April 28, 2025 • 40 mins
Join Adam Barralet, Kyle Perez and Nicholas Pearson in Episode #30 of the Crystal Confab Podcast as they do a deep dive into Jet crystal meanings, including:
Working with Jet Crystals during the Full & New Moons
Adopting the 'less is more' approach with Jet crystal energy
Jet's historical significance, including its connection to queer identities in the ancient world
Tune in now for a deeper look at Jet crystal meanings!
Podcast Episode Transcript:
Crystal Confab Podcast Introduction: Are you just starting with crystals? Or maybe you have a whole collection but aren't sure how to use them? Join four crystal nerds, healers, workers, and lovers for a casual chat about all things crystals.
Kyle Perez: Hello, and welcome to another crystal confab. Today, we're staying with another, not necessarily ‘gemstone-gemstone’, and I'm joined by Adam and Nicholas, and we're going to dive into Jet. How many of you love a bit of Jet action?
Nicholas Pearson: I've grown fond of it over the years.
Adam Barralet: Yeah. Me too. I think one of the really interesting things a lot of people find is just tactile-wise, how it feels so different to a crystal. And, you know, one of the problems I think all of us probably get is people sending pictures or trying to identify what this crystal is. And the great thing about when it comes to black crystals, Jet is so much lighter.
So if it's a really, really light crystal, then it's going to be really, really easy to go up that Jet type of thing. So that's one thing. But I, you know, I've had experiences and I'll share them later on about just the tactileness of Jet is really, really nice. But, I believe it's been used for a long, long time and has a really great history about it as well. And who better to tell us about the history than Nicholas?
Nicholas: Yeah. This is one of those rocks that I think we can trace approximately 30,000 years of human use of. Going back a really long time. In, you know, the earliest instances, people didn't necessarily make the strong geological distinction between Jet and related materials. Kennel coal and lignite and sometimes black shale were treated very similarly.
So we kinda have to have a little grace in interpreting the data. But it is a stone that is inherently in between, and I find that really magical. One of the most important sources for Jet in the ancient world was in Whitby and what is now modern day Whitby in Yorkshire. I have a bit of Whitby Jet here from the coast of England, and it is my favorite piece in my collection, of very few pieces of Jet. But I think it is really marvelous to imagine that particularly during the Roman occupation of Britain, this material was traded across thousands upon thousands of miles.
We find evidence of Whitby Jet carvings in faraway Switzerland and Germany, as well as in Rome proper. So this was a commodity that was traded for a very long time. In other parts of the world where Jet can be found, we find similarly ancient uses of it. But when this kind of Romano British center production was in full swing about thirty five hundred years ago, Jet seemed to acquire, if we read between the lines, a number of uses that are a little bit weird, a little queer, we might even say. And one of my favorite examples is, the remains of a a skeleton found in a a Roman period burial.
The skeleton is officially known as skeleton six five two, because we don't have names and dates and ages for all of these figures. And there are a lot of confusing data points about this. This person was interred with a lot of very lavish expensive funeral goods, including jewelry, but they were buried in the part of the cemetery that you would put people who were on the outskirts, the fringe, the beggars, the thieves. So we have a little bit of contradictory information there. When this area was being excavated for the first time, doing, osteological analysis,
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Are you just starting with crystals?
Or maybe you have a whole collection but
aren't sure how to use them? Join four
crystal nerds, healers, workers, and lovers for crystal
a casual chat about all things crystals.
Hello, and welcome to another crystal
confab.
Today,
we're staying with another,
(00:24):
not necessarily
gemstone gemstone,
and I'm joined by Adam
and Nicholas, and we're going to dive into
jet.
How many of you love a bit of
jet action?
I've grown fond of it over the years.
Yeah. Me too. I think one of the
really interesting things a lot of people find
is just
(00:45):
tactile wise, how it feels so different to
a crystal.
And, you know, one of the problems I
think all of us probably get is people
sending pictures or try to identify
what is this crystal.
And the great thing about when it comes
to black crystals,
jet is so much lighter. So if it's
a really, really light crystal,
(01:06):
then it's going to be really, really easy
to go up that to jet type of
thing. So that's one thing. But I, you
know, I've had experiences and I'll share them
later on about just the tactileness of jet
is really, really nice. But,
I believe it's been used for a long,
long time and got a really great history
about it as well. And who better to
tell us about the history than Nicholas?
(01:27):
Yeah. This is one of those rocks that
I think we can trace
approximately
30,000
years of human use of.
Goes back a really long time. In, you
know, the earliest instances,
people didn't necessarily
make the strong geological
distinction between jet and related materials. Kennel coal
(01:48):
and lignite
and sometimes black shale were treated very similarly.
So we we kinda have to have a
little grace in interpreting
the data.
But it is a stone that is inherently
in between,
and I find that really magical.
One of the most
(02:08):
important sources for jet in the ancient world
was in
Whitby and what what is now modern day
Whitby in Yorkshire. I have a bit of
Whitby jet here from the the coast of
England,
and it is my favorite piece in my
collection,
of very few pieces of jet. But I
think it is really marvelous to imagine that
particularly during the Roman occupation
(02:29):
of Britain,
this material was traded across thousands upon thousands
of miles. We find evidence of Whitby jet
carvings
in faraway
Switzerland
and Germany,
as well as in Rome proper. So this
was a a commodity that was traded for
a very long time. In other parts of
the world where jet can be found, we
(02:49):
find similarly ancient uses of it.
But
when
when this kind
of Romano
British center production was in full swing about
thirty five hundred years ago,
jet seemed to acquire,
if we read between the lines,
a number of uses that are a little
(03:11):
bit weird, a little queer, we might even
say. And one of my favorite examples
is, the remains
of
a a skeleton
found in
a a Roman period burial.
The skeleton is officially known as skeleton six
five two,
because we don't have names and dates and
ages for all of these figures.
(03:32):
And
there
are a lot of confusing data points about
this.
This person was interred with a lot of
very lavish
expensive
funeral goods, including jewelry,
but
they were buried in the part of the
cemetery that you would put people who were
(03:52):
on the outskirts, the fringe, the beggars, the
thieves.
So we have a little bit of kind
of contradictory information there.
When
this area was being excavated for the first
time,
doing,
osteological
analysis, looking at the the bones of the
remains,
researchers came to the conclusion that this person
(04:15):
could be identified as and it's a problematic
term, but we'll say to use use the
terminology they did, anatomically male by by their
bone structure.
But all of the trappings
are of
what
a female identified body would be buried with,
including, most importantly,
a multi strand necklace
(04:36):
consisting of more than 60,
600 rather beads of jet
said to be scattered among the rib cage
because, you know, the thread had broken like
a a swarm of ants.
And so we have to do a little
bit of reconstruction
about what this might have meant. And,
(04:56):
there's
probably a very strong influence from a cult
of a particular goddess who came from the
Far East,
and she was
symbolized
by a great black stone.
Her name is often anglicized,
Cybelle or Cybelle or Cybele.
I'm not really sure what the original pronunciation
(05:17):
was or worship would have originated in the
Anatolian Peninsula where there's a material very similar
to jet found. Looking at some gemological analysis,
there's there's actually debate over what we should
classify it. That's somebody else's problem. We're gonna
consider it to be socially
akin to jet and treat them very similarly.
And,
Worship
(05:37):
was,
one that we find very similar mythic cycles
in other parts of the world. We have
a kind of eternal goddess who is the
mother of the earth. She has a dying
and resurrected lover. We've seen this motif with,
Adonis and Aphrodite. We see it with,
Irushtar, Ishtar and her consort. We we see
it with Isis and Osiris.
(05:58):
So it's a,
we'll say a my theme, a mythic motif
or theme that that recurs in many parts
of the world.
But one thing special about,
Kibele's worship was that she had a unique
class of, we'll say, priestly people.
And I'm I'm using those words in particular
because
(06:19):
by by modern day terms, we would consider
the Munich. They were they were third gender.
They they underwent a process to
to become third gender, if you catch my
drift,
and
occupied a kind of liminal space, an in
between space that was neither male nor female.
And the kind of resurrecting power of the
(06:40):
goddess was said to work through them and
to grant them great gifts in the next
life, but they they were the shamans and
the priestesses of this cult.
They entered ecstatic trance. They were ferocious when
they needed to be, tender and loving when
they could be.
They didn't necessarily
operate by all the rules of society.
(07:01):
To engage in the worship of the goddess
this way was a really transgressive
act. And the fact that her worship was
also marked by a very curious stone,
something that we find
in geological environments, but it floats in seawater.
Something hard and enduring,
but also flammable,
(07:22):
something ancient and of the earth, but still
organic,
means that Jet has,
we'll say, received
quite a lot of unusual imagery over the
years.
And,
we can associate jet
with this in between space.
It is a stone and not a stone.
(07:42):
It is a fossil, but it is not
a mineral. Unlike petrified wood, it hasn't undergone
the process of permineralization
where something like silica or another mineral comes
in and replaces the organic tissue.
In fact, it is the organic remains of
an ancient class of trees called auricaria that
were probably swept out to sea,
or to bodies of water, we'll say, by
(08:04):
a great and cataclysmic event or series of
events.
And the two rough categories
of of jet that are out there, hard
jet and soft jet, which
actually has a lot more to do with
their oil content than their brittleness because they
have the same hardness
range on the Mohs scale.
But one one would have gone in seawater
and the other into freshwater,
(08:25):
immediately be buried by sediment and compressed by
the sands of time.
And that hypoxic environment prevented decay and putrefaction.
It prevented microorganisms
from breaking it down like other organic materials
tend to be. And so living in this
in between zone
in the earth, in the water, but not
really either, it becomes this
(08:48):
other thing.
And so jet for me has been a
stone of embracing the otherness, the queerness, the
liminal spaces of life. I think of it
as a stone that I turn to when
I need to feel surrounded by my queer
ancestors
and the people who have been the trailblazers
for me to live the life that I
live as openly as I live it. It
is protective.
(09:08):
It is a stone that helps us face
our fears and maybe examine where they come
from.
And at the same time, it's a stone
of incredible mystery.
You know, we have expressions like black as
jet because the
color of the stone is so iconically dark,
unknowable, impenetrable.
It is not transparent in thin section
(09:31):
like
obsidian and some onyx and even some tourmalines
would be. It is opaque,
and there is something about the opacity that
it represents of the unknown that when we
surrender to, we can come out
really empowered and transformed.
And so when I need a little extra
queer magic in my life,
(09:52):
jet is one of my go to stones.
Nicholas,
black stones are often seen as being good
for protection. Would you say that maybe jet
might be a,
a good one for queer people who feel
that they need extra protection?
Yeah. I do. And, you know, the reason
for this, I think, is many fold.
(10:14):
Jet has been associated
with another stone we'll eventually talk about, amber,
because they're found in similar environments. They both
float in seawater. They're both flammable. So they
they kinda share a little bit of one
another's functions in in different historic periods, and
both are considered very protective.
We can find references in medieval and earlier
and later texts, but,
(10:35):
describing how either of these stones placed on
coal and allowed to smoke because they're organic
materials that smoke will drive out demons and
and spirits.
And I think of that as something symbolic.
Like, sure, you can burn jet. I actually
have a jet incense recipe coming up in
the witching stones, which will be out in
the fall.
But,
(10:56):
rather than physically setting it ablaze,
I think if it is
kind of nourishing that inner fire to stand
up in the face of fear and
marginalized people of all kinds,
of all colors, of all ages, of all
shapes, and race races, and nations, and
identities.
(11:16):
We we have a different kind of fear
than people of greater privilege.
And and I recognize two things can be
true at once. I have a lot of
privilege in my life, and still I can
be scared as shit about some stuff as
a queer person.
And
Jet helps
me just
find that little spark of courage
and keep
(11:37):
at it so that spark takes purchase,
so it kindles something,
so I can stand up and keep doing
what I do.
So I think it is a great stone.
It also reminds us that we're not alone.
As a fossil, it has a very ancestral
vibe. I think something we we hinted at
last week.
Fossils have this deep connection to the past,
(11:59):
but
the fact that it has this special connection
to queerness and otherness, to those people occupying
liminal spaces in society,
it reminds me that I don't have to
go it alone, that there are people in
community, whether they are remote, like you friends
and Ashley, where where
(12:20):
the people in my physical space, in my
home, at my job, and anywhere I go,
I can try to forge those same ties.
So I think it's a great stone for
protection in a lot of ways.
I really love one of the things you
spoke about there about talking about queer ancestors.
And often what one thing I have to
talk to, you know, people in traditional and
(12:41):
heterosexual relationships is
whereas when you grow up in a regular
family as a heterosexual person, your life is
kind of modeled to you when you kind
of have that family where, you know, this
is what you're gonna do when you get
older. And as a gay person in a
growing up in that, we almost we have
our blood family, but we have to go
find our other family that will model
(13:03):
what are we meant to do with life
because that tradition of, you know, go to
school, go to uni, find a nice partner,
get married, have some kids, and so on.
And I I know not all heterosexual people
adhere to that, but then it's kind of
a traditional model. With gay people, there's many
obstacles that stop us from doing those type
of things, whether it be in your country,
you may not be able to get married.
Obviously, biologically, we can't have children,
(13:25):
when we're in a gay
relationship, unless you bring
help in type of thing. So, yeah, that
that,
need to not only find our own queer
family in our everyday life, but also reaching
back into queer ancestry and finding
queer guides and queer
spiritual support. I really love that idea, and
I think that would be something that probably
I know I haven't really explored too much
(13:47):
apart from an affinity with some more gay
gods.
But I love thank you for introducing that,
Nicholas. That's really powerful.
My pleasure. Thank you.
So, Carl, what about yourself? How do you
like to use Jet?
Well, I think just to touch on all
of that, I think it's really important that
throughout, I think, pretty much all cultures in
all histories,
it was the queer person, the in between
(14:09):
person,
the gendered
flow person
that was the one that was the shaman,
that was the spiritual connector, that was the
healer. These were the ones that were sacred
up until
much more recent history. So I think that's
a really important thing to know and a
really important connection.
But for me,
(14:30):
Jet has been a lesson of less is
more. I am a more is more person.
I'm a maximalist.
I'm a doer. I
like stuff.
I'm enthusiastic
to a fault. And
I have had a few points in time
and I literally have
two
items of Jet. One came to me at
(14:51):
the very start of my journey and one
came to me last year.
This one was that when I was studying
especially,
don't push put the pressure on yourself to
do so much. Whenever I put the pressure
on myself to do so much, I found
myself
getting
less ahead. Like, what's the saying,
slow down, hurry up, something where you're like
(15:14):
you're basically going backwards to go forwards. But
I realized by my second year of study
of gemmology
that if I was more efficient with the
way I did it, if I did
it on one day instead of spread out
throughout the week, if I was
less
stressed about trying to always do it because
the brain doesn't work that way. It's not
(15:34):
that
it's not built that way, especially ten years
after doing any sort of study to then
go back and, like, stretch the brain again
into science. I realized that by doing it
every day, I wasn't actually helping myself learn.
If I did a full day, like a
full day of work, seven or eight hours
with a lunch break,
I was able to do assignments. I was
(15:55):
able to study. I was able to learn
and get further ahead quicker.
And I found that, like,
really efficient use of my energy was getting
me further ahead. So it's like when you
do less, and it's not that you're doing
less, you're actually just being more efficient. And
I think that's what jet is. Like, it
has gone through pressure. It has gone through
(16:15):
life. It has been this. It has been
that. And now it's just, you know, bogged
along to come to shore to find us.
Like, it's totally
adaptable.
And if we are able to, like, put
less pressure on ourselves to do everything
and be able to be more adaptable in
the moment when we feel present, when we
can do, we can do more. Take the
(16:36):
pressure off yourself to do
things all the time. Does that make sense?
Like,
there are times when you feel capable often,
and then there are times when you don't
feel capable every day. And as someone who
suffers chronic pain, like, my % can be
30%.
Right? It can be
not much. And to have to balance two
(16:57):
full time jobs with study
meant that I had to, like, rearrange my
life. And by allowing myself just one day,
one day between my classes,
I found myself getting so far ahead so
quickly.
I was like, why the hell didn't I
do this sooner? Jet was like this light
bulb of, like, less is more. And there's
(17:19):
this saying from an old Simpsons episode that
I can't remember,
exactly what it is. And it's a funny
thing. It's totally totally stupid. It says, aim
low, achieve your goals, avoid disappointment.
And it's like
it was totally said in jest, and it's
like sometimes we actually need to
set ourselves little
incremental
(17:39):
achievable
goals.
Today, this is what I'm going to do,
and that's what I'm gonna do today. That's
all I need to do. And if I
don't do it, that's fine.
But I'm gonna do a little bit, I'm
gonna do a little bit, and I'm gonna
do a little bit. Maybe it's half an
hour a week where I set aside something
to learn something new. Maybe it's
an hour
a month where I'm going to do x,
(18:00):
y, or zed. Like, instead of going, I'm
gonna go to the gym three times a
week straight away. I'm gonna start studying. I'm
gonna do this. Like, when you try and
jump into something especially from nothing,
I find it, like, too much. And then
you fall off the bandwagon. You don't wanna
do it anymore, and you lose that enthusiasm.
But if you can go, I did this.
(18:21):
I did this.
I did this. And you're checking it off
and you're seeing yourself
progress, you actually have so much more faith
in yourself. This was
brought back to me in a reading that
I did last week,
where a client spoke about
the fact that they did this on this
holiday, and they would never have done it
two or three years ago due to fears.
(18:41):
And it's like, you were just saying you
haven't gone anywhere and you just said, look
at how far you've come in a couple
of years. Right? If you look back last
week, if you look back two months, of
course, it doesn't feel like you've done anything.
But if you break things down over a
long period and you look back over six
months, you look back over two years, you
look back over five, ten,
(19:01):
you'll actually see that you've come a lot
further. Right? Jet takes that patience to
another level of, like, allowing yourself to just
do enough and enough is enough. And sometimes
that's more than enough. Right? Does that make
sense? And then it came back again into
my life last year with this bracelet
when I broke my arm.
So I fell down the stairs. I broke
(19:23):
my arm. The radial head was fractured just
there by the elbow,
and it's something that you don't do surgery
on. Couldn't put a cast on it because
it was my point. It was like, just
wear a sling and just deal with it.
Let it heal.
And this was like an immediate
take me. You need me. You need to,
like,
(19:44):
resist the compulsion
to do because my compulsion is to do.
I work in a workplace where
rocks are heavy. Right? I, like, I want
to do and pick things up, and, like,
my limit is five kilos.
Still, a year later, it is five kilos.
And if I go beyond that, I then
get pain for another week. Like, it comes
(20:06):
back again. And I then have to
go, oops, put my jet back on, remind
myself to slow down and do a little
bit less. There are other people that can
do heavy lifting. There is other jobs that
need to be done. There are other things
that you can do.
You don't have to
do it all at once. Maybe you can
break it down into lighter bits that you
can lift and then you'll be able to
(20:27):
move the thing over there. Right? I am
a, like,
one shopping bag trip home from the shops
person. Like, I
I will and have hurt myself so often
over the years.
It's that reminder for me, do less, achieve
more.
Come back to a little bit more efficiency.
(20:49):
Right? Two pieces
over fifteen years of collecting. Like, it's enough.
I really love this, and
I'm, like, having a little bit of an
moment myself that connects this message to, like,
even the materiality of Jet.
So,
you know, jet is light.
(21:10):
It takes up the same amount of space
as a heavier material, but because it's less
dense, there's less matter inside it.
And even, like, the darkness, this idea of,
again, connecting
jet to blackness to night,
like, we we see in several languages words
for jet that are ultimately derived from, like,
old Persian roots that mean night. In Spanish
(21:32):
is a really great example of a word
that has this old Persian origin. And and,
you know, night is the space between days.
It is the period of rest. Even the
darkness in the sky at night is necessary
for us to appreciate
the points of light that are the stars
between them. And if we don't have those
restful, those dark, those dim moments, we can't
also have moments of doing of activity of
(21:55):
light. And I I really love how you
helped me connect the dots there. So thank
you for that, Kyle. I am so
so happy to do so this is something
that I say in so many readings is
like
you don't have to get there so fast
things can get there at their own pace
and you'll get there when you need to
and I love also the taking up space
(22:16):
thing. I actually really love that essence of
being able to take up space and coming
back to queerness. Right? And minorities
and everyone,
we are allowed to take up space. Everyone
is allowed to have a little bit of
space on this planet.
I think for you know, there are so
many people who feel guilty like you were
saying, Kyle, when it comes to doing nothing.
(22:38):
I remember, you know, I had a a
friend when I lived in Melbourne who, you
know, had a bit of a rough childhood,
but he couldn't be by himself. And if
he was, he had to have music on
loud. And he'd ring me on a Sunday
morning going, what are you up to?
And I'm like,
just cleaning the house. He's like, do you
wanna come grocery shopping with me? And I'm
like, why? But it's just he wanted the
(22:59):
company all the time.
Now he's an extreme example where it's amazing
how,
you know,
I I've noticed a few people have commented
recently in just different things, how we can't
do nothing anymore,
or we can't,
you know
introspection
and quiet time used to be just sitting
on the bus and looking out the window.
(23:20):
But as soon as we have a quiet
moment, and I'm guilty of this as well,
what do a lot of people do? We
just pick up our phone and start scrolling.
We fill that space straight away, and this
idea of doing absolutely nothing,
people just don't know what to do when
they can't when they do nothing. And I
think Jet might be a really interesting one
and maybe a really great practice with Jet
(23:41):
is sit there, and what do you do
with it? Nothing.
And can you do nothing for fifteen minutes?
Yeah.
Exactly. Can you, like, take it on a
train trip with you? Keep it on you
when you're in the car. Take it on
a plane ride, like, when you're going on
holiday when you would normally, twenty years ago,
we would have done nothing because we didn't
have phones to play with.
(24:02):
Exactly. Yeah. I love that. I I wanna
ask you, Jed, before I get into kind
of some astrology that jets can be really
helpful for, coming up for us, you know,
protection crystals and black crystals are often seen
as being the key ones or often come
up first on those of what's a good
protection crystal. So we've kind of got our
big four. We've got black tourmaline,
(24:22):
black obsidian,
black onyx, and then jet.
I'd love to know from each of you,
do you how would you differentiate
those in different ways? How would you differentiate
them, Nicholas?
Oh, I mean,
energetically speaking,
obsidian is reflective. It is a glass. It
is insulative.
It lacks the long range crystal the the
(24:45):
long range order that defines a crystal lattice.
So,
you know, I think of, like,
the the void of becoming. It is the
prima materia, the first matter out of which
other things can arise. So it's great raw
material. I don't think it is good long
term protection, though, because it just
doesn't have the heft required.
(25:07):
Really good if we need that kind of
insulative shielding in the short term, but I
I definitely wouldn't use this long term,
unless I were in dire straits. And, ultimately,
I'd wanna remove myself from dire straits and
rely on total, you know, hermetically sealed kind
of energetic protection.
When it comes to something like,
black tourmaline, I don't think of it as
(25:27):
primarily shielding. I think of it as primarily
purifying.
It is in a way kind of like
this cosmic garbage disposal. When we look at
the crystal structure of tourmalines or cyclosilicate
minerals,
and those can take two general categories.
Tourmaline takes
the columnar structure. So all of the the
rings stack on top of each other and
(25:48):
create these, like,
really tingy tiny microscopic channels through which small
bits of stuff can can move. That includes
maybe also small bits of energetic stuff can
move from them. So,
this is a really powerfully grounding stone. It
is the most iron rich member of the
tourmaline family.
Iron has this descending quality to it. So
(26:09):
it doesn't just move stuff. It helps us
release stuff downwards into the earth. It's like
that,
grounding prong in in most outlets worldwide.
And, therefore, it by linking us to something
greater, the body of the earth,
giving us a safe and easy channel through
which to discharge things. It's almost like having
(26:30):
a cosmic garbage disposal in your energy field.
It's not about keeping stuff out. It's about
dispelling the things, discharging, releasing the things you
don't need because
they can just pass through you unimpeded.
Jet, you know, I've already kind of given
some some,
some discussion of, but I think of it
as warmer, softer, lighter, and definitely has that
(26:50):
kind of symbolic quality of chasing away the
things that we fear maybe by helping us
spark the light.
And then was black onyx your fourth one?
It was. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, being
a a chalcedony, I think that it's having
this kind of settling effect. If we think
about how those form,
I know it's been a long time since
our black onyx episode.
They
(27:11):
they tend to form out of, like, a
colloid, a gel, a goo made out of
silica that that settles, precipitates from solution.
And so it's got this kind of, like,
letting things
letting letting
the stuff settle, the dust settle after an
explosion, for example.
And by getting things to settle, we can
reorganize,
rebuild. It's, you know, getting all the bricks
(27:34):
to find their ideal space to create the
wall that is gonna protect
us. So four different makeups, four different stones,
four very different kind of energetic properties for
me.
I love that. I love that. Carl, what
about yourself?
For me, I think black tourmaline
is like the snow plow.
(27:56):
Get the f out of my way. Obsidian
is the why don't you look at yourself
before you look at me, protector?
I think black onyx is like Teflon.
You can move through things without really being
noticed.
And jet, I think,
bobs above everything.
I'm gonna shorthand everything.
(28:18):
And I think, yeah, jet is kind of
more bobbing above everything, protecting by kind of
floating above everything.
Mhmm. Mhmm. I couldn't agree with you both
more, especially with the black tour lane. You
know, I find I think of it, you
know, when you see a celebrity being pushed
for a crowd and the bodyguard is out
of the way, please, out of the way.
For those that like angels, there's an angel
known as Jehudiel
(28:39):
or Jehudiel,
j e h u d I e l.
And he is often a protection angel. He
he's often depicted with being black. He's very
quiet,
not not kinda like the Michael
kind of way who's like, get out of
the way. Very subtle when he's way up.
I'm black toiling is that real good snow
plow or, you know, bodyguard, whatever that may
(29:00):
be, pushing
danger or hindrances or distractions out of the
way. I find with, you know, black, obviously,
as an energy, it obviously can absorb things.
I find black crystals a bit like a
sponge, and I find
I like to use black obsidian for more
fiery or aggressive protection. So I think that
road rage or anything like that. Whereas onyx,
I find is more really, really beautiful for
(29:22):
things that you are unaware of. So if
I lived in the middle of a city,
God forbid,
you know, I'd probably put a bit of
black onyx around my, house just to absorb
the unwanted energy just being around that many
people and that type of thing as well.
So that kind of unknown versus right in
your face for the obsidian versus onyx.
(29:42):
When it comes to jet, though, what I
find is it's a really great one for
absorbing also our unwanted energies as well.
So whether we're feeling angry or frustrated or
irritable or any of those type of things,
I find it to be a really nice
one just to hold in your hands. It
is really quite comforting and
to just kind of soothe you for through
(30:03):
that emotional turmoil that you're going through as
well.
The biggest one that I recommended for and
where it was kind of played its most
important role in my life is when my
father passed away. I have a jet palm
stone and just again, that comfort
of using jet to, you know, just kinda
offer comfort, but also absorb a bit of
that grief and to help you deal with
(30:24):
that. And I'd know even at the funeral,
I still remember holding that in my hand
and just, you know, when we were in
that kind of depth of sorrow and grief,
you kind of don't know what to do
and don't know what to say about anything.
So just having something, I guess, to fiddle
with.
But the soothingness of is really, really powerful
of that. And this could really lead into
(30:44):
some of the things that are happening this
week. So first of all, we have a
new moon in Taurus happening.
So Taurus is our money sign to be
really kind of simple about it type of
thing. So it's a really good way to
maybe stop
it, contemplate
where you at with your money, where you
at with your spending, where you at with
(31:05):
where you know, your next financial goals or
or whatever that may be in your life
and, you
know,
exploring that, doing that little check-in.
Now why I love jet for this instance
is often when we think about Taurus, we
think about, okay. Maybe we can bring in
some green crystals like adventurine or emerald or
or jade for abundance or citrine or something
(31:26):
like that.
Whereas
we might want to look at not necessarily
bringing money in, but how can we calm
down the amount of money going out?
So I find jet to be a really
beautiful one to work with when it comes
to overspending.
Now I'm always reminded of one of my
students,
several years ago,
who learned in one of my classes, I've
(31:48):
been talking about jet can be good for
absorbing those,
for overspending and those tendencies where we tend
to shop to fulfill a short term,
lack in our lives, a craving, wanting that
little dopamine hit or that type of thing.
And so if she went and grabbed herself
a piece of jet,
and it was just
large. It was, you know, probably that the
(32:09):
size of, you know, a baby's head, I
should say.
And she and she popped it in her
handbag and her justification
was, well, one, hopefully, the energy stops me
over shopping, but two, I can't fit anything
in my handbag anymore. So it it'll work
one way or another.
So this can be a really nice one
of kind of stopping to kind of you
know, this can be done with when it
(32:29):
comes to eating. I listened to an amazing
Mel Robbins podcast last week where she was
talking about,
with with a doctor who was talking about
when we go to get a snack that
we don't actually it's not part of our
nourishing our body, just acknowledging
the emotion
before before we eat that ice cream or
that chocolate or that that type of thing.
(32:50):
And and I I probably suggest applying that
kind of wisdom when it comes to buying
something.
When you're okay. Do I really need to
buy that another shirt? Is there is this
a need, or am I just feeling a
bit down and this will make me feel
better for a minute? Or, you know, that
kind of scrolling
on on the Internet. And, you know, I'm
guilty of of Instagram gets me with these
(33:11):
things that I that I didn't realize I
needed until I saw this quirky little ad.
And Jet's a really good one for going,
okay. Let's absorb those unwanted low vibration energies
and emotions
that are causing us to spend
unresourcefully.
Let's be a bit more Taurean and steady
and calculated in our approach to money, and
(33:32):
and how can we set some goals. So
that's one reason we might wanna have Jed
around us, in the coming days.
But on top of that,
we also have Pluto
going into retrograde.
Now Pluto is our you know,
although out in the far cold depths of
our solar system,
also has a bit of a volcanic energy,
(33:53):
and it's very much about transformation.
And there's some really great transformational
energy that will come up each time,
Pluto goes interact to grave. Now some of
the more traditional viewpoints will express things like,
this is where any toxicity in life will
come to the head. So an example of
this may be corruption.
Corruption in your life,
(34:14):
corruption, you know, this is where maybe governments
or politicians
or celebrities
or other people get found out. All things
come to the surface
when Pluto goes into retrograde.
Now for us, this is the best time
to do a detox.
So it can be a physical detox. So
if you like to do gut detoxes or
(34:35):
juice fasts or things like that, Pluto is
a really great time to do that. It's
also a great time to do emotional detoxing
and doing practices such as, you know, going
and watching the sunset and putting that energy
into the jet. And then, you know, either
gifting the jet back to the,
back to the planet, back to the earth,
or then cleansing it can be another thing
(34:55):
as well. Mental detoxing
all and and spiritual detoxing as well. So
having jet around at this time is a
really powerful one for helping you to cleanse
because
what Pluto truly wants is it wants to
connect you with that animalistic drive, that core
spiritual drive of what motivates you. It's about
authenticity.
(35:15):
And there are a lot of things we
surround ourselves in in our lives that are,
I guess we
bring them into our lives because we feel
that we have to be something or someone
or or look a certain way or have
a certain item or have a certain house
or all these different types of things. So
there's gonna be this really beautiful cleansing energy
(35:35):
that allows you to be more authentic
and to live the life that you want
to live.
And I guess, as we we've mentioned already
to kind of take up space a bit
more in
the authentic you take up space rather than
the artificial aspect of yourself. So really see
what comes up this week. There's gonna be
some some challenges, but the comfort of Jed,
(35:56):
I think, will be really, really beautiful to
help you learn these lessons. And, you know,
people always hear the word retrograde, and I
see people start going you know, all all
all the new ways bloggers start freaking out.
Every retrograde, as I say, is a lesson.
Things come up to be tended to so
that you can get them sorted and you
can actually evolve and grow. So if you
(36:17):
want to be on the spiritual path, you
can't run off and hide from a retrograde.
You can't fall on the ground and cry
and blame a retrograde.
You've got to face the retrograde head on.
Remember that Mother Earth loves you. She gives
you crystals, she gives you essential oils and
all those different things to help you navigate
each retrograde so that you can grow and
do what we talk about in the new
(36:37):
age as well.
So we're kinda coming to the end of
this episode, but I'd love to ask the
other,
two gents as well.
Any other I love what Kyle said about
the for surgery. I think it's a really
great thing. People often ask, you know, what
what are some crystals I can take
for surgery? I've got, you know, a big
surgery coming on, and, you know, I often
(36:58):
recommend things like blue lace egg that I
find to be really beautifully and calming.
But you're so right, Kyle, that we are
in this instance of, like, you know, yep.
I I gave birth to eight children yesterday,
and I'm back in the boardroom today type
of thing. I think Jett, that real nice
one to calm us down. But, Kyle, do
you have any other ways that you might
practically use Jett?
(37:19):
I'd like you to remind yourself of this.
Like, growth as a permanent fixture isn't healthy
or sustainable.
We have plateaus.
We have dips. We have times where we
get stagnant.
That is the natural cyclical nature. Right? We
have winter. We have spring. We have autumn.
We have summer. It's not always go. It's
not always the same and the so is
(37:41):
our life. Right? So maybe work with Jet
to reassess
where you've been thinking the same way for
the last ten, fifteen years and you haven't
realized that your body's aged.
You've gone further, you've dealt with life, you've
you want different things, you've evolved, you've grown.
I think that coming to that realization that
we are allowed to grieve and let go
(38:02):
of things that are now done
so we can move into something new. I
think that's really, really important.
Maybe that's the reason that Trey's lived for
a few hundred years, and we we all
struggle to make it to a hundred because
they they sit back and have a bit
more of a rest. Yeah. What about yourself,
Nicholas?
I often use jet in tandem with amber.
(38:23):
So I've even got some Baltic amber, which
can wash up on the shores of of
Whitby and other parts of England as well.
And those are two things that I might
just carry together to give me that interplay
of darkness and light, of of
active warmth and cooling rest.
You can wear them as jewelry. I mentioned
(38:43):
that I actually make jet incense. I also
make amber incense with small amounts of the
stones ground up. And other things that smell
better than jet does, it kinda produces some
unpleasant smoke.
And I think they make a great
divination tool as well.
Ashley was recently talking about her kind of,
like, crystal casting method, and you can do
(39:04):
something similar if you get,
a a few pieces, inexpensive tumbled stones of
amber and jet of similar sizes. They can
even be little chips.
Keep them in a pouch together, and you
can use them for, like, drawing lots or
casting lots,
to give you a kind of simple yes
or no divination.
This is great when we need,
the short kind of closed ended answers,
(39:26):
given to us in times.
Whether
whether jet should be yes or no is
kinda up to you,
because,
historically,
the interpretation has been inverted over the years.
But give your amber and your jet
complimentary,
functions. And then you can use that as
a kind of divination tool, and you just
(39:47):
need some some quick advice.
Amazing. Amazing. Well, hopefully, we've been able to
inspire you a little bit more about jet.
I do find that when it comes to
our black stones, it kind of falls into
the shadows. Maybe that's a deliberate thing, but
maybe it needs to come out once in
a while as well compared to the other
black crystals and stones as well. We'll be
back next week when we dive into another
(40:09):
gift from mother earth. Until then, get your
jet out and do nothing.
Take care and blessed be.
Are you just starting with crystals?
Or maybe you have a whole collection but
aren't sure how to use them? Join four
crystal nerds, healers, workers, and lovers for crystal
a casual chat about all things crystals.
Hello, and welcome to another crystal
confab.
Today,
we're staying with another,
(00:24):
not necessarily
gemstone gemstone,
and I'm joined by Adam
and Nicholas, and we're going to dive into
jet.
How many of you love a bit of
jet action?
I've grown fond of it over the years.
Yeah. Me too. I think one of the
really interesting things a lot of people find
is just
(00:45):
tactile wise, how it feels so different to
a crystal.
And, you know, one of the problems I
think all of us probably get is people
sending pictures or try to identify
what is this crystal.
And the great thing about when it comes
to black crystals,
jet is so much lighter. So if it's
a really, really light crystal,
(01:06):
then it's going to be really, really easy
to go up that to jet type of
thing. So that's one thing. But I, you
know, I've had experiences and I'll share them
later on about just the tactileness of jet
is really, really nice. But,
I believe it's been used for a long,
long time and got a really great history
about it as well. And who better to
tell us about the history than Nicholas?
(01:27):
Yeah. This is one of those rocks that
I think we can trace
approximately
30,000
years of human use of.
Goes back a really long time. In, you
know, the earliest instances,
people didn't necessarily
make the strong geological
distinction between jet and related materials. Kennel coal
(01:48):
and lignite
and sometimes black shale were treated very similarly.
So we we kinda have to have a
little grace in interpreting
the data.
But it is a stone that is inherently
in between,
and I find that really magical.
One of the most
(02:08):
important sources for jet in the ancient world
was in
Whitby and what what is now modern day
Whitby in Yorkshire. I have a bit of
Whitby jet here from the the coast of
England,
and it is my favorite piece in my
collection,
of very few pieces of jet. But I
think it is really marvelous to imagine that
particularly during the Roman occupation
(02:29):
of Britain,
this material was traded across thousands upon thousands
of miles. We find evidence of Whitby jet
carvings
in faraway
Switzerland
and Germany,
as well as in Rome proper. So this
was a a commodity that was traded for
a very long time. In other parts of
the world where jet can be found, we
(02:49):
find similarly ancient uses of it.
But
when
when this kind
of Romano
British center production was in full swing about
thirty five hundred years ago,
jet seemed to acquire,
if we read between the lines,
a number of uses that are a little
(03:11):
bit weird, a little queer, we might even
say. And one of my favorite examples
is, the remains
of
a a skeleton
found in
a a Roman period burial.
The skeleton is officially known as skeleton six
five two,
because we don't have names and dates and
ages for all of these figures.
(03:32):
And
there
are a lot of confusing data points about
this.
This person was interred with a lot of
very lavish
expensive
funeral goods, including jewelry,
but
they were buried in the part of the
cemetery that you would put people who were
(03:52):
on the outskirts, the fringe, the beggars, the
thieves.
So we have a little bit of kind
of contradictory information there.
When
this area was being excavated for the first
time,
doing,
osteological
analysis, looking at the the bones of the
remains,
researchers came to the conclusion that this person
(04:15):
could be identified as and it's a problematic
term, but we'll say to use use the
terminology they did, anatomically male by by their
bone structure.
But all of the trappings
are of
what
a female identified body would be buried with,
including, most importantly,
a multi strand necklace
(04:36):
consisting of more than 60,
600 rather beads of jet
said to be scattered among the rib cage
because, you know, the thread had broken like
a a swarm of ants.
And so we have to do a little
bit of reconstruction
about what this might have meant. And,
(04:56):
there's
probably a very strong influence from a cult
of a particular goddess who came from the
Far East,
and she was
symbolized
by a great black stone.
Her name is often anglicized,
Cybelle or Cybelle or Cybele.
I'm not really sure what the original pronunciation
(05:17):
was or worship would have originated in the
Anatolian Peninsula where there's a material very similar
to jet found. Looking at some gemological analysis,
there's there's actually debate over what we should
classify it. That's somebody else's problem. We're gonna
consider it to be socially
akin to jet and treat them very similarly.
And,
Worship
(05:37):
was,
one that we find very similar mythic cycles
in other parts of the world. We have
a kind of eternal goddess who is the
mother of the earth. She has a dying
and resurrected lover. We've seen this motif with,
Adonis and Aphrodite. We see it with,
Irushtar, Ishtar and her consort. We we see
it with Isis and Osiris.
(05:58):
So it's a,
we'll say a my theme, a mythic motif
or theme that that recurs in many parts
of the world.
But one thing special about,
Kibele's worship was that she had a unique
class of, we'll say, priestly people.
And I'm I'm using those words in particular
because
(06:19):
by by modern day terms, we would consider
the Munich. They were they were third gender.
They they underwent a process to
to become third gender, if you catch my
drift,
and
occupied a kind of liminal space, an in
between space that was neither male nor female.
And the kind of resurrecting power of the
(06:40):
goddess was said to work through them and
to grant them great gifts in the next
life, but they they were the shamans and
the priestesses of this cult.
They entered ecstatic trance. They were ferocious when
they needed to be, tender and loving when
they could be.
They didn't necessarily
operate by all the rules of society.
(07:01):
To engage in the worship of the goddess
this way was a really transgressive
act. And the fact that her worship was
also marked by a very curious stone,
something that we find
in geological environments, but it floats in seawater.
Something hard and enduring,
but also flammable,
(07:22):
something ancient and of the earth, but still
organic,
means that Jet has,
we'll say, received
quite a lot of unusual imagery over the
years.
And,
we can associate jet
with this in between space.
It is a stone and not a stone.
(07:42):
It is a fossil, but it is not
a mineral. Unlike petrified wood, it hasn't undergone
the process of permineralization
where something like silica or another mineral comes
in and replaces the organic tissue.
In fact, it is the organic remains of
an ancient class of trees called auricaria that
were probably swept out to sea,
or to bodies of water, we'll say, by
(08:04):
a great and cataclysmic event or series of
events.
And the two rough categories
of of jet that are out there, hard
jet and soft jet, which
actually has a lot more to do with
their oil content than their brittleness because they
have the same hardness
range on the Mohs scale.
But one one would have gone in seawater
and the other into freshwater,
(08:25):
immediately be buried by sediment and compressed by
the sands of time.
And that hypoxic environment prevented decay and putrefaction.
It prevented microorganisms
from breaking it down like other organic materials
tend to be. And so living in this
in between zone
in the earth, in the water, but not
really either, it becomes this
(08:48):
other thing.
And so jet for me has been a
stone of embracing the otherness, the queerness, the
liminal spaces of life. I think of it
as a stone that I turn to when
I need to feel surrounded by my queer
ancestors
and the people who have been the trailblazers
for me to live the life that I
live as openly as I live it. It
is protective.
(09:08):
It is a stone that helps us face
our fears and maybe examine where they come
from.
And at the same time, it's a stone
of incredible mystery.
You know, we have expressions like black as
jet because the
color of the stone is so iconically dark,
unknowable, impenetrable.
It is not transparent in thin section
(09:31):
like
obsidian and some onyx and even some tourmalines
would be. It is opaque,
and there is something about the opacity that
it represents of the unknown that when we
surrender to, we can come out
really empowered and transformed.
And so when I need a little extra
queer magic in my life,
(09:52):
jet is one of my go to stones.
Nicholas,
black stones are often seen as being good
for protection. Would you say that maybe jet
might be a,
a good one for queer people who feel
that they need extra protection?
Yeah. I do. And, you know, the reason
for this, I think, is many fold.
(10:14):
Jet has been associated
with another stone we'll eventually talk about, amber,
because they're found in similar environments. They both
float in seawater. They're both flammable. So they
they kinda share a little bit of one
another's functions in in different historic periods, and
both are considered very protective.
We can find references in medieval and earlier
and later texts, but,
(10:35):
describing how either of these stones placed on
coal and allowed to smoke because they're organic
materials that smoke will drive out demons and
and spirits.
And I think of that as something symbolic.
Like, sure, you can burn jet. I actually
have a jet incense recipe coming up in
the witching stones, which will be out in
the fall.
But,
(10:56):
rather than physically setting it ablaze,
I think if it is
kind of nourishing that inner fire to stand
up in the face of fear and
marginalized people of all kinds,
of all colors, of all ages, of all
shapes, and race races, and nations, and
identities.
(11:16):
We we have a different kind of fear
than people of greater privilege.
And and I recognize two things can be
true at once. I have a lot of
privilege in my life, and still I can
be scared as shit about some stuff as
a queer person.
And
Jet helps
me just
find that little spark of courage
and keep
(11:37):
at it so that spark takes purchase,
so it kindles something,
so I can stand up and keep doing
what I do.
So I think it is a great stone.
It also reminds us that we're not alone.
As a fossil, it has a very ancestral
vibe. I think something we we hinted at
last week.
Fossils have this deep connection to the past,
(11:59):
but
the fact that it has this special connection
to queerness and otherness, to those people occupying
liminal spaces in society,
it reminds me that I don't have to
go it alone, that there are people in
community, whether they are remote, like you friends
and Ashley, where where
(12:20):
the people in my physical space, in my
home, at my job, and anywhere I go,
I can try to forge those same ties.
So I think it's a great stone for
protection in a lot of ways.
I really love one of the things you
spoke about there about talking about queer ancestors.
And often what one thing I have to
talk to, you know, people in traditional and
(12:41):
heterosexual relationships is
whereas when you grow up in a regular
family as a heterosexual person, your life is
kind of modeled to you when you kind
of have that family where, you know, this
is what you're gonna do when you get
older. And as a gay person in a
growing up in that, we almost we have
our blood family, but we have to go
find our other family that will model
(13:03):
what are we meant to do with life
because that tradition of, you know, go to
school, go to uni, find a nice partner,
get married, have some kids, and so on.
And I I know not all heterosexual people
adhere to that, but then it's kind of
a traditional model. With gay people, there's many
obstacles that stop us from doing those type
of things, whether it be in your country,
you may not be able to get married.
Obviously, biologically, we can't have children,
(13:25):
when we're in a gay
relationship, unless you bring
help in type of thing. So, yeah, that
that,
need to not only find our own queer
family in our everyday life, but also reaching
back into queer ancestry and finding
queer guides and queer
spiritual support. I really love that idea, and
I think that would be something that probably
I know I haven't really explored too much
(13:47):
apart from an affinity with some more gay
gods.
But I love thank you for introducing that,
Nicholas. That's really powerful.
My pleasure. Thank you.
So, Carl, what about yourself? How do you
like to use Jet?
Well, I think just to touch on all
of that, I think it's really important that
throughout, I think, pretty much all cultures in
all histories,
it was the queer person, the in between
(14:09):
person,
the gendered
flow person
that was the one that was the shaman,
that was the spiritual connector, that was the
healer. These were the ones that were sacred
up until
much more recent history. So I think that's
a really important thing to know and a
really important connection.
But for me,
(14:30):
Jet has been a lesson of less is
more. I am a more is more person.
I'm a maximalist.
I'm a doer. I
like stuff.
I'm enthusiastic
to a fault. And
I have had a few points in time
and I literally have
two
items of Jet. One came to me at
(14:51):
the very start of my journey and one
came to me last year.
This one was that when I was studying
especially,
don't push put the pressure on yourself to
do so much. Whenever I put the pressure
on myself to do so much, I found
myself
getting
less ahead. Like, what's the saying,
slow down, hurry up, something where you're like
(15:14):
you're basically going backwards to go forwards. But
I realized by my second year of study
of gemmology
that if I was more efficient with the
way I did it, if I did
it on one day instead of spread out
throughout the week, if I was
less
stressed about trying to always do it because
the brain doesn't work that way. It's not
(15:34):
that
it's not built that way, especially ten years
after doing any sort of study to then
go back and, like, stretch the brain again
into science. I realized that by doing it
every day, I wasn't actually helping myself learn.
If I did a full day, like a
full day of work, seven or eight hours
with a lunch break,
I was able to do assignments. I was
(15:55):
able to study. I was able to learn
and get further ahead quicker.
And I found that, like,
really efficient use of my energy was getting
me further ahead. So it's like when you
do less, and it's not that you're doing
less, you're actually just being more efficient. And
I think that's what jet is. Like, it
has gone through pressure. It has gone through
(16:15):
life. It has been this. It has been
that. And now it's just, you know, bogged
along to come to shore to find us.
Like, it's totally
adaptable.
And if we are able to, like, put
less pressure on ourselves to do everything
and be able to be more adaptable in
the moment when we feel present, when we
can do, we can do more. Take the
(16:36):
pressure off yourself to do
things all the time. Does that make sense?
Like,
there are times when you feel capable often,
and then there are times when you don't
feel capable every day. And as someone who
suffers chronic pain, like, my % can be
30%.
Right? It can be
not much. And to have to balance two
(16:57):
full time jobs with study
meant that I had to, like, rearrange my
life. And by allowing myself just one day,
one day between my classes,
I found myself getting so far ahead so
quickly.
I was like, why the hell didn't I
do this sooner? Jet was like this light
bulb of, like, less is more. And there's
(17:19):
this saying from an old Simpsons episode that
I can't remember,
exactly what it is. And it's a funny
thing. It's totally totally stupid. It says, aim
low, achieve your goals, avoid disappointment.
And it's like
it was totally said in jest, and it's
like sometimes we actually need to
set ourselves little
incremental
(17:39):
achievable
goals.
Today, this is what I'm going to do,
and that's what I'm gonna do today. That's
all I need to do. And if I
don't do it, that's fine.
But I'm gonna do a little bit, I'm
gonna do a little bit, and I'm gonna
do a little bit. Maybe it's half an
hour a week where I set aside something
to learn something new. Maybe it's
an hour
a month where I'm going to do x,
(18:00):
y, or zed. Like, instead of going, I'm
gonna go to the gym three times a
week straight away. I'm gonna start studying. I'm
gonna do this. Like, when you try and
jump into something especially from nothing,
I find it, like, too much. And then
you fall off the bandwagon. You don't wanna
do it anymore, and you lose that enthusiasm.
But if you can go, I did this.
(18:21):
I did this.
I did this. And you're checking it off
and you're seeing yourself
progress, you actually have so much more faith
in yourself. This was
brought back to me in a reading that
I did last week,
where a client spoke about
the fact that they did this on this
holiday, and they would never have done it
two or three years ago due to fears.
(18:41):
And it's like, you were just saying you
haven't gone anywhere and you just said, look
at how far you've come in a couple
of years. Right? If you look back last
week, if you look back two months, of
course, it doesn't feel like you've done anything.
But if you break things down over a
long period and you look back over six
months, you look back over two years, you
look back over five, ten,
(19:01):
you'll actually see that you've come a lot
further. Right? Jet takes that patience to
another level of, like, allowing yourself to just
do enough and enough is enough. And sometimes
that's more than enough. Right? Does that make
sense? And then it came back again into
my life last year with this bracelet
when I broke my arm.
So I fell down the stairs. I broke
(19:23):
my arm. The radial head was fractured just
there by the elbow,
and it's something that you don't do surgery
on. Couldn't put a cast on it because
it was my point. It was like, just
wear a sling and just deal with it.
Let it heal.
And this was like an immediate
take me. You need me. You need to,
like,
(19:44):
resist the compulsion
to do because my compulsion is to do.
I work in a workplace where
rocks are heavy. Right? I, like, I want
to do and pick things up, and, like,
my limit is five kilos.
Still, a year later, it is five kilos.
And if I go beyond that, I then
get pain for another week. Like, it comes
(20:06):
back again. And I then have to
go, oops, put my jet back on, remind
myself to slow down and do a little
bit less. There are other people that can
do heavy lifting. There is other jobs that
need to be done. There are other things
that you can do.
You don't have to
do it all at once. Maybe you can
break it down into lighter bits that you
can lift and then you'll be able to
(20:27):
move the thing over there. Right? I am
a, like,
one shopping bag trip home from the shops
person. Like, I
I will and have hurt myself so often
over the years.
It's that reminder for me, do less, achieve
more.
Come back to a little bit more efficiency.
(20:49):
Right? Two pieces
over fifteen years of collecting. Like, it's enough.
I really love this, and
I'm, like, having a little bit of an
moment myself that connects this message to, like,
even the materiality of Jet.
So,
you know, jet is light.
(21:10):
It takes up the same amount of space
as a heavier material, but because it's less
dense, there's less matter inside it.
And even, like, the darkness, this idea of,
again, connecting
jet to blackness to night,
like, we we see in several languages words
for jet that are ultimately derived from, like,
old Persian roots that mean night. In Spanish
(21:32):
is a really great example of a word
that has this old Persian origin. And and,
you know, night is the space between days.
It is the period of rest. Even the
darkness in the sky at night is necessary
for us to appreciate
the points of light that are the stars
between them. And if we don't have those
restful, those dark, those dim moments, we can't
also have moments of doing of activity of
(21:55):
light. And I I really love how you
helped me connect the dots there. So thank
you for that, Kyle. I am so
so happy to do so this is something
that I say in so many readings is
like
you don't have to get there so fast
things can get there at their own pace
and you'll get there when you need to
and I love also the taking up space
(22:16):
thing. I actually really love that essence of
being able to take up space and coming
back to queerness. Right? And minorities
and everyone,
we are allowed to take up space. Everyone
is allowed to have a little bit of
space on this planet.
I think for you know, there are so
many people who feel guilty like you were
saying, Kyle, when it comes to doing nothing.
(22:38):
I remember, you know, I had a a
friend when I lived in Melbourne who, you
know, had a bit of a rough childhood,
but he couldn't be by himself. And if
he was, he had to have music on
loud. And he'd ring me on a Sunday
morning going, what are you up to?
And I'm like,
just cleaning the house. He's like, do you
wanna come grocery shopping with me? And I'm
like, why? But it's just he wanted the
(22:59):
company all the time.
Now he's an extreme example where it's amazing
how,
you know,
I I've noticed a few people have commented
recently in just different things, how we can't
do nothing anymore,
or we can't,
you know
introspection
and quiet time used to be just sitting
on the bus and looking out the window.
(23:20):
But as soon as we have a quiet
moment, and I'm guilty of this as well,
what do a lot of people do? We
just pick up our phone and start scrolling.
We fill that space straight away, and this
idea of doing absolutely nothing,
people just don't know what to do when
they can't when they do nothing. And I
think Jet might be a really interesting one
and maybe a really great practice with Jet
(23:41):
is sit there, and what do you do
with it? Nothing.
And can you do nothing for fifteen minutes?
Yeah.
Exactly. Can you, like, take it on a
train trip with you? Keep it on you
when you're in the car. Take it on
a plane ride, like, when you're going on
holiday when you would normally, twenty years ago,
we would have done nothing because we didn't
have phones to play with.
(24:02):
Exactly. Yeah. I love that. I I wanna
ask you, Jed, before I get into kind
of some astrology that jets can be really
helpful for, coming up for us, you know,
protection crystals and black crystals are often seen
as being the key ones or often come
up first on those of what's a good
protection crystal. So we've kind of got our
big four. We've got black tourmaline,
(24:22):
black obsidian,
black onyx, and then jet.
I'd love to know from each of you,
do you how would you differentiate
those in different ways? How would you differentiate
them, Nicholas?
Oh, I mean,
energetically speaking,
obsidian is reflective. It is a glass. It
is insulative.
It lacks the long range crystal the the
(24:45):
long range order that defines a crystal lattice.
So,
you know, I think of, like,
the the void of becoming. It is the
prima materia, the first matter out of which
other things can arise. So it's great raw
material. I don't think it is good long
term protection, though, because it just
doesn't have the heft required.
(25:07):
Really good if we need that kind of
insulative shielding in the short term, but I
I definitely wouldn't use this long term,
unless I were in dire straits. And, ultimately,
I'd wanna remove myself from dire straits and
rely on total, you know, hermetically sealed kind
of energetic protection.
When it comes to something like,
black tourmaline, I don't think of it as
(25:27):
primarily shielding. I think of it as primarily
purifying.
It is in a way kind of like
this cosmic garbage disposal. When we look at
the crystal structure of tourmalines or cyclosilicate
minerals,
and those can take two general categories.
Tourmaline takes
the columnar structure. So all of the the
rings stack on top of each other and
(25:48):
create these, like,
really tingy tiny microscopic channels through which small
bits of stuff can can move. That includes
maybe also small bits of energetic stuff can
move from them. So,
this is a really powerfully grounding stone. It
is the most iron rich member of the
tourmaline family.
Iron has this descending quality to it. So
(26:09):
it doesn't just move stuff. It helps us
release stuff downwards into the earth. It's like
that,
grounding prong in in most outlets worldwide.
And, therefore, it by linking us to something
greater, the body of the earth,
giving us a safe and easy channel through
which to discharge things. It's almost like having
(26:30):
a cosmic garbage disposal in your energy field.
It's not about keeping stuff out. It's about
dispelling the things, discharging, releasing the things you
don't need because
they can just pass through you unimpeded.
Jet, you know, I've already kind of given
some some,
some discussion of, but I think of it
as warmer, softer, lighter, and definitely has that
(26:50):
kind of symbolic quality of chasing away the
things that we fear maybe by helping us
spark the light.
And then was black onyx your fourth one?
It was. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, being
a a chalcedony, I think that it's having
this kind of settling effect. If we think
about how those form,
I know it's been a long time since
our black onyx episode.
They
(27:11):
they tend to form out of, like, a
colloid, a gel, a goo made out of
silica that that settles, precipitates from solution.
And so it's got this kind of, like,
letting things
letting letting
the stuff settle, the dust settle after an
explosion, for example.
And by getting things to settle, we can
reorganize,
rebuild. It's, you know, getting all the bricks
(27:34):
to find their ideal space to create the
wall that is gonna protect
us. So four different makeups, four different stones,
four very different kind of energetic properties for
me.
I love that. I love that. Carl, what
about yourself?
For me, I think black tourmaline
is like the snow plow.
(27:56):
Get the f out of my way. Obsidian
is the why don't you look at yourself
before you look at me, protector?
I think black onyx is like Teflon.
You can move through things without really being
noticed.
And jet, I think,
bobs above everything.
I'm gonna shorthand everything.
(28:18):
And I think, yeah, jet is kind of
more bobbing above everything, protecting by kind of
floating above everything.
Mhmm. Mhmm. I couldn't agree with you both
more, especially with the black tour lane. You
know, I find I think of it, you
know, when you see a celebrity being pushed
for a crowd and the bodyguard is out
of the way, please, out of the way.
For those that like angels, there's an angel
known as Jehudiel
(28:39):
or Jehudiel,
j e h u d I e l.
And he is often a protection angel. He
he's often depicted with being black. He's very
quiet,
not not kinda like the Michael
kind of way who's like, get out of
the way. Very subtle when he's way up.
I'm black toiling is that real good snow
plow or, you know, bodyguard, whatever that may
(29:00):
be, pushing
danger or hindrances or distractions out of the
way. I find with, you know, black, obviously,
as an energy, it obviously can absorb things.
I find black crystals a bit like a
sponge, and I find
I like to use black obsidian for more
fiery or aggressive protection. So I think that
road rage or anything like that. Whereas onyx,
I find is more really, really beautiful for
(29:22):
things that you are unaware of. So if
I lived in the middle of a city,
God forbid,
you know, I'd probably put a bit of
black onyx around my, house just to absorb
the unwanted energy just being around that many
people and that type of thing as well.
So that kind of unknown versus right in
your face for the obsidian versus onyx.
(29:42):
When it comes to jet, though, what I
find is it's a really great one for
absorbing also our unwanted energies as well.
So whether we're feeling angry or frustrated or
irritable or any of those type of things,
I find it to be a really nice
one just to hold in your hands. It
is really quite comforting and
to just kind of soothe you for through
(30:03):
that emotional turmoil that you're going through as
well.
The biggest one that I recommended for and
where it was kind of played its most
important role in my life is when my
father passed away. I have a jet palm
stone and just again, that comfort
of using jet to, you know, just kinda
offer comfort, but also absorb a bit of
that grief and to help you deal with
(30:24):
that. And I'd know even at the funeral,
I still remember holding that in my hand
and just, you know, when we were in
that kind of depth of sorrow and grief,
you kind of don't know what to do
and don't know what to say about anything.
So just having something, I guess, to fiddle
with.
But the soothingness of is really, really powerful
of that. And this could really lead into
(30:44):
some of the things that are happening this
week. So first of all, we have a
new moon in Taurus happening.
So Taurus is our money sign to be
really kind of simple about it type of
thing. So it's a really good way to
maybe stop
it, contemplate
where you at with your money, where you
at with your spending, where you at with
(31:05):
where you know, your next financial goals or
or whatever that may be in your life
and, you
know,
exploring that, doing that little check-in.
Now why I love jet for this instance
is often when we think about Taurus, we
think about, okay. Maybe we can bring in
some green crystals like adventurine or emerald or
or jade for abundance or citrine or something
(31:26):
like that.
Whereas
we might want to look at not necessarily
bringing money in, but how can we calm
down the amount of money going out?
So I find jet to be a really
beautiful one to work with when it comes
to overspending.
Now I'm always reminded of one of my
students,
several years ago,
who learned in one of my classes, I've
(31:48):
been talking about jet can be good for
absorbing those,
for overspending and those tendencies where we tend
to shop to fulfill a short term,
lack in our lives, a craving, wanting that
little dopamine hit or that type of thing.
And so if she went and grabbed herself
a piece of jet,
and it was just
large. It was, you know, probably that the
(32:09):
size of, you know, a baby's head, I
should say.
And she and she popped it in her
handbag and her justification
was, well, one, hopefully, the energy stops me
over shopping, but two, I can't fit anything
in my handbag anymore. So it it'll work
one way or another.
So this can be a really nice one
of kind of stopping to kind of you
know, this can be done with when it
(32:29):
comes to eating. I listened to an amazing
Mel Robbins podcast last week where she was
talking about,
with with a doctor who was talking about
when we go to get a snack that
we don't actually it's not part of our
nourishing our body, just acknowledging
the emotion
before before we eat that ice cream or
that chocolate or that that type of thing.
(32:50):
And and I I probably suggest applying that
kind of wisdom when it comes to buying
something.
When you're okay. Do I really need to
buy that another shirt? Is there is this
a need, or am I just feeling a
bit down and this will make me feel
better for a minute? Or, you know, that
kind of scrolling
on on the Internet. And, you know, I'm
guilty of of Instagram gets me with these
(33:11):
things that I that I didn't realize I
needed until I saw this quirky little ad.
And Jet's a really good one for going,
okay. Let's absorb those unwanted low vibration energies
and emotions
that are causing us to spend
unresourcefully.
Let's be a bit more Taurean and steady
and calculated in our approach to money, and
(33:32):
and how can we set some goals. So
that's one reason we might wanna have Jed
around us, in the coming days.
But on top of that,
we also have Pluto
going into retrograde.
Now Pluto is our you know,
although out in the far cold depths of
our solar system,
also has a bit of a volcanic energy,
(33:53):
and it's very much about transformation.
And there's some really great transformational
energy that will come up each time,
Pluto goes interact to grave. Now some of
the more traditional viewpoints will express things like,
this is where any toxicity in life will
come to the head. So an example of
this may be corruption.
Corruption in your life,
(34:14):
corruption, you know, this is where maybe governments
or politicians
or celebrities
or other people get found out. All things
come to the surface
when Pluto goes into retrograde.
Now for us, this is the best time
to do a detox.
So it can be a physical detox. So
if you like to do gut detoxes or
(34:35):
juice fasts or things like that, Pluto is
a really great time to do that. It's
also a great time to do emotional detoxing
and doing practices such as, you know, going
and watching the sunset and putting that energy
into the jet. And then, you know, either
gifting the jet back to the,
back to the planet, back to the earth,
or then cleansing it can be another thing
(34:55):
as well. Mental detoxing
all and and spiritual detoxing as well. So
having jet around at this time is a
really powerful one for helping you to cleanse
because
what Pluto truly wants is it wants to
connect you with that animalistic drive, that core
spiritual drive of what motivates you. It's about
authenticity.
(35:15):
And there are a lot of things we
surround ourselves in in our lives that are,
I guess we
bring them into our lives because we feel
that we have to be something or someone
or or look a certain way or have
a certain item or have a certain house
or all these different types of things. So
there's gonna be this really beautiful cleansing energy
(35:35):
that allows you to be more authentic
and to live the life that you want
to live.
And I guess, as we we've mentioned already
to kind of take up space a bit
more in
the authentic you take up space rather than
the artificial aspect of yourself. So really see
what comes up this week. There's gonna be
some some challenges, but the comfort of Jed,
(35:56):
I think, will be really, really beautiful to
help you learn these lessons. And, you know,
people always hear the word retrograde, and I
see people start going you know, all all
all the new ways bloggers start freaking out.
Every retrograde, as I say, is a lesson.
Things come up to be tended to so
that you can get them sorted and you
can actually evolve and grow. So if you
(36:17):
want to be on the spiritual path, you
can't run off and hide from a retrograde.
You can't fall on the ground and cry
and blame a retrograde.
You've got to face the retrograde head on.
Remember that Mother Earth loves you. She gives
you crystals, she gives you essential oils and
all those different things to help you navigate
each retrograde so that you can grow and
do what we talk about in the new
(36:37):
age as well.
So we're kinda coming to the end of
this episode, but I'd love to ask the
other,
two gents as well.
Any other I love what Kyle said about
the for surgery. I think it's a really
great thing. People often ask, you know, what
what are some crystals I can take
for surgery? I've got, you know, a big
surgery coming on, and, you know, I often
(36:58):
recommend things like blue lace egg that I
find to be really beautifully and calming.
But you're so right, Kyle, that we are
in this instance of, like, you know, yep.
I I gave birth to eight children yesterday,
and I'm back in the boardroom today type
of thing. I think Jett, that real nice
one to calm us down. But, Kyle, do
you have any other ways that you might
practically use Jett?
(37:19):
I'd like you to remind yourself of this.
Like, growth as a permanent fixture isn't healthy
or sustainable.
We have plateaus.
We have dips. We have times where we
get stagnant.
That is the natural cyclical nature. Right? We
have winter. We have spring. We have autumn.
We have summer. It's not always go. It's
not always the same and the so is
(37:41):
our life. Right? So maybe work with Jet
to reassess
where you've been thinking the same way for
the last ten, fifteen years and you haven't
realized that your body's aged.
You've gone further, you've dealt with life, you've
you want different things, you've evolved, you've grown.
I think that coming to that realization that
we are allowed to grieve and let go
(38:02):
of things that are now done
so we can move into something new. I
think that's really, really important.
Maybe that's the reason that Trey's lived for
a few hundred years, and we we all
struggle to make it to a hundred because
they they sit back and have a bit
more of a rest. Yeah. What about yourself,
Nicholas?
I often use jet in tandem with amber.
(38:23):
So I've even got some Baltic amber, which
can wash up on the shores of of
Whitby and other parts of England as well.
And those are two things that I might
just carry together to give me that interplay
of darkness and light, of of
active warmth and cooling rest.
You can wear them as jewelry. I mentioned
(38:43):
that I actually make jet incense. I also
make amber incense with small amounts of the
stones ground up. And other things that smell
better than jet does, it kinda produces some
unpleasant smoke.
And I think they make a great
divination tool as well.
Ashley was recently talking about her kind of,
like, crystal casting method, and you can do
(39:04):
something similar if you get,
a a few pieces, inexpensive tumbled stones of
amber and jet of similar sizes. They can
even be little chips.
Keep them in a pouch together, and you
can use them for, like, drawing lots or
casting lots,
to give you a kind of simple yes
or no divination.
This is great when we need,
the short kind of closed ended answers,
(39:26):
given to us in times.
Whether
whether jet should be yes or no is
kinda up to you,
because,
historically,
the interpretation has been inverted over the years.
But give your amber and your jet
complimentary,
functions. And then you can use that as
a kind of divination tool, and you just
(39:47):
need some some quick advice.
Amazing. Amazing. Well, hopefully, we've been able to
inspire you a little bit more about jet.
I do find that when it comes to
our black stones, it kind of falls into
the shadows. Maybe that's a deliberate thing, but
maybe it needs to come out once in
a while as well compared to the other
black crystals and stones as well. We'll be
back next week when we dive into another
(40:09):
gift from mother earth. Until then, get your
jet out and do nothing.
Take care and blessed be.
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