March 3, 2025 • 48 mins
Join Adam Barralet, Kyle Perez , Ashley Leavy and Nicholas Pearson in Episode #22 of the Crystal Confab Podcast as they do a deep dive into Turquoise meaning, including:
Allowing rather than pushing with Turquoise
Turquoise & the air element
Integration of spiritual information with Turquoise
History, folklore and geology of Turquoise
Tune in now for a deeper look at Turquoise meaning!
Podcast Transcript:
Crystal Confab Podcast Intro: 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 Confab, a casual chat about all things crystals.
Ashley Leavy: Hello, and welcome to the crystal confab podcast where we confab about some of our favorite crystals. I am here with three of my crystal besties, Adam Barralet, Kyle Perez, and Nicholas Pearson, and we are so excited to talk to you today about Turquoise. This is such a phenomenal stone and one of the things that I personally love about this is just the huge variety that we see it come in, which, you know, I think we don't always think about when we are exploring turquoise. It kind of always looks really similar at first glance until you really start to get to know it. So, Kyle, I would love to have you sort of kick us off and tell us a little bit about your experience here with turquoise.
Kyle Perez: Oh, for me, I collected turquoise because it's a stone that you should have because it's turquoise. Right? Like, that was how I started. Like, it's turquoise. And so these kinds of little pieces came into my collection, not too expensive.
They just kind of hung out for ages. Literally ages. And then the longer I was doing my spiritual work, the longer I was connecting to crystals, that's when I started to sort of work with them a little bit more. I sort of needed to wait my turn a little bit before it started to reveal itself to me. I don't know about everyone else.
Has anyone else had an experience like that with turquoise?
Adam: Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Definitely.
Kyle: Well, I was really diving in on the instruction of the universe because I was given some. So this really beautiful piece, I don't know if it's gonna show up properly, is Persian turquoise. It has pyrite inclusions in it. Little beautiful tiny cubes of pyrite. And this lady just said, I need to give this to you.
This is yours. Take it. I like it, but I don't want to. And I was just like, you're mad, but thank you. Like, I'm not gonna say no because, like, it's a big beautiful rough raw, like, jagged, interesting piece of turquoise totally in my bag.
And I was basically wearing it every day and I've been sort of doing my work and things, I would say, six, seven years or so worth of spiritual work and study and that sort of stuff. And it was starting to sort of replay back stuff from the beginning. It started to show me not things again, but the themes and allowing me to dive into them with new knowledge and a new perspective. For me, it's been about the integration of spiritual knowledge and information. It has allowed me to not just learn it and not just study it, but to live it and experience it and to understand my purpose through these lessons.
Does that make sense? It's this kind of yes. You've done the book learning. Now let's actually experience what it's here to show you. Let's actually create some magic with it.
Let's actually open your heart to the truth of the situation and what it means to you. The other thing I think with all crystals and minerals is that we learn about them from books. We learn about them from others. We learn about them from podcasts and whatever, but it's the lived experience of how it shows you your journey and how to work with it. That's the truth of it.
Does that make sense? Like it's that this is why I'm here for you.
Mark as Played
Transcript
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
confab, a casual chat about all things crystals.
Hello, and welcome to the crystal confab
podcast where we confab about some of our
(00:23):
favorite
crystals.
I am here with three of my crystal
besties Adam Berlay,
Kyle Perez, and Nicholas Pearson and we are
so excited to talk to you today about
Turquoise.
This is such a phenomenal
stone
and one of the things that I personally
love about this is just the huge
(00:45):
variety that we see it come in, which,
you know,
I think we don't always think about when
we are
exploring turquoise. It kind of always looks really
similar at first glance
until you really start to get to know
it. So, Kyle, I would love to have
you sort of kick us off and tell
us a little bit about your experience here
with turquoise.
(01:07):
Oh, for me, I
I collected turquoise
because
it's a stone that you should have because
it's turquoise.
Right? Like, that was how I started.
Like, it's turquoise. And so these kind of
little pieces
came into my collection,
not too expensive. They just kind of hung
out for ages.
(01:28):
Literally ages.
And then
the longer I was doing my spiritual work,
the longer I was connecting to crystals, that's
when I started to sort of work with
them a little bit more. I sort of
I needed to wait my turn a little
bit before it started to reveal itself to
me. I don't know about everyone else. Has
anyone else had an experience like that with
turquoise?
(01:50):
Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Definitely.
Well,
I
I was really diving in
on the instruction of the universe because I
was gifted some.
So
this really beautiful piece, I don't know if
it's gonna show up properly,
is Persian turquoise. It has pyrite inclusions in
(02:11):
it. Little beautiful tiny cubes of pyrite.
And
this lady just said, I need to give
this to you. This is yours. Take it.
I like, I don't want it. And I
was just
like, you're mad but thank you. Like, I'm
not gonna say no because, like, it's a
big beautiful rough raw
like, jagged, interesting piece of turquoise totally in
(02:32):
my bag.
And I was basically
wearing it every day and I've been sort
of doing my work and things, I would
say, six, seven
years or so worth of spiritual work and
study and that sort of stuff. And
it was starting to sort of replay back
stuff from the beginning. It started to,
show me
not things again, but the themes and allowing
(02:56):
me to dive into them with new knowledge
and a new perspective. For me, it's been
about the integration
of spiritual knowledge and information.
It has allowed me to
not just learn it and not just study
it, but to live it and experience it
and to understand my purpose
(03:18):
through these lessons. Does that make sense?
It's this kind of
yes. You've done the book learning.
Now
let's like actually experience what it's here to
show you. Let's actually,
create some magic with it. Let's actually open
your heart to the truth of the situation
(03:39):
and what it means to you. This is
the other thing I think with all crystals
and minerals is that we
learn about them from books. We learn about
them from others. We learn about them from
podcasts and whatever, but
it's the lived experience of how it shows
you your journey and how to work with
it. That's the truth of it. Does that
make sense? Like it's that
(04:00):
this is why I'm here for you thing.
This is like how we are going to
work together.
And so I would wear it on and
off, on and off, and it was always,
like,
times of stagnation,
maybe, times where things moved a bit slower,
times when things were
not as much of a rush was necessary,
(04:20):
and so it allowed that integration to happen.
It allowed that information to settle and to
work itself into
the nitty gritty of the body and the
mind and the spirit, and it allowed me
to
understand how to work with it. The pyrite,
I think, that inclusion of that
more active energy
really allowed the doing side of things.
(04:42):
Whereas
it was the last four, five years
that I think we all have had a
lot of learning happening on a larger scale,
and
some larger pieces have come in. Now this
is Mexican
turquoise.
I fell in love with this as soon
as I saw it. Like, it it just
(05:03):
hits differently as they say.
And this one has been
really helping me to learn
everything that I've learned in my life. It
has shown me everything that has been happening
in my life before now and all of
the things that I've lived and it's gone
this is how you're now going to use
all of these lessons. This is now how
(05:23):
you're going to,
work with what you've learned. This is now
how you're going to live your life
in your way because it's for you and
not for anyone else. And by being your
true self, you can then be your best
self. I feel like it really brings out
your best self.
Do you think, Kyle, that that is,
like, you reflecting back on those experiences and
(05:47):
being able to draw the lesson from each
one, or do you think it's more of
like an integration
and a culmination? Like, you've hit this
point
where all of that is coming together and
suddenly you're, like, pulling on the threads and
making sense of it as a whole?
The answer is yes.
Like, absolutely
both. Right? Like, it's all of that and
(06:08):
everything. Right? I think I have as you
said, I've been doing it long enough
that it's
like these things come back around. These lessons
come back to you. You can actually
work with them properly. You can live them.
They go from the back of the head
where you, like, learned it when you read
about it however many years ago. And it's
like, oh,
this is actually necessary to me now. Like
(06:29):
this, this is how I need to do
it. And for me, because it's so, like,
heart driven, I think we all can feel
that.
It has been so much about how much
I give and how much I receive and
that balance in my life. And especially dealing
with burnout and how to balance my energy
in
what I can give and what I can't.
What I can do and what I can't
(06:51):
do because if I do more on one
day, I can do less or I have
to do less for more days. And it
has been so so like
serious,
but, like, nurturing. Like, it has that kind
of
parental grand parental loving, nurturing support that I
really, really enjoy.
So, Carl, it's quite interesting because I've been
(07:12):
listening to these lectures that before we recorded
today by Mary Ann Williamson.
And she's talking about the difference between believing
in something, you know, you might believe in
a certain environmental,
you know, thing or political or that. There's
a difference between believing in it and actually,
you know, actively getting out there and living
it and making a difference in that. Would
(07:32):
you say that turquoise is one that kind
of takes us and everyone believes in so
many things, and we're all keyboard warriors,
sharing our beliefs, but there's a lot of
people not doing things. Do you think turquoise
is one that kind of shove us out
the door and get us actually making a
difference in the world?
I a %
agree with that statement. I think it is
so empowered in the way it helps us
(07:53):
to stand up for what is right,
what is correct,
what is the truth. Right? And from the
heart, like, it's coming from this place of
earnest,
I think, would be the right word. It's
like
it wants to do the best. It wants
(08:13):
to be involved. It wants
that best out of everyone, and I think
it's never going to oh, what's that saying?
I don't have to shout to get my
point across. Like, I don't have to speak
louder. I just say my truth, and it
gets across in that way. And I think
that's what Turquoise allows us. It helps us
(08:34):
to not shout,
just to speak it, and everyone will hear
it that needs to hear it. I just
if you haven't if you've avoided it, just
please get involved.
So a few things that you said, Kyle,
made me really think about what Adam wanted
to talk about because I think it kind
of touches on that. Like you said, it
like, there was this thing about turquoise that
(08:56):
you weren't drawn to it until you were
ready, so there was no kind of forcing
it. Adam, how have you seen that energy
of turquoise kind of come through?
Yeah. I guess because it's a copper based
mineral and copper, you know, we know is
the conduit, so it gets things moving.
I've you know, one term I love when
it comes to turquoise is it kind of
(09:17):
forms a bridge between us and the heavens.
So it can it's been associated and, you
know, we'll jump in and get Nicholas to
expand on this in a little while. But
around the world, it's been associated with health,
with wealth, with good luck, and all these
different type of things. And I find whenever
working with the crystal with corporate it, remember,
that it it helps things to flow. Now
(09:38):
why this becomes really relevant at the moment
as well is because,
last week, I spoke about Venus going on
to into retrograde on the March 2, but
also we have two, major asteroids also going
into retrograde on that day. So you've got
Medusa
going in, and we all know the story
of Medusa. It's a very long mythology,
but her asteroid basically governs
(09:59):
mistakes that we've made in the past. And
When she goes into retrograde, these mistakes come
back up to haunt us.
And the
lesson is we can either, oh, God, they've
come up again, and I've got to try
and bury them and hide them again, or
you face them head on and you actually
make amends with them. So with Turquoise, it's
about allowing things that bubble up and come.
(10:20):
We've also got money or money that goes
an asteroid that's spelled m o n y,
which basically governs money.
That will go into retrograde, so we're gonna
have issues with finances as well. So we've
got this whole kind of energy shift that's
gonna be happening around the March 2 just
aft just before this podcast comes out and
will still be evident for the ongoing week
(10:41):
after that of, you know, relationships.
You know, we may be questioning some of
our relationship to Venus retrograde going, is this
the right relationship for me? And this isn't
just romantic. It can be friends. It can
be family. It can be colleagues.
Is this you know, what are these mistakes
that are coming up? Should I face them
or should I try and, and, you know,
bury them? What's happening with money? And I
(11:02):
think Turquoise is a beautiful companion at this
time to just let things flow. There are
so many people
that are trying to swim up the river
of life when life is trying to point
you in other things. And a lot of
the times because we believe something or it's
always been this way. I think turquoise is
a really great one for allowing us to
surrender,
to allow us to go with the flow
(11:24):
and to listen a bit more with the
flow because when we go down the river,
it's a lot easier and there's brand new
scenery for us to see. Because if we
do what we've always done, we're gonna get
what we've always got. So I think it's
a beautiful one just for
bringing more blessings into our life, if that
makes sense.
It does, Adam. This is, like, one of
those things that it can feel so scary,
(11:46):
though, right, when there are these big changes
on the horizon,
when those relationships
feel a little rocky, when we can't count
on the financial support or abundance we're used
to receiving. Like, these are big, big, big
life changes, and I think it,
is normal, I think, for people to want
(12:07):
to sort of cling and to wanna swim
up stream. How do we work with turquoise
to kind of ease into that and and
let it just take us where, you know,
the universe wants us to flow rather than
fighting against it?
I think as spiritual people, there's a bit
of a contrast here because we often go,
oh, I surrender and let spirit take over.
(12:27):
We do that until something goes wrong. Do
you mean? And then, like, we're in a
relationship and they're like, okay. Let's try and
control this relationship. Or, oh god, I'm running
out of money. Freak, freak, freak in that
type of way.
I would suggest sitting with turquoise a lot.
And there's a little bit of magic that
I really like to do with turquoise, and
it's kind of animal magic.
So birds
are considered the messengers of the, you know,
(12:50):
of the world. They travel around. They they
they're,
symbolize
freedom.
And I would actually sit sit outside and
listen to the birds.
This could be a really interesting exercise. When
I teach shinrin yoku or forest bathing, I
get people to stop and listen to the
forest birds. And a lot of the time
you think it's just one bird tweeting, but
you can pick up a whole range of
(13:11):
different ones. But as you do that, listen
to the guidance and listen to feel the
freedom that they teach in our lives and
all birds and all winged creatures in one
way are messengers of freedom.
But we can also ask them to be
messengers to take our desires out to the
world. You know, I'd I have a meditation
on iTunes with turquoise, which basically helps you
(13:33):
to tune into the birds of the world
and ask them to take your messages of
peace out into the world.
So I think
sit, relax with it, wearing it, keeping it
around you is obviously gonna help. But this
idea of
connecting with this sense of freedom, and I
think the animal kingdom offers us so many
different,
lessons.
And I think for me, turquoise really fits
(13:55):
well with birds because of that sense of
freedom,
and not being held and rigid in that
type of way. Because I believe you also
find that this is a really great air,
kind of
crystal as well, Ashley.
Yeah. I do. So
what is so interesting to me is when
we look at
some of the
(14:16):
history and mythology of stones, and Nicholas is
gonna go into this quite a bit more
in-depth,
in just a minute. But
I love when we have a stone that's
found in different places on the Earth, and
we can actually look and find some overlap
and some commonality in the way that that
stone was viewed.
(14:37):
So if we look at how turquoise
was viewed
here on Turtle Island,
modern present day so called North America,
we can see that
a lot of indigenous groups here
connected
turquoise
with the sky,
with
the air.
(14:57):
And so if we go all the way
to Asia and the Mideast, there are also
some bits of mythology and lore connecting turquoise
and its use there
to the sky. And it makes sense. Right?
I mean, there are very few things in
nature that have this
brilliant vibrant blue color,
(15:19):
a few crystals,
even fewer flowers,
and the sky. And the sky and the
ocean are probably, like, the biggest
swathes of blue that we have in the
world. So I love that this is connected
with the sky. And, like, Kyle showed, a
piece of Mexican Turquoise I have one as
well, mine is rough,
but I wanted to point out with these,
(15:41):
most of the time, especially these larger pieces
of Mexican Turquoise, they form in this kind
of crust and they have been stabilized.
Now, there are a few different types of
treatments or enhancements
that are done to Turquoise.
There's
stabilization,
which is often some sort of like lacquer
(16:01):
or protectant that's put on the outside surface
of the crystal. This is super common. It's
like a generally
accepted
method of making sure that the turquoise is
a little stronger because it can be quite
crumbly, it can break quite easily, it's also
a bit porous.
So especially because we see this reserved for
jewelry,
(16:22):
that stabilization is really important to make sure
that our turquoise will be long lasting in
jewelry and will stick around for a while.
But there's also
reconstitution,
and I have this piece that my grandma
gave me when I was little. And this
is a piece of
recon
turquoise, which is when they take some turquoise,
usually some real turquoise, not not always, but,
(16:45):
recon should be. They take some real natural
turquoise,
all little manner of bits. They kind of
grind it up into a powder, and then
it is blended together with some sort of,
like, resin stabilizer,
and then often you'll see that tumbled into
these large
nuggets.
But then we can on occasion
(17:05):
find completely untreated
turquoise,
which usually
nowadays you kind of have to find older
stock or you have to literally know someone
that is collecting it. So I have,
some turquoise with pyrite here
which is beautiful. This is from the American
Southwest as well. This is from Arizona.
(17:27):
I have this little piece which is called
a Sea Foam
turquoise. It's a tiny little kind of bubbly
nugget and this is from the Fox Mine
in,
I think, Arizona, but maybe New Mexico.
And then I have some Cornish turquoise
which I got on a trip when I
(17:48):
was with Nicholas
from, like, the greatest crystal shop in the
world.
This is from Cornwall, of course. And then
I have this beautiful piece, which is from
Kazakhstan.
And so we can see all these different
beautiful colors and these are not treated, not
stabilized, but those are really really really hard
(18:08):
to find. So if you're out there, you're
looking for some turquoise,
you find some and it's been stabilized,
that's kind of usually like a best case
scenario. A little bit better in my book
than a recon piece or reconstituted
piece. Personally, that would be my preference. Stabilized
would be okay. But if you're lucky enough
to find some old stock
(18:28):
that is not enhanced or treated or stabilized,
that's a good way to go too.
But it's important to note that the recon,
I wouldn't necessarily call it fake. It's a
generally sort of accepted
practice, but it's always good when you're shopping
around to just ask, is this reconstituted?
(18:49):
Is this stabilized?
And especially if you're dealing with a good
rock shop, specialty turquoise dealer, they're going to
know their stuff, they're going to be able
to tell you that, which is really a
big help.
But
I love this and its connection to the
sky
for that
big ideas
I mean think of the like the wide
(19:09):
open sky that would be here in on
Turtle Island, especially in the American Southwest.
Like, as far as you can see, it's
often just
sky, and this leaves so much space
for big ideas, for grand ideas,
for helping you kind of tune into
the vastness of the world around you and
(19:29):
your role in it. So this is an
excellent stone for guiding you on your sole
purpose. If you've been feeling that lack of
clarity on your next steps, if you don't
know what you're meant to do in this
world,
how to show up and take action like
Kyle was suggesting,
work with turquoise because of that connection to
(19:49):
the sky, that connection to the air element.
It can give you that clarity
on your life path.
Ashley, I love what you shared there about
the different forms of turquoise, and I guess
this is where we should slip in with
a little segment of buyer beware because there
are a lot of fake turquoises
as well.
You know, one of the most common ones
I find is they get white halite. Now
(20:12):
a halite only does come in white,
and they inject it with blue dye. Kind
of got those black lines in it, obviously,
that looks a bit like turquoise.
Sometimes it's sold as turquoise. I've heard it
called turquoise halide or turquatine
or all these different things as well.
Not real turquoise.
And then, guys, you may need to correct
me if I'm wrong here, but is it
(20:33):
magnusite
that kinda looks like white clouds? Yes. It
is.
We've got a thumbs up for Nicholas. And
they dye that blue as well, and that's
obviously not a turquoise as well.
Nick Kyle or Nicholas, have you got any
tips maybe for or or, Ashley?
Some tips for how do you tell you
know, you walk into a crystal shop, there's
(20:53):
a small
turquoise for 10.
Is it real or is it not? How
would you tell?
I wanna jump in with white.
For me, turquoise
has I know this won't always be correct
because I think magnesite is a bit heavier
than halite, but it's usually halite that's dyed.
(21:13):
So I think the weight difference between turquoise
and halite is a little bit more obvious.
I also think you'll see,
like, it looks faded. It like, highlight quite
often has that it either looks really dyed
or really faded and it like, there's this
sadness
that comes with it. And I know that's
really quite a terrible general thing, and I
(21:35):
know Nicholas is going to cover things in
a more scientific way. But I did wanna
throw out one more not turquoise, and I
don't know if you've seen this on the
market, African turquoise that has been out and
about over the last few years.
Upon testing,
it is not turquoise. It is an amalgamation
of a couple of things. It's more like
a chalcedony
(21:55):
with copper
and
bits and pieces, and
it's beautiful and it's lovely and it has
its own unique energy, but it is 1,000
not turquoise and there is no turquoise in
it.
Okay. I have to jump in on this
one. This is one that I actually know
the story of, how it kind of started
(22:15):
to get out there as turquoise. So there
is a really large distributor
here in The US, and then there's another
one in Canada. And they started stocking this
stone,
which before they started carrying it was more
widely known and had been introduced on the
market as African Turquoise Jasper.
You know, because so many things are called
(22:36):
Jasper. It's a turquoise color. So that was,
like, the name, African turquoise jasper, like turquoise
colored Jasper.
And this is one of those things like
the emerald
fuchsite or fuchsite where they're saying that this
is the color. It's an emerald colored
piece, and then they just drop the actual
mineral name. So then when those distributors started
(22:58):
selling it, they just called it African turquoise.
They lost the, like, jasper
in their catalog, on their website. So all
these companies, at least here in The States
and up in Canada, that were stocking this
started just calling it African turquoise, and then
you started seeing everybody on their Etsy shops,
on their Instagram, on their websites
(23:20):
also dropping the Jasper and just calling it
African turquoise. And that took
less than twelve months for that to, like,
really happen
where everybody was just dropping the Jasper and
calling it turquoise even though it's not.
Wow. I I've got more questions as well,
but Nicholas has been to this so patiently
(23:40):
as the three of us have been banging
on. I'm gonna hand it over to Nicholas.
Nicholas, talk to us about turquoise.
Sure. I I wanna preface this by saying
two things.
First and foremost, at the museum gig,
last week,
I got to see
an old friend, a rock I met twenty
plus years ago that was not in a
(24:01):
place it should have been, which was great
because it means I could find it quite
by accident.
And so far, we've only acknowledged
the,
cryptocrystalline
varieties of turquoise, but there are actually
well formed euhedral crystals of it out there
in the world. They are few and far
between, and one of the most famous sources
for it is, Bishop Mine in Campbell County,
(24:23):
Virginia, which is where this piece comes from.
It is very old stock. This is not
material that comes up very often. I've I've
occasionally seen a piece for sale on the
Internet,
of small piece
priced at exorbitant amounts, and this is not
the the finest specimen in the world. It's
also not the worst. So,
(24:43):
it was, like, fortuitous timing. Just days before
we got together for the confab, I got
to see actual
crystals of turquoise embedded in matrix, and they
sparkle.
You would at first, you would go, oh,
well, this obviously has to be druzy chrysocolla,
but it isn't.
And that's that's pretty phenomenal.
The other thing I think that's important to
(25:03):
know, about Nicholas in turquoise is that turquoise
is the first gemstone I ever got to
meet.
My grandmother was a,
she was a jewelry aficionado, but really what
that meant is she was a turquoise in
jewelry aficionado. And she had this great vintage
collection of turquoise
set in silver, mostly from the American Southwest.
(25:25):
Whenever
they would travel
decades before I showed up on Earth, she
would get it. If she could find a
piece in a thrift store or somewhere else
and someone didn't know what they had, it
was like the best day for her. So
I've I've one
beloved turquoise ring that I need to have,
like, resized to finally fit me and have
the setting repaired so the stone doesn't slip
out. And and then maybe I'll I'll wear
this piece of my grandmother's,
(25:46):
at one point extensive turquoise collection.
But between that and my my love for
rocks in the world at large,
those were the two things that made my
grandfather go, oh,
let's buy him a crystal.
And and here we are today. So turquoise
is really important to my origin story, and
it's not a part I really focus on.
(26:07):
But
because of that,
I've gotten a little bit nerdy about it.
And I wanna touch on two two things
that don't seem related.
It's it's geology and its folklore.
But I actually think,
putting putting this segment in the end position
is great because you're gonna see how these
two things relate to everything everyone has said
(26:27):
so far. So turquoise is a hydrated
copper aluminum phosphate mineral.
Like a lot of other kind of things
of similar chemistry, it forms in really arid
environments.
It does have some water in its crystal
structure. That's important to know. We're gonna have
to come back around to this. But we
tend to find it
in secondary and tertiary oxidation zones that are
(26:50):
above the original copper deposits. So we get,
like, these this igneous activity that produces copper
ores. And then
something happens to those ores that leaches them
upwards, and that is what we call meteoric
water. In other words, water that comes from
the sky.
So only when we have this primary copper
(27:10):
deposit and meteoric water meeting is there even
a remote chance we're gonna get turquoise to
take place? But as that, turquoise is lifted
up from those primary deposits, it as as
a you know, in solution, it gets deposited
usually in thin cracks
and and and other small spaces in
the the rocks that are younger and and
(27:31):
and higher. So the challenge with this
is that we don't normally get very large
nodules of it. So it does happen, but
it's appreciably rare. And that's why, like, all
of our show and tell so far has
been pretty
flat pieces of natural turquoise because it's just
the space that it's got left over.
So,
(27:51):
as we as we bear that in mind,
I wanna talk a little bit about turquoise's
history.
This is a gem material that has been
traded
and worked for
at least ten thousand years. The earliest evidence
that we've got goes back to pre Canaanite
nomads
who were occupying the Sinai Peninsula. We have
(28:12):
evidence of them
mining
and working turquoise
About four thousand years later, so, like, six
thousand years ago, we get evidence of, beads
made in, pre dynastic Egypt, but on, you
know, in Egypt proper.
Sometime the next millennium, it is discovered
and mined at large in Persia, traded along
(28:34):
very, very distant trade routes. It's getting into
Europe and the Mediterranean
and into China and and other places as
well.
And then here in
this hemisphere of the world,
we have pretty good evidence of
at least twenty five hundred years
of of turquoise use
(28:56):
by the indigenous peoples of of The Americas.
First, probably, it was used in, like, Veracruz
and Oaxaca and in Southeast Arizona, and then
other deposits would be found in in other
parts of of Turtle Island.
We actually see the first European reference to
turquoise in March
when Aristotle wrote about it in his natural
(29:17):
history works.
About fifteen hundred years ago, the intricate inlay
techniques that we see,
are created in Mexico and then widely disseminate
through the region.
About a thousand years ago, there's a deeper
expansion of it by the Pueblo people. And
then
five, six hundred years ago, we get colonization,
(29:38):
which creates bigger demand on it. More of
it is being taken back to Europe,
and it also begins there the the influence
of the
the colonists and the settlers,
also introduces
new techniques,
new,
we'll say visual motifs as well to the
lapidary work being done by indigenous folk. So
there is this kind of exchange always taking
(30:00):
place in turquoise history. It never just stays
in one spot.
And we get a lot of really important
themes that emerge in the myth and legend
of this stone. There's a lot related to
the sky, to thunder and rain and heavenly
blessings. We get this kind of ancestral
or celestial or somehow divine
kind of motif connected to it.
(30:22):
A lot of connections to water, which is
also related to life, fertility,
and, like, the Earth itself. We can't separate
water and sky and Earth,
from turquoise or from one another.
Associated with travel and safety,
a lot of myths connected to goddesses and
the divine feminine,
and this idea of relationship.
(30:43):
And we're not gonna be able to explore
all of these in really great depth, but,
I I do wanna point out a couple
of things. We get this idea of, like,
sky and water and weather. Turquoise has been
used,
to protect against, to predict, or to attract
rain in a variety of cultures around the
world.
Some of its colloquial names in different languages
(31:04):
translate to to phrases like sky stone and
stone of heaven.
There was a belief that was pretty widespread
in the Mediterranean and Levant that it would
change color to portend changes in weather. So
if it bleached dangerous weather was coming. And,
of course, it's formation process.
Sky water literally hits the Earth to form
(31:24):
it. So it it is this kind of
intersection of of heaven and Earth. And even
before we had the, you know, modern science
of geology, which is quite young among sciences,
people instinctively
made that connection. Also, its association with water.
Again, this watery connection. This stone is from
really arid places. You didn't find it in
or near deposits of water.
(31:44):
You found it very dry,
but
it is the evidence of water having been
there. It it's its color doesn't just look
like water. It is a footprint left by
the action of water that
yields
life, fertility,
and and so much more.
And this makes it a stone that in
many cultures associated with wealth and fertility and
(32:08):
abundance.
It might be used to symbolize,
crops. The the color of it was associated
with fertility and resurrection
in ancient Egypt. It's
especially the time we get the the the
Spanish settler, and
it becomes associated with themes like the squash
blossom and,
other themes of
(32:28):
life, fertility, abundance, resurrection.
And it's connected
to serpents, which themselves
embody this quality of the earth. They are
connected to the earth because they're literally touching
it at all times.
And these divine serpents that we see turquoise
connected to are really cross cultural.
(32:49):
We have a group of beings called the
Avano. They're horned serpents that the indigenous people
of of the the Pueblo people,
saw it associated with. We have feathered serpents
that are depicted in elaborate turquoise inlays
in Central And South America.
We have,
this gem associated with the Nagini, the the
(33:09):
the serpent
spirits or serpent beings,
and these are immortalized in these really elaborate
headdresses that are covered with, like, drilled turquoise
nuggets
that resemble the end of a serpent's tail,
that are worn by the Latakia people
in the Himalayas.
And, in,
the Mediterranean, it also became associated with,
(33:31):
Persephone whose
Latin name is prosarpena.
That word, prosarpena, comes from the same root
as the modern word
serpent because of her association with the Earth.
It's it's the word,
to to creep,
to
crawl. So,
in even in, Jyotish and Vedic astrology, it's
connected to the south node of the moon,
(33:53):
Ketu,
who is also known as the tail of
the dragon or, the.
So all of this serpentine imagery is there,
and it's so fascinating.
If we even just think about the color,
the that unique shade that is turquoise
is a mixture of celestial blue and rich
fertile green growing on the earth, And turquoise
(34:15):
symbolizes this meeting place, this nexus between heaven
and earth.
Even in traditional
motifs, the feathered serpent
can traverse
the land, the sky,
the the heavens beyond the visible sky, and
the subterranean realm beneath the visible Earth.
The formation
process involves
upward and downward movement of these forces coming
(34:38):
together.
And, ultimately,
we get
a mineral that that moves quite a bit.
It's associated with travel and trade routes. It
it leaches
that that primary copper upwards to travel closer
to the surface, and so it's no surprise
that we also see it connected to, like,
travel safety.
(34:58):
But I think one of my favorite things
symbolized in turquoise is this idea of connection,
interdependence,
right relationship,
the kind of spider web
patterns and veins that crisscross its surface or
like the web of life.
This is a a mineral that exists because
of its relationship
between heaven and earth, between other minerals, between
(35:19):
acid and base. And it is a stone
that for
quite a long time has been used in
rituals of friendship,
fidelity, love.
It it is said to
really
strengthen our bond, our connection to life at
large,
and it is just this stone of
(35:39):
standing in the web and seeing the bigger
picture and being able to integrate all the
different facets of it into one. And so
for me, I feel like
little Nicholas got this initiation and turquoise magic
before I I could understand any of those
things. And,
it would be many years before it circle
back around to trying to unravel that thread.
(36:02):
And it's it's one maybe we'll never unravel.
This is a really complex tapestry
woven together
from so many themes and images, from the
geological to the historical to the metaphysical to
the medicinal.
It's
such an incredible stone.
Okay. I love this journey that you just
took us on with turquoise, Nicholas. Thank you.
(36:23):
And you talked a bit about
the connection that turquoise has to the concept
of resurrection,
and it made me think of another place
that we often see turquoise in an unexpected
place.
For those of you that don't know, I
am like an aficionado
of Victorian
morning jewelry,
(36:44):
and we often see
Victorian
morning jewelry, which is typically made of things
like jet, right, that really classic
black,
but we will see
little hints of turquoise
weave their way in in the form of
forget me nots. It would be used in
lay forget me not flowers,
(37:05):
so there is this immortalization
of our beloved dead in the hope
that
they they still live within our hearts. Right?
That we as long as we don't forget
them, as long as we hold them dear,
we hold them
close to us, and we make space for
that love for them,
that there's a piece of them that stays
(37:25):
alive.
And I had never thought of,
you know, other than just the the blue
color, maybe that there's a little deeper meaning
there. So thank you for that.
Yeah. And and this stone is found in
a lot of grave goods. It's it's a
funereal
offering to many of the cultures that have
interfaced with it. And even if we think
about those
(37:46):
kind of celestial
and divine spirits, in many cases for tribal
peoples,
these are personifications
of their ancestors,
of their beloved dead. So there there's absolutely
a a a thread that connects these things
together.
Nicholas, I've seen a few different statues from
all around the world, and I find that
often,
(38:06):
you know, in spiritual monuments or spiritual,
statues of gods, they'll use turquoise for the
eyes.
Have you found that to be a bit
of a trend, and is there a reasoning
behind that apart from just that beautiful blue
color, do you think?
I think probably the preciousness of the material
is part of that.
There are a few stones that are used
(38:27):
in, like, ocular inlays in in,
lots of different cultures. One of my favorite
things that we find in two unlikely places
to have ever met,
is, Japan
and Egypt who both made Plano convex,
lenses. In other words, flat base, rounded top
like a cabochon out of quartz
to inset in their statues of divinity,
(38:49):
because you could paint underneath it. You could
put ground up pigments underneath it, and it
would feel lifelike.
Maybe some of those blue pigments are are
turquoise derived. Maybe some of them aren't. I
I I don't rightly know.
But,
stones being sacred
and,
you know, the eyes themselves being thought of
as the window to the soul, it makes
(39:09):
sense that we'd want to put a sacred
object in that place.
The other thing we've if if we've got
a country
bingo card, I think we've got doing rather
well because we've listed a lot of countries
where we've got our turquoise from as it
won't be showing off their crystal porn today.
Do you think it matters
where your turquoise comes from? Not in one
(39:30):
place is better than the other, but do
you think that it changes the energy of
that? Kyle, you've got a few different pieces
from different places. Does the country of origin
change the energy of the turquoise
in a slight way?
I would say as we've covered in previous
episodes, totally. Like, there's going to be the
subtle differences due to the geological
(39:52):
differences, the energetic differences,
the
aridity
that they come from, yes, is the same,
but some places are more mountainous. Some places
are older.
Some places are still moving geologically,
like, you know, the Himalayas, somewhere that's still
moving geologically. The turquoise is different to, say,
Northern Australia,
which is
(40:12):
billions of years old, really, really old, and
it's been weathered. So they're gonna feel very,
very different from each other, and I think
that's,
something that we find with most crystals that
we seem to be playing with and connecting
with. And I think
also if you have a deeper connection to
a place,
I find
that connection
always seems to be deeper. Like, it's something
(40:35):
that I think I found myself
first connecting especially to Persian turquoise closer to
my Mediterranean
roots
than the, you know,
stuff from the West,
sorry, Turtle Island, North American hemisphere of places.
What about yourself, Ashley? Do you have a
favorite place where turquoise comes from?
Definitely the Cornish turquoise. It has to be
(40:58):
I I'm just so deeply connected
to the
history
and
legend, lore, mythology
that you find
throughout Cornwall. There are so many amazing
stories that that influence my magical practice, that
influence,
the way that I interact with the land
(41:20):
and the way that I interact with crystals.
And so finding some stones from that area,
especially something
like turquoise, which is just, you know, a
bit harder to come by compared to a
lot of other things, is really special. And
I gotta, like, thank Nicholas for introducing me
to this one because it is definitely
one of my favorites.
(41:40):
What is about yourself, Nicholas? Do you have
a favorite place?
I mean, it's not in my budget, but
those beautiful euhedral crystals from Bishop Mine in
Virginia,
they rank really high on my list. Places
of historical significance, though, also on my bucket
list, but but arguably a lot more achievable.
I would love a piece of Egyptian turquoise.
(42:02):
The Egyptian pantheon, Egyptian mythology was one of
my, like, doorways into myth and magic as
a young person.
So, you know, that's that's something that I
think will always hold, like, a really special
place in my heart. And so I
I've got it on my my list. I'm
not trying very hard, but when I find
the right piece of Egyptian turquoise, it'll come
(42:23):
home with me.
I love that.
And one thing I do wanna kinda go
off on a tangent about, we've made several
references,
to a place,
throughout this podcast, and I know we have
people listening from all around the world. And
you've been referring to, North America as Turtle
Island. And I'd love to know about the
background of that. That's one of the original
(42:43):
names, is it?
I'm gonna lean over to the North Americans
to answer this, but that's another term I've
actually heard before. This is the first time
I've heard it today.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely, like,
not an expert and can't speak to the
totality of the importance behind this terminology,
but I know that many first nations groups
here in The US
(43:04):
prefer to refer
to the original land here by the name
that it was given by the original inhabitants
of this land before colonization, and that name
was Turtle Island.
I love that.
Yeah. And and sometimes, like, the Earth at
large is referred to as Turtle Island, the
(43:24):
imagery that it is born by the turtle.
I know that the
the Lenape cultures, the Lenape peoples,
use a lot of this kind of imagery,
and describe the story of the the great
turtle,
that that bears the earth.
Amazing. Now before we wrap up this confab,
(43:45):
I believe it's time for a bit of
shameless self promotion, Ashley.
Yes. So I am very excited because this
episode is actually going to be released
on the day that I open the doors
for my crystal healing certification
program. So this is something I only do
a couple times a year.
I am so excited to welcome in a
(44:06):
new group of students. We are actually gonna
be limiting enrollment this time to just 50
students.
I wanna make things really intimate. We're kind
of switching up the way that we do
some of our live calls and things like
that so that we can, I don't know,
get back to the roots of the school?
I can create more, like, face to face
time with everybody,
(44:26):
more one on one connection. That's what I
miss the most. So if you're interested in
learning more
about crystals and crystal healing, you can head
over to crystalhealerschool.com
to get all the details.
This is an internationally
accredited
program by the IPHM.
So there's a ton of goodness.
(44:48):
I will invite you to head over to
the website to check it out. Again, that's
crystalhealerschool.com.
And for those that live maybe on the
other side of the globe like Australia, is
this, something that you need to be online
for, or how does it work with time
zones, Ashley?
That's a great question. So, actually, all of
the core course curriculum videos are prerecorded,
(45:08):
so you can go on your own schedule
at your own pace. There's no time limit
for completion,
which is really nice because here's the thing,
being a neurospicy person, I know that sometimes
life happens and takes your focus away from
things even that you're excited about and really
looking forward to.
So the nice thing is you can slow
it down. You can speed it up. You
(45:29):
can take a pause and come back to
it, whatever works for you. But then there
are some live calls as well.
We have two live calls per month. One
is on a weekday
evening,
either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and then they
kind of flip flop the days of the
week. And then every three months, so once
(45:50):
a quarter, we have one on a Saturday
afternoon.
So whether you are in, like, UK time
or you're in Australia, New Zealand, you should
be able to come to some of the
calls. If you can't make it live, those
are even recorded and put into an archive.
So we have, in addition to all of
the courses in the program, which is over
forty hours of training,
(46:10):
there is just this massive archive
of calls that you can go watch from
years and years going back to, I think,
2017
last I looked,
for just tons of extra education.
Plus,
our CCH students get invites to our pop
up calls,
act or excuse me, pop up classes and
(46:31):
extra events that we do, which are included
with enrollment. So it's a lot of fun.
Wow. And we will put the link for
this on in the notes of every podcast
and and podcasts that we've put out through
our different channels as well. So check that
out. Now the final thing I do need
to shed light on before we wrap up,
obviously, you can only see the talking person
on screen at the moment.
(46:51):
And as you know, me and Kyle work
very hard to make sure we are dressed
appropriately every single week. Now Nicholas tried to
upstage us a few weeks ago with Larimer
and his mermaid up. But, Kyle, if you
just wanna introduce something you've been sipping out
of today.
Oh, this this this little thing, this little
(47:12):
gift of a massive mug that I was
given.
People know I don't drink a small cup
of coffee, and this was gifted to me
by a client
a few years ago,
and I love using it. I've made panna
cotta in this. It is a wonderful little
mug that I love to work with.
Just while I'm just while I'm on screen,
(47:33):
I actually wrote a poem. I was inspired
by turquoise, and I'd love to finish with
it,
and it's quite interesting
reflecting back what Nicholas has spoken about especially
as well as everyone else. You'll understand why.
The oceans, the lands,
the sky, and the stars,
a song being sung by the universe
(47:54):
filled with love, joy, sorrow, and power. We
dance, we play, we listen, we grieve,
letting the music guide us like a soundtrack
to our lives,
scored by the conductor
that is us.
I think there's nothing left to say after
that. Join us next week on crystal confab
for another confab about crystals
(48:16):
to see what outfits we're wearing and what
teacups we're drinking out of. Until then, 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
confab, a casual chat about all things crystals.
Hello, and welcome to the crystal confab
podcast where we confab about some of our
(00:23):
favorite
crystals.
I am here with three of my crystal
besties Adam Berlay,
Kyle Perez, and Nicholas Pearson and we are
so excited to talk to you today about
Turquoise.
This is such a phenomenal
stone
and one of the things that I personally
love about this is just the huge
(00:45):
variety that we see it come in, which,
you know,
I think we don't always think about when
we are
exploring turquoise. It kind of always looks really
similar at first glance
until you really start to get to know
it. So, Kyle, I would love to have
you sort of kick us off and tell
us a little bit about your experience here
with turquoise.
(01:07):
Oh, for me, I
I collected turquoise
because
it's a stone that you should have because
it's turquoise.
Right? Like, that was how I started.
Like, it's turquoise. And so these kind of
little pieces
came into my collection,
not too expensive. They just kind of hung
out for ages.
(01:28):
Literally ages.
And then
the longer I was doing my spiritual work,
the longer I was connecting to crystals, that's
when I started to sort of work with
them a little bit more. I sort of
I needed to wait my turn a little
bit before it started to reveal itself to
me. I don't know about everyone else. Has
anyone else had an experience like that with
turquoise?
(01:50):
Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Definitely.
Well,
I
I was really diving in
on the instruction of the universe because I
was gifted some.
So
this really beautiful piece, I don't know if
it's gonna show up properly,
is Persian turquoise. It has pyrite inclusions in
(02:11):
it. Little beautiful tiny cubes of pyrite.
And
this lady just said, I need to give
this to you. This is yours. Take it.
I like, I don't want it. And I
was just
like, you're mad but thank you. Like, I'm
not gonna say no because, like, it's a
big beautiful rough raw
like, jagged, interesting piece of turquoise totally in
(02:32):
my bag.
And I was basically
wearing it every day and I've been sort
of doing my work and things, I would
say, six, seven
years or so worth of spiritual work and
study and that sort of stuff. And
it was starting to sort of replay back
stuff from the beginning. It started to,
show me
not things again, but the themes and allowing
(02:56):
me to dive into them with new knowledge
and a new perspective. For me, it's been
about the integration
of spiritual knowledge and information.
It has allowed me to
not just learn it and not just study
it, but to live it and experience it
and to understand my purpose
(03:18):
through these lessons. Does that make sense?
It's this kind of
yes. You've done the book learning.
Now
let's like actually experience what it's here to
show you. Let's actually,
create some magic with it. Let's actually open
your heart to the truth of the situation
(03:39):
and what it means to you. This is
the other thing I think with all crystals
and minerals is that we
learn about them from books. We learn about
them from others. We learn about them from
podcasts and whatever, but
it's the lived experience of how it shows
you your journey and how to work with
it. That's the truth of it. Does that
make sense? Like it's that
(04:00):
this is why I'm here for you thing.
This is like how we are going to
work together.
And so I would wear it on and
off, on and off, and it was always,
like,
times of stagnation,
maybe, times where things moved a bit slower,
times when things were
not as much of a rush was necessary,
(04:20):
and so it allowed that integration to happen.
It allowed that information to settle and to
work itself into
the nitty gritty of the body and the
mind and the spirit, and it allowed me
to
understand how to work with it. The pyrite,
I think, that inclusion of that
more active energy
really allowed the doing side of things.
(04:42):
Whereas
it was the last four, five years
that I think we all have had a
lot of learning happening on a larger scale,
and
some larger pieces have come in. Now this
is Mexican
turquoise.
I fell in love with this as soon
as I saw it. Like, it it just
(05:03):
hits differently as they say.
And this one has been
really helping me to learn
everything that I've learned in my life. It
has shown me everything that has been happening
in my life before now and all of
the things that I've lived and it's gone
this is how you're now going to use
all of these lessons. This is now how
(05:23):
you're going to,
work with what you've learned. This is now
how you're going to live your life
in your way because it's for you and
not for anyone else. And by being your
true self, you can then be your best
self. I feel like it really brings out
your best self.
Do you think, Kyle, that that is,
like, you reflecting back on those experiences and
(05:47):
being able to draw the lesson from each
one, or do you think it's more of
like an integration
and a culmination? Like, you've hit this
point
where all of that is coming together and
suddenly you're, like, pulling on the threads and
making sense of it as a whole?
The answer is yes.
Like, absolutely
both. Right? Like, it's all of that and
(06:08):
everything. Right? I think I have as you
said, I've been doing it long enough
that it's
like these things come back around. These lessons
come back to you. You can actually
work with them properly. You can live them.
They go from the back of the head
where you, like, learned it when you read
about it however many years ago. And it's
like, oh,
this is actually necessary to me now. Like
(06:29):
this, this is how I need to do
it. And for me, because it's so, like,
heart driven, I think we all can feel
that.
It has been so much about how much
I give and how much I receive and
that balance in my life. And especially dealing
with burnout and how to balance my energy
in
what I can give and what I can't.
What I can do and what I can't
(06:51):
do because if I do more on one
day, I can do less or I have
to do less for more days. And it
has been so so like
serious,
but, like, nurturing. Like, it has that kind
of
parental grand parental loving, nurturing support that I
really, really enjoy.
So, Carl, it's quite interesting because I've been
(07:12):
listening to these lectures that before we recorded
today by Mary Ann Williamson.
And she's talking about the difference between believing
in something, you know, you might believe in
a certain environmental,
you know, thing or political or that. There's
a difference between believing in it and actually,
you know, actively getting out there and living
it and making a difference in that. Would
(07:32):
you say that turquoise is one that kind
of takes us and everyone believes in so
many things, and we're all keyboard warriors,
sharing our beliefs, but there's a lot of
people not doing things. Do you think turquoise
is one that kind of shove us out
the door and get us actually making a
difference in the world?
I a %
agree with that statement. I think it is
so empowered in the way it helps us
(07:53):
to stand up for what is right,
what is correct,
what is the truth. Right? And from the
heart, like, it's coming from this place of
earnest,
I think, would be the right word. It's
like
it wants to do the best. It wants
(08:13):
to be involved. It wants
that best out of everyone, and I think
it's never going to oh, what's that saying?
I don't have to shout to get my
point across. Like, I don't have to speak
louder. I just say my truth, and it
gets across in that way. And I think
that's what Turquoise allows us. It helps us
(08:34):
to not shout,
just to speak it, and everyone will hear
it that needs to hear it. I just
if you haven't if you've avoided it, just
please get involved.
So a few things that you said, Kyle,
made me really think about what Adam wanted
to talk about because I think it kind
of touches on that. Like you said, it
like, there was this thing about turquoise that
(08:56):
you weren't drawn to it until you were
ready, so there was no kind of forcing
it. Adam, how have you seen that energy
of turquoise kind of come through?
Yeah. I guess because it's a copper based
mineral and copper, you know, we know is
the conduit, so it gets things moving.
I've you know, one term I love when
it comes to turquoise is it kind of
(09:17):
forms a bridge between us and the heavens.
So it can it's been associated and, you
know, we'll jump in and get Nicholas to
expand on this in a little while. But
around the world, it's been associated with health,
with wealth, with good luck, and all these
different type of things. And I find whenever
working with the crystal with corporate it, remember,
that it it helps things to flow. Now
(09:38):
why this becomes really relevant at the moment
as well is because,
last week, I spoke about Venus going on
to into retrograde on the March 2, but
also we have two, major asteroids also going
into retrograde on that day. So you've got
Medusa
going in, and we all know the story
of Medusa. It's a very long mythology,
but her asteroid basically governs
(09:59):
mistakes that we've made in the past. And
When she goes into retrograde, these mistakes come
back up to haunt us.
And the
lesson is we can either, oh, God, they've
come up again, and I've got to try
and bury them and hide them again, or
you face them head on and you actually
make amends with them. So with Turquoise, it's
about allowing things that bubble up and come.
(10:20):
We've also got money or money that goes
an asteroid that's spelled m o n y,
which basically governs money.
That will go into retrograde, so we're gonna
have issues with finances as well. So we've
got this whole kind of energy shift that's
gonna be happening around the March 2 just
aft just before this podcast comes out and
will still be evident for the ongoing week
(10:41):
after that of, you know, relationships.
You know, we may be questioning some of
our relationship to Venus retrograde going, is this
the right relationship for me? And this isn't
just romantic. It can be friends. It can
be family. It can be colleagues.
Is this you know, what are these mistakes
that are coming up? Should I face them
or should I try and, and, you know,
bury them? What's happening with money? And I
(11:02):
think Turquoise is a beautiful companion at this
time to just let things flow. There are
so many people
that are trying to swim up the river
of life when life is trying to point
you in other things. And a lot of
the times because we believe something or it's
always been this way. I think turquoise is
a really great one for allowing us to
surrender,
to allow us to go with the flow
(11:24):
and to listen a bit more with the
flow because when we go down the river,
it's a lot easier and there's brand new
scenery for us to see. Because if we
do what we've always done, we're gonna get
what we've always got. So I think it's
a beautiful one just for
bringing more blessings into our life, if that
makes sense.
It does, Adam. This is, like, one of
those things that it can feel so scary,
(11:46):
though, right, when there are these big changes
on the horizon,
when those relationships
feel a little rocky, when we can't count
on the financial support or abundance we're used
to receiving. Like, these are big, big, big
life changes, and I think it,
is normal, I think, for people to want
(12:07):
to sort of cling and to wanna swim
up stream. How do we work with turquoise
to kind of ease into that and and
let it just take us where, you know,
the universe wants us to flow rather than
fighting against it?
I think as spiritual people, there's a bit
of a contrast here because we often go,
oh, I surrender and let spirit take over.
(12:27):
We do that until something goes wrong. Do
you mean? And then, like, we're in a
relationship and they're like, okay. Let's try and
control this relationship. Or, oh god, I'm running
out of money. Freak, freak, freak in that
type of way.
I would suggest sitting with turquoise a lot.
And there's a little bit of magic that
I really like to do with turquoise, and
it's kind of animal magic.
So birds
are considered the messengers of the, you know,
(12:50):
of the world. They travel around. They they
they're,
symbolize
freedom.
And I would actually sit sit outside and
listen to the birds.
This could be a really interesting exercise. When
I teach shinrin yoku or forest bathing, I
get people to stop and listen to the
forest birds. And a lot of the time
you think it's just one bird tweeting, but
you can pick up a whole range of
(13:11):
different ones. But as you do that, listen
to the guidance and listen to feel the
freedom that they teach in our lives and
all birds and all winged creatures in one
way are messengers of freedom.
But we can also ask them to be
messengers to take our desires out to the
world. You know, I'd I have a meditation
on iTunes with turquoise, which basically helps you
(13:33):
to tune into the birds of the world
and ask them to take your messages of
peace out into the world.
So I think
sit, relax with it, wearing it, keeping it
around you is obviously gonna help. But this
idea of
connecting with this sense of freedom, and I
think the animal kingdom offers us so many
different,
lessons.
And I think for me, turquoise really fits
(13:55):
well with birds because of that sense of
freedom,
and not being held and rigid in that
type of way. Because I believe you also
find that this is a really great air,
kind of
crystal as well, Ashley.
Yeah. I do. So
what is so interesting to me is when
we look at
some of the
(14:16):
history and mythology of stones, and Nicholas is
gonna go into this quite a bit more
in-depth,
in just a minute. But
I love when we have a stone that's
found in different places on the Earth, and
we can actually look and find some overlap
and some commonality in the way that that
stone was viewed.
(14:37):
So if we look at how turquoise
was viewed
here on Turtle Island,
modern present day so called North America,
we can see that
a lot of indigenous groups here
connected
turquoise
with the sky,
with
the air.
(14:57):
And so if we go all the way
to Asia and the Mideast, there are also
some bits of mythology and lore connecting turquoise
and its use there
to the sky. And it makes sense. Right?
I mean, there are very few things in
nature that have this
brilliant vibrant blue color,
(15:19):
a few crystals,
even fewer flowers,
and the sky. And the sky and the
ocean are probably, like, the biggest
swathes of blue that we have in the
world. So I love that this is connected
with the sky. And, like, Kyle showed, a
piece of Mexican Turquoise I have one as
well, mine is rough,
but I wanted to point out with these,
(15:41):
most of the time, especially these larger pieces
of Mexican Turquoise, they form in this kind
of crust and they have been stabilized.
Now, there are a few different types of
treatments or enhancements
that are done to Turquoise.
There's
stabilization,
which is often some sort of like lacquer
(16:01):
or protectant that's put on the outside surface
of the crystal. This is super common. It's
like a generally
accepted
method of making sure that the turquoise is
a little stronger because it can be quite
crumbly, it can break quite easily, it's also
a bit porous.
So especially because we see this reserved for
jewelry,
(16:22):
that stabilization is really important to make sure
that our turquoise will be long lasting in
jewelry and will stick around for a while.
But there's also
reconstitution,
and I have this piece that my grandma
gave me when I was little. And this
is a piece of
recon
turquoise, which is when they take some turquoise,
usually some real turquoise, not not always, but,
(16:45):
recon should be. They take some real natural
turquoise,
all little manner of bits. They kind of
grind it up into a powder, and then
it is blended together with some sort of,
like, resin stabilizer,
and then often you'll see that tumbled into
these large
nuggets.
But then we can on occasion
(17:05):
find completely untreated
turquoise,
which usually
nowadays you kind of have to find older
stock or you have to literally know someone
that is collecting it. So I have,
some turquoise with pyrite here
which is beautiful. This is from the American
Southwest as well. This is from Arizona.
(17:27):
I have this little piece which is called
a Sea Foam
turquoise. It's a tiny little kind of bubbly
nugget and this is from the Fox Mine
in,
I think, Arizona, but maybe New Mexico.
And then I have some Cornish turquoise
which I got on a trip when I
(17:48):
was with Nicholas
from, like, the greatest crystal shop in the
world.
This is from Cornwall, of course. And then
I have this beautiful piece, which is from
Kazakhstan.
And so we can see all these different
beautiful colors and these are not treated, not
stabilized, but those are really really really hard
(18:08):
to find. So if you're out there, you're
looking for some turquoise,
you find some and it's been stabilized,
that's kind of usually like a best case
scenario. A little bit better in my book
than a recon piece or reconstituted
piece. Personally, that would be my preference. Stabilized
would be okay. But if you're lucky enough
to find some old stock
(18:28):
that is not enhanced or treated or stabilized,
that's a good way to go too.
But it's important to note that the recon,
I wouldn't necessarily call it fake. It's a
generally sort of accepted
practice, but it's always good when you're shopping
around to just ask, is this reconstituted?
(18:49):
Is this stabilized?
And especially if you're dealing with a good
rock shop, specialty turquoise dealer, they're going to
know their stuff, they're going to be able
to tell you that, which is really a
big help.
But
I love this and its connection to the
sky
for that
big ideas
I mean think of the like the wide
(19:09):
open sky that would be here in on
Turtle Island, especially in the American Southwest.
Like, as far as you can see, it's
often just
sky, and this leaves so much space
for big ideas, for grand ideas,
for helping you kind of tune into
the vastness of the world around you and
(19:29):
your role in it. So this is an
excellent stone for guiding you on your sole
purpose. If you've been feeling that lack of
clarity on your next steps, if you don't
know what you're meant to do in this
world,
how to show up and take action like
Kyle was suggesting,
work with turquoise because of that connection to
(19:49):
the sky, that connection to the air element.
It can give you that clarity
on your life path.
Ashley, I love what you shared there about
the different forms of turquoise, and I guess
this is where we should slip in with
a little segment of buyer beware because there
are a lot of fake turquoises
as well.
You know, one of the most common ones
I find is they get white halite. Now
(20:12):
a halite only does come in white,
and they inject it with blue dye. Kind
of got those black lines in it, obviously,
that looks a bit like turquoise.
Sometimes it's sold as turquoise. I've heard it
called turquoise halide or turquatine
or all these different things as well.
Not real turquoise.
And then, guys, you may need to correct
me if I'm wrong here, but is it
(20:33):
magnusite
that kinda looks like white clouds? Yes. It
is.
We've got a thumbs up for Nicholas. And
they dye that blue as well, and that's
obviously not a turquoise as well.
Nick Kyle or Nicholas, have you got any
tips maybe for or or, Ashley?
Some tips for how do you tell you
know, you walk into a crystal shop, there's
(20:53):
a small
turquoise for 10.
Is it real or is it not? How
would you tell?
I wanna jump in with white.
For me, turquoise
has I know this won't always be correct
because I think magnesite is a bit heavier
than halite, but it's usually halite that's dyed.
(21:13):
So I think the weight difference between turquoise
and halite is a little bit more obvious.
I also think you'll see,
like, it looks faded. It like, highlight quite
often has that it either looks really dyed
or really faded and it like, there's this
sadness
that comes with it. And I know that's
really quite a terrible general thing, and I
(21:35):
know Nicholas is going to cover things in
a more scientific way. But I did wanna
throw out one more not turquoise, and I
don't know if you've seen this on the
market, African turquoise that has been out and
about over the last few years.
Upon testing,
it is not turquoise. It is an amalgamation
of a couple of things. It's more like
a chalcedony
(21:55):
with copper
and
bits and pieces, and
it's beautiful and it's lovely and it has
its own unique energy, but it is 1,000
not turquoise and there is no turquoise in
it.
Okay. I have to jump in on this
one. This is one that I actually know
the story of, how it kind of started
(22:15):
to get out there as turquoise. So there
is a really large distributor
here in The US, and then there's another
one in Canada. And they started stocking this
stone,
which before they started carrying it was more
widely known and had been introduced on the
market as African Turquoise Jasper.
You know, because so many things are called
(22:36):
Jasper. It's a turquoise color. So that was,
like, the name, African turquoise jasper, like turquoise
colored Jasper.
And this is one of those things like
the emerald
fuchsite or fuchsite where they're saying that this
is the color. It's an emerald colored
piece, and then they just drop the actual
mineral name. So then when those distributors started
(22:58):
selling it, they just called it African turquoise.
They lost the, like, jasper
in their catalog, on their website. So all
these companies, at least here in The States
and up in Canada, that were stocking this
started just calling it African turquoise, and then
you started seeing everybody on their Etsy shops,
on their Instagram, on their websites
(23:20):
also dropping the Jasper and just calling it
African turquoise. And that took
less than twelve months for that to, like,
really happen
where everybody was just dropping the Jasper and
calling it turquoise even though it's not.
Wow. I I've got more questions as well,
but Nicholas has been to this so patiently
(23:40):
as the three of us have been banging
on. I'm gonna hand it over to Nicholas.
Nicholas, talk to us about turquoise.
Sure. I I wanna preface this by saying
two things.
First and foremost, at the museum gig,
last week,
I got to see
an old friend, a rock I met twenty
plus years ago that was not in a
(24:01):
place it should have been, which was great
because it means I could find it quite
by accident.
And so far, we've only acknowledged
the,
cryptocrystalline
varieties of turquoise, but there are actually
well formed euhedral crystals of it out there
in the world. They are few and far
between, and one of the most famous sources
for it is, Bishop Mine in Campbell County,
(24:23):
Virginia, which is where this piece comes from.
It is very old stock. This is not
material that comes up very often. I've I've
occasionally seen a piece for sale on the
Internet,
of small piece
priced at exorbitant amounts, and this is not
the the finest specimen in the world. It's
also not the worst. So,
(24:43):
it was, like, fortuitous timing. Just days before
we got together for the confab, I got
to see actual
crystals of turquoise embedded in matrix, and they
sparkle.
You would at first, you would go, oh,
well, this obviously has to be druzy chrysocolla,
but it isn't.
And that's that's pretty phenomenal.
The other thing I think that's important to
(25:03):
know, about Nicholas in turquoise is that turquoise
is the first gemstone I ever got to
meet.
My grandmother was a,
she was a jewelry aficionado, but really what
that meant is she was a turquoise in
jewelry aficionado. And she had this great vintage
collection of turquoise
set in silver, mostly from the American Southwest.
(25:25):
Whenever
they would travel
decades before I showed up on Earth, she
would get it. If she could find a
piece in a thrift store or somewhere else
and someone didn't know what they had, it
was like the best day for her. So
I've I've one
beloved turquoise ring that I need to have,
like, resized to finally fit me and have
the setting repaired so the stone doesn't slip
out. And and then maybe I'll I'll wear
this piece of my grandmother's,
(25:46):
at one point extensive turquoise collection.
But between that and my my love for
rocks in the world at large,
those were the two things that made my
grandfather go, oh,
let's buy him a crystal.
And and here we are today. So turquoise
is really important to my origin story, and
it's not a part I really focus on.
(26:07):
But
because of that,
I've gotten a little bit nerdy about it.
And I wanna touch on two two things
that don't seem related.
It's it's geology and its folklore.
But I actually think,
putting putting this segment in the end position
is great because you're gonna see how these
two things relate to everything everyone has said
(26:27):
so far. So turquoise is a hydrated
copper aluminum phosphate mineral.
Like a lot of other kind of things
of similar chemistry, it forms in really arid
environments.
It does have some water in its crystal
structure. That's important to know. We're gonna have
to come back around to this. But we
tend to find it
in secondary and tertiary oxidation zones that are
(26:50):
above the original copper deposits. So we get,
like, these this igneous activity that produces copper
ores. And then
something happens to those ores that leaches them
upwards, and that is what we call meteoric
water. In other words, water that comes from
the sky.
So only when we have this primary copper
(27:10):
deposit and meteoric water meeting is there even
a remote chance we're gonna get turquoise to
take place? But as that, turquoise is lifted
up from those primary deposits, it as as
a you know, in solution, it gets deposited
usually in thin cracks
and and and other small spaces in
the the rocks that are younger and and
(27:31):
and higher. So the challenge with this
is that we don't normally get very large
nodules of it. So it does happen, but
it's appreciably rare. And that's why, like, all
of our show and tell so far has
been pretty
flat pieces of natural turquoise because it's just
the space that it's got left over.
So,
(27:51):
as we as we bear that in mind,
I wanna talk a little bit about turquoise's
history.
This is a gem material that has been
traded
and worked for
at least ten thousand years. The earliest evidence
that we've got goes back to pre Canaanite
nomads
who were occupying the Sinai Peninsula. We have
(28:12):
evidence of them
mining
and working turquoise
About four thousand years later, so, like, six
thousand years ago, we get evidence of, beads
made in, pre dynastic Egypt, but on, you
know, in Egypt proper.
Sometime the next millennium, it is discovered
and mined at large in Persia, traded along
(28:34):
very, very distant trade routes. It's getting into
Europe and the Mediterranean
and into China and and other places as
well.
And then here in
this hemisphere of the world,
we have pretty good evidence of
at least twenty five hundred years
of of turquoise use
(28:56):
by the indigenous peoples of of The Americas.
First, probably, it was used in, like, Veracruz
and Oaxaca and in Southeast Arizona, and then
other deposits would be found in in other
parts of of Turtle Island.
We actually see the first European reference to
turquoise in March
when Aristotle wrote about it in his natural
(29:17):
history works.
About fifteen hundred years ago, the intricate inlay
techniques that we see,
are created in Mexico and then widely disseminate
through the region.
About a thousand years ago, there's a deeper
expansion of it by the Pueblo people. And
then
five, six hundred years ago, we get colonization,
(29:38):
which creates bigger demand on it. More of
it is being taken back to Europe,
and it also begins there the the influence
of the
the colonists and the settlers,
also introduces
new techniques,
new,
we'll say visual motifs as well to the
lapidary work being done by indigenous folk. So
there is this kind of exchange always taking
(30:00):
place in turquoise history. It never just stays
in one spot.
And we get a lot of really important
themes that emerge in the myth and legend
of this stone. There's a lot related to
the sky, to thunder and rain and heavenly
blessings. We get this kind of ancestral
or celestial or somehow divine
kind of motif connected to it.
(30:22):
A lot of connections to water, which is
also related to life, fertility,
and, like, the Earth itself. We can't separate
water and sky and Earth,
from turquoise or from one another.
Associated with travel and safety,
a lot of myths connected to goddesses and
the divine feminine,
and this idea of relationship.
(30:43):
And we're not gonna be able to explore
all of these in really great depth, but,
I I do wanna point out a couple
of things. We get this idea of, like,
sky and water and weather. Turquoise has been
used,
to protect against, to predict, or to attract
rain in a variety of cultures around the
world.
Some of its colloquial names in different languages
(31:04):
translate to to phrases like sky stone and
stone of heaven.
There was a belief that was pretty widespread
in the Mediterranean and Levant that it would
change color to portend changes in weather. So
if it bleached dangerous weather was coming. And,
of course, it's formation process.
Sky water literally hits the Earth to form
(31:24):
it. So it it is this kind of
intersection of of heaven and Earth. And even
before we had the, you know, modern science
of geology, which is quite young among sciences,
people instinctively
made that connection. Also, its association with water.
Again, this watery connection. This stone is from
really arid places. You didn't find it in
or near deposits of water.
(31:44):
You found it very dry,
but
it is the evidence of water having been
there. It it's its color doesn't just look
like water. It is a footprint left by
the action of water that
yields
life, fertility,
and and so much more.
And this makes it a stone that in
many cultures associated with wealth and fertility and
(32:08):
abundance.
It might be used to symbolize,
crops. The the color of it was associated
with fertility and resurrection
in ancient Egypt. It's
especially the time we get the the the
Spanish settler, and
it becomes associated with themes like the squash
blossom and,
other themes of
(32:28):
life, fertility, abundance, resurrection.
And it's connected
to serpents, which themselves
embody this quality of the earth. They are
connected to the earth because they're literally touching
it at all times.
And these divine serpents that we see turquoise
connected to are really cross cultural.
(32:49):
We have a group of beings called the
Avano. They're horned serpents that the indigenous people
of of the the Pueblo people,
saw it associated with. We have feathered serpents
that are depicted in elaborate turquoise inlays
in Central And South America.
We have,
this gem associated with the Nagini, the the
(33:09):
the serpent
spirits or serpent beings,
and these are immortalized in these really elaborate
headdresses that are covered with, like, drilled turquoise
nuggets
that resemble the end of a serpent's tail,
that are worn by the Latakia people
in the Himalayas.
And, in,
the Mediterranean, it also became associated with,
(33:31):
Persephone whose
Latin name is prosarpena.
That word, prosarpena, comes from the same root
as the modern word
serpent because of her association with the Earth.
It's it's the word,
to to creep,
to
crawl. So,
in even in, Jyotish and Vedic astrology, it's
connected to the south node of the moon,
(33:53):
Ketu,
who is also known as the tail of
the dragon or, the.
So all of this serpentine imagery is there,
and it's so fascinating.
If we even just think about the color,
the that unique shade that is turquoise
is a mixture of celestial blue and rich
fertile green growing on the earth, And turquoise
(34:15):
symbolizes this meeting place, this nexus between heaven
and earth.
Even in traditional
motifs, the feathered serpent
can traverse
the land, the sky,
the the heavens beyond the visible sky, and
the subterranean realm beneath the visible Earth.
The formation
process involves
upward and downward movement of these forces coming
(34:38):
together.
And, ultimately,
we get
a mineral that that moves quite a bit.
It's associated with travel and trade routes. It
it leaches
that that primary copper upwards to travel closer
to the surface, and so it's no surprise
that we also see it connected to, like,
travel safety.
(34:58):
But I think one of my favorite things
symbolized in turquoise is this idea of connection,
interdependence,
right relationship,
the kind of spider web
patterns and veins that crisscross its surface or
like the web of life.
This is a a mineral that exists because
of its relationship
between heaven and earth, between other minerals, between
(35:19):
acid and base. And it is a stone
that for
quite a long time has been used in
rituals of friendship,
fidelity, love.
It it is said to
really
strengthen our bond, our connection to life at
large,
and it is just this stone of
(35:39):
standing in the web and seeing the bigger
picture and being able to integrate all the
different facets of it into one. And so
for me, I feel like
little Nicholas got this initiation and turquoise magic
before I I could understand any of those
things. And,
it would be many years before it circle
back around to trying to unravel that thread.
(36:02):
And it's it's one maybe we'll never unravel.
This is a really complex tapestry
woven together
from so many themes and images, from the
geological to the historical to the metaphysical to
the medicinal.
It's
such an incredible stone.
Okay. I love this journey that you just
took us on with turquoise, Nicholas. Thank you.
(36:23):
And you talked a bit about
the connection that turquoise has to the concept
of resurrection,
and it made me think of another place
that we often see turquoise in an unexpected
place.
For those of you that don't know, I
am like an aficionado
of Victorian
morning jewelry,
(36:44):
and we often see
Victorian
morning jewelry, which is typically made of things
like jet, right, that really classic
black,
but we will see
little hints of turquoise
weave their way in in the form of
forget me nots. It would be used in
lay forget me not flowers,
(37:05):
so there is this immortalization
of our beloved dead in the hope
that
they they still live within our hearts. Right?
That we as long as we don't forget
them, as long as we hold them dear,
we hold them
close to us, and we make space for
that love for them,
that there's a piece of them that stays
(37:25):
alive.
And I had never thought of,
you know, other than just the the blue
color, maybe that there's a little deeper meaning
there. So thank you for that.
Yeah. And and this stone is found in
a lot of grave goods. It's it's a
funereal
offering to many of the cultures that have
interfaced with it. And even if we think
about those
(37:46):
kind of celestial
and divine spirits, in many cases for tribal
peoples,
these are personifications
of their ancestors,
of their beloved dead. So there there's absolutely
a a a thread that connects these things
together.
Nicholas, I've seen a few different statues from
all around the world, and I find that
often,
(38:06):
you know, in spiritual monuments or spiritual,
statues of gods, they'll use turquoise for the
eyes.
Have you found that to be a bit
of a trend, and is there a reasoning
behind that apart from just that beautiful blue
color, do you think?
I think probably the preciousness of the material
is part of that.
There are a few stones that are used
(38:27):
in, like, ocular inlays in in,
lots of different cultures. One of my favorite
things that we find in two unlikely places
to have ever met,
is, Japan
and Egypt who both made Plano convex,
lenses. In other words, flat base, rounded top
like a cabochon out of quartz
to inset in their statues of divinity,
(38:49):
because you could paint underneath it. You could
put ground up pigments underneath it, and it
would feel lifelike.
Maybe some of those blue pigments are are
turquoise derived. Maybe some of them aren't. I
I I don't rightly know.
But,
stones being sacred
and,
you know, the eyes themselves being thought of
as the window to the soul, it makes
(39:09):
sense that we'd want to put a sacred
object in that place.
The other thing we've if if we've got
a country
bingo card, I think we've got doing rather
well because we've listed a lot of countries
where we've got our turquoise from as it
won't be showing off their crystal porn today.
Do you think it matters
where your turquoise comes from? Not in one
(39:30):
place is better than the other, but do
you think that it changes the energy of
that? Kyle, you've got a few different pieces
from different places. Does the country of origin
change the energy of the turquoise
in a slight way?
I would say as we've covered in previous
episodes, totally. Like, there's going to be the
subtle differences due to the geological
(39:52):
differences, the energetic differences,
the
aridity
that they come from, yes, is the same,
but some places are more mountainous. Some places
are older.
Some places are still moving geologically,
like, you know, the Himalayas, somewhere that's still
moving geologically. The turquoise is different to, say,
Northern Australia,
which is
(40:12):
billions of years old, really, really old, and
it's been weathered. So they're gonna feel very,
very different from each other, and I think
that's,
something that we find with most crystals that
we seem to be playing with and connecting
with. And I think
also if you have a deeper connection to
a place,
I find
that connection
always seems to be deeper. Like, it's something
(40:35):
that I think I found myself
first connecting especially to Persian turquoise closer to
my Mediterranean
roots
than the, you know,
stuff from the West,
sorry, Turtle Island, North American hemisphere of places.
What about yourself, Ashley? Do you have a
favorite place where turquoise comes from?
Definitely the Cornish turquoise. It has to be
(40:58):
I I'm just so deeply connected
to the
history
and
legend, lore, mythology
that you find
throughout Cornwall. There are so many amazing
stories that that influence my magical practice, that
influence,
the way that I interact with the land
(41:20):
and the way that I interact with crystals.
And so finding some stones from that area,
especially something
like turquoise, which is just, you know, a
bit harder to come by compared to a
lot of other things, is really special. And
I gotta, like, thank Nicholas for introducing me
to this one because it is definitely
one of my favorites.
(41:40):
What is about yourself, Nicholas? Do you have
a favorite place?
I mean, it's not in my budget, but
those beautiful euhedral crystals from Bishop Mine in
Virginia,
they rank really high on my list. Places
of historical significance, though, also on my bucket
list, but but arguably a lot more achievable.
I would love a piece of Egyptian turquoise.
(42:02):
The Egyptian pantheon, Egyptian mythology was one of
my, like, doorways into myth and magic as
a young person.
So, you know, that's that's something that I
think will always hold, like, a really special
place in my heart. And so I
I've got it on my my list. I'm
not trying very hard, but when I find
the right piece of Egyptian turquoise, it'll come
(42:23):
home with me.
I love that.
And one thing I do wanna kinda go
off on a tangent about, we've made several
references,
to a place,
throughout this podcast, and I know we have
people listening from all around the world. And
you've been referring to, North America as Turtle
Island. And I'd love to know about the
background of that. That's one of the original
(42:43):
names, is it?
I'm gonna lean over to the North Americans
to answer this, but that's another term I've
actually heard before. This is the first time
I've heard it today.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely, like,
not an expert and can't speak to the
totality of the importance behind this terminology,
but I know that many first nations groups
here in The US
(43:04):
prefer to refer
to the original land here by the name
that it was given by the original inhabitants
of this land before colonization, and that name
was Turtle Island.
I love that.
Yeah. And and sometimes, like, the Earth at
large is referred to as Turtle Island, the
(43:24):
imagery that it is born by the turtle.
I know that the
the Lenape cultures, the Lenape peoples,
use a lot of this kind of imagery,
and describe the story of the the great
turtle,
that that bears the earth.
Amazing. Now before we wrap up this confab,
(43:45):
I believe it's time for a bit of
shameless self promotion, Ashley.
Yes. So I am very excited because this
episode is actually going to be released
on the day that I open the doors
for my crystal healing certification
program. So this is something I only do
a couple times a year.
I am so excited to welcome in a
(44:06):
new group of students. We are actually gonna
be limiting enrollment this time to just 50
students.
I wanna make things really intimate. We're kind
of switching up the way that we do
some of our live calls and things like
that so that we can, I don't know,
get back to the roots of the school?
I can create more, like, face to face
time with everybody,
(44:26):
more one on one connection. That's what I
miss the most. So if you're interested in
learning more
about crystals and crystal healing, you can head
over to crystalhealerschool.com
to get all the details.
This is an internationally
accredited
program by the IPHM.
So there's a ton of goodness.
(44:48):
I will invite you to head over to
the website to check it out. Again, that's
crystalhealerschool.com.
And for those that live maybe on the
other side of the globe like Australia, is
this, something that you need to be online
for, or how does it work with time
zones, Ashley?
That's a great question. So, actually, all of
the core course curriculum videos are prerecorded,
(45:08):
so you can go on your own schedule
at your own pace. There's no time limit
for completion,
which is really nice because here's the thing,
being a neurospicy person, I know that sometimes
life happens and takes your focus away from
things even that you're excited about and really
looking forward to.
So the nice thing is you can slow
it down. You can speed it up. You
(45:29):
can take a pause and come back to
it, whatever works for you. But then there
are some live calls as well.
We have two live calls per month. One
is on a weekday
evening,
either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and then they
kind of flip flop the days of the
week. And then every three months, so once
(45:50):
a quarter, we have one on a Saturday
afternoon.
So whether you are in, like, UK time
or you're in Australia, New Zealand, you should
be able to come to some of the
calls. If you can't make it live, those
are even recorded and put into an archive.
So we have, in addition to all of
the courses in the program, which is over
forty hours of training,
(46:10):
there is just this massive archive
of calls that you can go watch from
years and years going back to, I think,
2017
last I looked,
for just tons of extra education.
Plus,
our CCH students get invites to our pop
up calls,
act or excuse me, pop up classes and
(46:31):
extra events that we do, which are included
with enrollment. So it's a lot of fun.
Wow. And we will put the link for
this on in the notes of every podcast
and and podcasts that we've put out through
our different channels as well. So check that
out. Now the final thing I do need
to shed light on before we wrap up,
obviously, you can only see the talking person
on screen at the moment.
(46:51):
And as you know, me and Kyle work
very hard to make sure we are dressed
appropriately every single week. Now Nicholas tried to
upstage us a few weeks ago with Larimer
and his mermaid up. But, Kyle, if you
just wanna introduce something you've been sipping out
of today.
Oh, this this this little thing, this little
(47:12):
gift of a massive mug that I was
given.
People know I don't drink a small cup
of coffee, and this was gifted to me
by a client
a few years ago,
and I love using it. I've made panna
cotta in this. It is a wonderful little
mug that I love to work with.
Just while I'm just while I'm on screen,
(47:33):
I actually wrote a poem. I was inspired
by turquoise, and I'd love to finish with
it,
and it's quite interesting
reflecting back what Nicholas has spoken about especially
as well as everyone else. You'll understand why.
The oceans, the lands,
the sky, and the stars,
a song being sung by the universe
(47:54):
filled with love, joy, sorrow, and power. We
dance, we play, we listen, we grieve,
letting the music guide us like a soundtrack
to our lives,
scored by the conductor
that is us.
I think there's nothing left to say after
that. Join us next week on crystal confab
for another confab about crystals
(48:16):
to see what outfits we're wearing and what
teacups we're drinking out of. Until then, blessed
be.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.