Gems, metals, and minerals are an easy hobby to get into, and they are popular for simple reasons. They’re beautiful, valuable, and highly sought after for spiritual purposes and their effects on our psyche.

Minerals have always fascinated humans. There is an instinctual response to finding a shiny rock that you can’t deny. Our idea of money comes from them and they continue to be great stores of value as specimens, jewelry, and decor. They are present in all of our devices, tools and are found in every machine that we use.

Gems, metals, and minerals occur very commonly throughout the Earth’s crust. Using machinery, explosives, and chemical processes, huge industries are at work in every region of the earth producing pure metals, chemical agents and precious gemstones. Entire mountains are removed and impossibly deep and wide mines are dug. Individuals that know what they’re looking for can find surface minerals and near-surface deposits that can be mined with hand tools. The entire spectrum of mineral extraction exists, from hiking hobbyists, to family or community run mines to massive, ecologically destructive industries.

What makes these materials so interesting, is that they are molecular lattices of repeating, similar molecules or patterns of molecules. For example, Iron Ore is made of iron oxides. Exposure of iron molecules to the atmosphere makes the Fe (Iron) molecules bond to available Oxygen molecules, and the conglomeration of them results in deposits of Hematite, Goethite, Magnetite and Siderite. The most interesting thing about them is that their intricate structures are detailed down to the molecular surface. Their properties are all dependent on the material from which they are formed. For example, you should be very aware of the properties of metals. They’re conductive of both heat and electricity and they can be made into hard forms in order to create the strongest of solid objects obtainable. Each metal is different and those differences come down to which molecules they are made from.

Precipitating together through the erosive effects of groundwater, many minerals can form together or in combination with each other. It is not possible to find a deposit of just one mineral! That is why Quartz has so many possible mineral inclusions and varieties. Most known gemstones are varieties of Quartz (SiO2), and other minerals or growth patterns. Agate, Chalcedony, and Onyx vary only in structural differences and mineral inclusion from crystalized quartz points.

Gems have long been used in spiritual practice and as aides in mindful self improvement. Both worn in jewelry and held in hand, their effects are said to be both direct and indirect. Ascribed to a specific chakra or said to apply a specific effect, each stone is different but most match well with the chakras by their color theory. These pure mineral structures each have specific characteristics when it comes to their conductivity, magnetic field and resonant vibrational frequency. We, as creatures with an electrical field generated by our heartbeat, circulatory and nervous systems, feel the things around us in an almost imperceptible, subconscious way. Intention and vibration are able to work through this field, all it takes is a quiet mind and self discipline to feel them.

As meditation aids, gems and minerals are wonderful focusing points. It is said that you can reach supreme enlightenment if you can maintain a quiet mind for only 40 seconds. For those of us that are not awakened masters, a specific intention can go a long way toward progress. In order to get started, you just have to identify the things that you are working on in yourself, and then look for a gemstone that has a similar benefit. The best way is to learn the functions of each chakra. Once you identify what areas you need to work on, finding a gemstone that helps will be easy.

Intention is as important as anything, and if you see your applied effort making progress, you know that this is true. The placebo effect is one of the most powerful tools that we have, as humans, to help ourselves to exist and be the best versions of ourselves. A positive outlook will assist in creating a positive outcome just the same as a negative outlook will result in a bad one. So, as we work on ourselves, as we obtain tools and use them with intention, we will do better and be better, sooner. This is why working with crystals is so popular and widely recommended for anyone that is working to progress spiritually.

Applying culturally accepted and commonly corroborated effects to each gemstone, there are easy maps to follow in order to find the right stone for anything you’re working on. Obtaining that stone, and putting the intention in to do the work that it is said to help with, will assist you in multiple ways. First, you now have a pretty stone, go you! Second, you have a reminder of the work that you intend to do whenever you see it. That mindfulness trigger can be very helpful in re-focusing your intention. And third, the actual effect that the vibrational, electrochemical and magnetic properties of the stone has on your electric field and the resulting sensation and feedback with your physical, spiritual and psychological self. Even if that may be hard to define or measure and difficult to describe, it exists. You can allow this to work on you subconsciously, by wearing jewelry with that stone so that it is always in your electric field, or consciously, directly, by meditating with that stone and focusing all your intention.

We started creating laser cut, intricately carved wooden pendants with gemstones as LaserTrees back in 2015. Since then, we have spent years developing our craft and creating talismans that contain multiple stones in order to have either more than one effect, or a mostly directed effect that is enhanced by the geometry and design that they are placed in. The intention behind creating a talisman is important to its end function and use, just as the effects of a gemstone require intention to be effective on you in the first place. We do the “magic” of intending for specific outcomes as we create our art, and the customer receives that intention. Often as we create talismans, we ritually call out to the end recipient wherever they may be and ask for inspiration on stone selection and arrangement, purpose and intent. We then bring these pieces out to a show and let those pieces find their owners! It’s very fun to let customers know this part of the process, as we can tell them that piece was made for them and it’s the honest truth.

Gems, metals and minerals are such amazing and interesting things. For all of the various ways that they can be appreciated, and that they can be so many things all at the same time, we hope your appreciation of them has grown from reading this. Whatever your bias is, whether you believe that they are spiritual tools or just that they are neat to look at, we can all agree that they look awesome in jewelry.