it often serves some some related and sometimes divergent purposes. Sometimes these two statements are gonna align and sometimes they don't. Magic empowers the oppressed, and magic is also about ordinary life. Yes, it draws upon the extraordinary, but think about what our most primal human needs and wants are. We want to be safe, we want to be healthy, we want to be fulfilled, and we want to be able to lead a good life. And so magic is used to enhance those things. So if we look at the folkloric record, if we look at some of these kind of traditional gems that center around women's lives, we're gonna find, you know, all the basics of, you know, protection, healing, success that apply equally to every human. Um, of course, some of the conditions we focus on healing, some of the situations in life can can be more contingent on one's gender. You find a lot of folklore about um certain gems that are worn through um uh through through pregnancy and childbirth and through the early years of rearing children. Uh we can see evidence of gems that have a particular focus on hearth and home. And although I don't believe that to be women's work historically and stereotypically, sometimes we reduce it to that. It is a whole community's work to keep a house up and running. But we do find some gems that I think align with some of these archetypes, some of these themes. So some specific. Specific examples, we can take a look at something like coral, which I write about in Steps of the Goddess, as being a gem that, depending on the color, the variety, how you access it, whether it's recent coral or the actual fossilized variety, the recent coral not being a crystal per se, but being a gem material because we still wear it ornamentally. White corals, pink corals are often worn for all of the issues that are related to motherhood. And not just the kind of biological part, but also the social part, ensuring that we have happy, healthy homes and safe families and fulfillment in lives. We see red coral as being related on the one hand to like success and sovereignty and agency on the battlefield. But, you know, I'll be damned if women don't face struggles of the metaphorical variety and have a unique battlefield kind of facing them. And we see this kind of paralleled in some of the myths of it. And we can also look at something like Emerald. Emerald is such a complex and complicated stone. I have my favorite emerald right here beside me. Oh my God, it's beautiful. She's not small. Not emerald of like this size would be considered, you know, healthy if it were of gem quality, which this one is not. It would make a pretty big gem. So this is gargantuan compared to your average piece of emerald. And this is a stone that we can associate kind of at the like the macro with things like connecting to the earth and resiliency. The color of this gem was associated with senses of vitality, replenishment, renewal. It symbolized the kind of rebirth and fertility of the agricultural season in ancient Egypt. But, you know, in other places, maybe we focus more on its connection to its astrological associations as ruled by Venus or sometimes other planets. But we'll focus on this divine feminine component. And, you know, again, we can reduce Venus to one thing. She is the goddess of love, maybe love and beauty. Um, but show me a woman who's only one thing. Show me a human being who's only one thing, right? Venus is the goddess of love and beauty. She is also the queen of heaven, she is the wielder of magic, she is the opener of the mysteries, she is a goddess of war and success. She's so much more than just a pretty face. So, you know, if we look at the role that Emerald has played, it is a gem that we can associate with a lot of these kind of Venusian mysteries. Yes, it can represent love and romance as traditionally worn for like fidelity in our marriage. It is a commemorative gem as well, one that celebrates successful, tender love. But there is something so transformative about, for example, the myth of the crown of Lucifer, the emerald that fell from it, which some say was set in a gem given by the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, and he used it to command the spirits to build the temple. Others say that it was fashioned into a cup and used at the Last Supper and became the Holy Grail. Others say it was carved into a flat plane and had inscribed upon it the instructions for the alchemical art and became the tabulus mardina or the emerald tablet. And I think, you know, that emerald didn't actually exist, so it's all of these things and none of these things simultaneously. And in that fall, you know, in the initial part of that story, we have echoed, you know, the fall of humanity from the Garden of Eden, which I don't think was about eating a forbidden fruit and doing something we weren't supposed to do. It was about forgetting our innate divinity. The myth of Emerald being connected to Venus, who is known in, you know, pre-modern times as Dawnbringer or Eosphoros, another name given to the Lucifer figure. It's about when we step into our power, when we step into our light, when we acknowledge our magic, life is transformed. And the real story of that myth is forgetting we're anything less than that. For me, Emerald is kind of linked to this sense of embodiment, of being a material being. Yes, I am also a spiritual being, but I'm here in this body. And it reminds me of the kind of delightful complexity of language here. The word matter itself, also echoed in the word matrix, the host rock in which gems are formed, comes from mater in Latin. And this should sound very similar to a bunch of other words in a bunch of other languages. It means mother. And this kind of love and magic and power embodied in Emerald is the divine feminine out of which we are all born. And Emerald reminds us that that kind of love, that kind of power, success, sovereignty, worthiness is yours. Full stop. There is no if, there's no but, there's no when, there's no qualification. You matter because you are matter. And that is the gift of emerald. And that's that's kind of what happens when we unpack these stories of linking the divine feminine to the stones. We start to see these bigger, deeper mechanisms of how they transform our lives that were.

Rose 26:52

Such a beautiful stone, also, or j or gem, or or it's it's just uh I was recently in Chicago and I saw a very small exhibit, and there were so many, it was a lot of jewelry that was donated to this particular event, and they were emeralds and diamonds, and I was just fascinated by the brilliance and the beauty, and it was, it was just like kind of struck something like deep inside of me when I was looking at it, and it was just amazing. So you also have the stones of the goddesses, which I also have read, and it has over a hundred stones connected to divine feminine energy. So we already talked about Emerald and its connection with the divine feminine and and even above and beyond that. You also in this book that you were fond of the crone archetype in the triple goddess, and that you felt a strong kinship with her for her wisdom. And I'd like to talk a little bit about the crystals associated with the crone and how a woman in her wisdom years can use them. A lot of my audience are entering the crone years, the wisdom years, embracing these years. I wanted to talk a little bit about particular stones or crystals that a woman can use to help her on this journey.

Folklore, Feminine Power, And Emerald

Speaker 28:05

Yeah, you know, I think this is such a a really great concept. I want to start by saying the triple goddess is one model of many people might use to interact with the divine feminine. There's there's a lot of commentary, there's a lot of discourse, there's a lot of pushback on, you know, reducing women to their biological abilities, especially because it doesn't, it doesn't cover all women and it never will. But still, if we if we embrace the flawed model for whatever wisdom it's got, I have always just maybe it's because I was raised for the first several years of my life, a good good chunk of the early years of my life, in a single parent household. It was my dad and me. And I was surrounded by this beautiful panoplay of women of all ages, relatives and like friends of the family, and my grandmother especially as matriarch of the family, and just left this indelible mark on me. And so I've I've always kind of been more than a little bit precocious, is probably the nicest way I can put it. I remember having an English teacher once tell me I write like I am much, much, much older with that many muches than I actually am when I was in high school. I've just, I've related more to grownups than most of my peers for most of my life. And maybe that's part of why I vibe so strongly with the archetype of the crone. And there are so many gems that we can associate with this particular archetype. We can think about things that might be tied to the kind of waning moon or dark moon cycle. We can think, you know, jet. We can obviously talk about our kind of silver and gray and black moonstones. I think obsidian is a wonderful ally for the crone's work as well. It's like the the veil she wears. It helps us part that veil. We can't talk about the crone and not talk about hagstones as well. And maybe unpack the the the lack of nuance and what that word is meant to mean. You know, the word hag is related to ultimately uh a linguistic route from which we derive also the words hedge and hex. Hex not mean originally like harmful magic, but magic broadly speaking. You know, that the hag is not the wizened old crone who's scary and lives, you know, in in the house in the end street that we don't talk to because she's good. The hag is someone who knows how to cross the threshold between here and now, who applies the accumulated wisdom of her life to be able to commune with the more than human world. Um and that's why she is the hexa. She is the magician, the witch in this kind of archetypal image. And you know, holy stones or hagstones are wonderful for connecting with this because they're pierced. They have a hole through them. They you can see through the other side of the veil. And I think that's such a great one. Um, another one that I think goes underappreciated for this kind of work is Vivianite. There's no ancient folklore about Vivianite. This is a stone that has fairly recent provenance, but energetically, Vivianite kind of taps us into this ocean of wisdom within our heart. And I think about maybe the imagery of the priestess of the old religion, whether or not such a thing really, really existed in the romanticized way. But, you know, the way that she guides the novices, guides the new initiates, the way she is maybe the oracle. And there is this kind of oracular quality to Vivianite. It usually forms in sedimentary environments as well, which I think is very telling. And in the book Stones of the Goddess, I use the metaphor of the rock cycle to explore the triple goddess as well, and the sedimentary branch, we'll say, of the rock cycle also. I think foregrounds a lot of the imagery of the crone are sedimentary rocks or soft rock geology, so to speak, tells us a lot about the passage of time, the history of life in the individual strata that we see in canyon walls. We have recorded so many stories that are woven of much smaller pieces. And the crone is the witness to them all, the record keeper, the storyteller, the lineage bearer, the one who passes on wisdom to the next generation. So those rocks that do form in those kind of sedimentary environments, whether it's just a piece of sandstone or limestone or shale, or whether they're the kind of gym materials or the fossils, even that we can find within them, they're all wonderful allies for tapping into this archetype, I think. I love that.

Rose 32:24

I also wanted to mention also lipidolite, which you associated with the crone energy in your book. Uh, but you write that it's soothing and helps with anxiety and that it can facilitate psychic development and can reveal answers through your dreams. And I'm just curious how one can also work with that because I guess as we age, we're coming across maybe health issues or anxiety over aging or maybe family or anything. And for some reason, that stone that it stuck out when I read it, and a lot of people aren't aware of it. And even not talking about the crone energy, it it's a crystal that people or stone that people can use. Anyone can use. Do you mind talking about it a little bit?

Speaker 33:07

Yeah, I love the stone. I cannot remember the first time I heard the expression that this was the grandmother stone, but it it stuck with me from the first time. And I don't know that I've ever really seen that in print, but it does kind of feel like that gentle, warm embrace from someone who's got you, someone who's who's there, who knows that you're going to weather the storm because she has as well. And she has, you know, therefore the long sight to know what is coming ahead. I think it speaks to some of the anxieties about, I don't know if the the frailty of human life is the right way to phrase it, maybe the ephemerality of human life. This body that I'm in is gonna wear out and return to the earth. And that's just a fact. Like we're not immortal in these bodies. And there is a kind of surrender that this stone provides that I think is so great for anyone entering that kind of, shall we say, third act of their life, taking on the mantle of the Empress, the crone, the grandparent, what whatever that might be for different folks, because it it helps us embrace the joy we've still got. I mean, it's, you know, by all accounts, most people that I have known who are of will say though those kinds of years, they're having the best time of their lives. You know, I I remember being young and being anxious about high school allegedly being the best years of my life. Categorically, that is false. And for the people who found that to be true, I don't think they're enjoying their lives as much as many of the rest of us are. And every year gets better and better. The pitolite is it's an aluminosilicate mineral. It's in the mica family. It gets its color from traces of rubidium, but it's also really rich in lithium. It is, in fact, one of the mineral resources we mine for lithium for both pharmaceutical and industrial use. You know, micas are interesting. They are held together in sheets of silica. So phyllosilicate means sheet silica. Think of like phyllo dough, phylodo. And, you know, the bonds, the threads woven in that sheet are very strong. But if you lay another sheet on top, you know, the regular sheet on top of the fitted sheet, they don't stick together. So it's possible to peel apart individual layers or individual groups of layers of these mica minerals. And although most of the lipidolite we see is kind of compacted, it's lots of teeny crystals that would be really hard to separate. When we do get the ones that we sometimes call book mica, thin, thin plates or sheets of it. If they're thin enough, if you're delicate and mindful, you can take that crystal and gently bend it and it will return back to its shape. Now, you bend even just a micrometer too far, and it's gonna snap, of course. But most crystals don't exhibit any degree of flexibility at the macro level. You know, a molecule here or there might be able to bend, but micas do this with grace. They do this demonstrably to the naked eye. And lipidolite for me has always been about learning how to bend without breaking, learning how to go with the flow, worry, stress, fear, resentment, all these other things that we can kind of cast toward what's happening or towards uncertainty. They've never objectively made anything better. We we see it in the Reiki precepts as well, right? You know, kill dakriwa, shimbaisuna today only, worry not, or refrain from worry, or, you know, just for today, do not worry. And Lapitolite reminds me that for every time I could choose to worry, which makes me rigid and not so flexible, I can instead choose grace. I can choose maybe something that is uncertain, but doesn't have to be bad. And I think that's one of the beauties of the archetype of, you know, this crown is the willingness to embrace uncertainty. You've entered this new stage in your life, and nothing is plotted for you. Fewer people are casting their expectations upon you. And lipidolite being so soothing allows us to relax into the sovereignty that comes with that. Like you've got this. Nobody else has this, you've got this. And and there's such a warmth that the stone invites when we're kind of seeking that that comfortability with the unknown.

Crone Archetype And Stone Allies

Rose 37:06

Yes, thank you. I'm so glad that I did bring it up because it is something that I know has resonated with me ever since I picked it up, and I'm working more with it. And it is very comforting, and it just helps me when things are just a little excess to really kind of reset my nervous system as well and to embrace what I have and not worry about others. And it is moving into this part of our lives as crones. It's about really returning to ourselves and not worrying so much about everyone else. Thank you. There's so many we can talk about, but I just wanted to mention that one uh because it kind of stood out in in your book as well. We already talked about how ways to choose stone, we can do it through intuition, through research, maybe a blend of both. We talked about some rituals. Well, just to circle back on rituals, just maybe a couple of ways women can use stones, can you know, carry with them. Can they put it by their bed at night while they're sleeping, or is that too much energy nearby? Is that a way to do it, a way to use crystals as well?

Speaker 38:09

Yeah, yeah. So I think I think there's a couple of helpful guideposts for us when we're seeking ways to integrate crystal energy into our lives. And on the one hand, more is more. The more ways that we can enrich our lives with crystals and the more intentional we can be about how we interact with them, the better the outcome is going to be. I can absent-mindedly litter every surface in my house with crystals, which I have done. And they're around me, I'm receiving some benefit, absolutely, especially when I do some maintenance and dust them and cleanse them and do all that. But if I'm not really anchored, if I'm not really connected on a conscious and conscientious kind of way, I'm only getting so much out of it. So more is more is helpful when it comes to how we engage with them. And I say this as someone who is a maximalist, less is also more. If we compare it down to one crystal, two crystals, a handful of crystals that are aligned in the same direction, that are taking us into the same, we'll say, journey of our lives, working on the same theme, that's going to be more effective than just a patchwork quilt of a little bit of everything. And I say that knowing that we have to break that rule often to know how true it is for each of us in different circumstances. So, you know, right now I'm only wearing three stones, and two of them are the same species. I've got one piece of Labradorite, one Labradorite bracelet, and I've got a Priscelli blue stone and a Priscelli blue stone pendant around my neck. And that's it for what's on my person. Sure, they're more on the desk, but they're more environmental than anything. But there are gonna be some days where, you know, I've got a rock in each pocket, I've got two or three bracelets on one wrist, I've got two necklaces on. And it's just knowing what's gonna match your vibe for the day. When it comes to like having them in our kind of nighttime incubation, I think less is more is a really good parameter, mostly because we all have different sensitivities. And I can illustrate this with an example from from my own life. I have a gym that I adore called Peterzite. It is sometimes known as the Tempest Stone. It looks like swirling storm clouds if you get a really nice piece. It also feels like the energy of a hurricane. I don't know if it's because I'm a Florida boy at heart and hurricanes are just part of life. This stone and I, we clicked the moment I saw it. I was maybe 15, 16 years old, and I just I lost it after a piece so badly. And, you know, would that I could go back in time and buy Peter Zide at those prices and buy a lot more with today's money. But, you know, I can have that by the bedside. I can, I can put it under my pillow, I can fall asleep clutching a piece, no problem. One of my dear friends bought five or six little, little tumbles. They were very, very nice, extraordinarily high quality, but they were little. And she made a little grid of them in her bedroom. And weeks and weeks go by and her sleep is getting worse and worse. And you know, we're doing all the things. Okay, well, how many rocks are in your bed? Same ones as always. And when was the last time you cleansed them? Well, I knew you were gonna ask me this. So I did it last week, and then I did it again a couple nights ago, no change. Like, well, what else is going on in life? And finally I'm like, hey, friend, what's what about all that Peter's that you bought? Where have you put that? She goes, Oh my goodness. I mean, it's it's in my bedroom, but it's not near my bed at all. It couldn't possibly, could it? And like, let's just see what happens when you remove it from your bedroom altogether. She slept soundly from there. So our individual sensitivities matter. And because sleep is such an energetically vulnerable time for us, in a good way, because we we get to expand and exhale and just really surrender into the deep unconscious psyche. What we've got in our space can influence us. Just know that if you have too many crystals by the bedside, it's not so much that too many crystals are bad, but you're sending a lot of mixed messages. It's like having a lot of browser tabs open on your computer. We just have to remember that our operating systems are much less sophisticated than modern technology. So it's like trying to have a million browser tabs open on your computer while you're still browsing with Windows 97. Some of them are gonna load, some are gonna freeze. There's gonna be music coming from somewhere and you can't figure out where it is. That's that's the risk we run when we spread ourselves too thin. So more is more in richness of relationship and the variety of activities. Less is more as we're trying to figure out which crystal is best for us in different circumstances. Okay. That makes sense.

Rose 42:21

So I need to move some of my crystals out because I have crazy dreams at night. Sometimes, yeah, it's you know, I I experiment. I put certain ones near me and I change them out, and then I see what happens. And um, yeah, okay. That's uh interesting.

Speaker 42:36

That that trial and error is honestly like the best kind of experimentations. I I need to clear off my my nightstand. I haven't added any new crystals to it for a while, so it's probably just time for a good reset. Yeah, trial and error is just the way to do it.

Rose 42:49

It I I just I I want to reflect on one thing because I know we talked earlier about certain crystals, how people resonate with certain ones. And I know that moldavite is a favorite of mine, and some people think that it has it has a lot of energy, and you have to be careful to wear it. Not only because sometimes it's very powerful or high resonating, high vibrating, but it's one of the one of the things, it's a tectite. I wear it and it grounds me. It's like it does the opposite of what people say it does, because I think I was just connected with it very, very many years ago and in other other life forms. And um, it's just very grounding. And I just wanted to mention that, I guess, just like as a as a side note. So you never know, you just have to kind of work with the crystal. There's no one size fits all. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. So, what's down the line for you? Are you working on another book?

Lepidolite For Anxiety And Grace

Speaker 43:40

Always, always. The project that I'm writing right now, I am very, very excited about. So I'm writing a book called Reiki Rituals. That's its working title. The working subtitle is something along the lines of healing and transformation through embodied practice. And it it does a few things. It explores a lot of different Practical elements of the system of Reiki and practical in as much as they are practices we do. They can be as simple as the gesture of Gasho bringing our palms together in meditation, or as elaborate as the rituals of initiation or attunement or reju or whatever we call them in our lineage, and everything kind of in between. So they they explore the influences about how these things developed, how they've changed over time, how the family tree has kind of branched out to produce different variations of them. They explore also the deeper symbolism of them. Why do we really do these things and what is the benefit from it? And then I think the hidden benefit is when you look at it from the opposite end, you can also trace how all of these things are related to common sources, that we all stem from the same family tree. And even in the case of like more modern practices, where we have convergent evolution, where, you know, this modern lineage did this thing, this modern lineage did something that looks different but achieves the same goal. It reminds us that yes, human innovation is wonderful, but if we're accomplishing such similar things separately, maybe it's Reiki that's actually inspiring us and it's coming through that relationship. So I think the deeper goal of this book is to help us kind of, we'll say, resituate ourselves in community with the whole of the Reiki world. I mean, obviously, with, you know, hundreds and hundreds of different named Reiki practices around the world and so many independent teachers putting their own spin on it, I can't guarantee that every chapter has something that looks exactly like every reader's practice. But my hope is by covering a broad enough range and describing the kind of ways that the morphology, the outer shape of the practices has has changed through the ensuing generations. You'll you'll see at least some bit of what you do embodied in this book. And it will remind you to maybe hold space for the differences, not just what looks the same.

Rose 45:55

I love that. I can't wait. Will you come back and talk about that book?

Speaker 45:58

Absolutely. Yeah. Great.

Rose 45:59

Yeah.

Speaker 46:00

I'm I'm so excited. This is this has been some of the most fulfilling Reiki work I've done research-wise in a long time. I'm about three-quarters of the way through the book. And actually, after our chat, I'm I'm working on what will be the, I think it's gonna end up being the 17th chapter in the book. Oh, wow. So I'm I'm nearing completion.

Rose 46:19

Oh, I'm excited for it too. Yeah, I wanted to focus on crystals today because I know I would love to have you back and talk about Reiki and your Reiki books, which I also have. So your website has your offerings because you do teach online. Can you talk about where we could find you? Absolutely.

Speaker 46:36

Thank you so much. So my website is theluminouspearl.com on social media. It's usually at theluminouspearl. The website's got, you know, a synopsis of all of my books and links to buy them in lots of different places. Of course, find them in your local indie bookstore. That's always like the best case. But I've got my calendar of events online, in-person teachings, kind of a smattering of other things on there as well. But it's it's mostly the hub so you can learn about what I've written and and what I teach.

Rose 47:04

Yeah. So everyone follow Nicholas and I'll put everything in the show notes. So I cannot thank you enough for being here. I'm so excited and I'm so grateful that we have connected and stay connected and just thank you so much.

Speaker 47:15

My pleasure. Thank you for having me and congrats on the book. Thank you.

Rose 47:19

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