There seem to be two groups of rock lovers. One group loves the geology and the science of minerology. The second group looks at stones from a spiritual or energetic perspective. In my experience these two groups tend to avoid one another. For people like me that is a difficult gap to bridge. I am a very spiritual person. From the time I was very young I’ve always been interested in the metaphysical. I’ve also collected rocks since I went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History when I was in third grade. There I bought my first stone specimen, a large piece of amethyst.

As I got older I started to explore metaphysical spirituality. Stones and crystals drew my attention at once. The more I read the more fascinated I became by the idea of using crystals in my space to encourage greater energy and peacefulness. So I began buying crystals from my local New Age shop.

Fast forward to December 2018, my husband was very unexpectedly laid off from his job on the East Coast of the United States. I mention this because the paths our lives take are nothing if not tremendously surprising sometimes. After my husband was laid off we looked all over the country at different jobs. He settled on one in New Mexico. Neither of us had ever stepped foot in the state let alone considered living there. Nevertheless, in May 2019, we moved to New Mexico and bought a house. When you buy a house, as an average family, you tend to become house poor at least for a short time while you wait for all the financing to go through.

Being in a new state with no family and three young children I became desperate for something, anything really, to do. It was then, around July 2019, I discovered this hobby called “rockhounding.” We went the next weekend armed with a book I bought to tell us where to get started. We were not especially successful the first few times but it got everyone outside, playing in the dirt, and with a packed lunch it really was a wonderful activity for our family.

Around our third excursion I started to recognize a very small portion of what we were seeing on the ground. After that I was hooked! I have read more geology books in the last three years than I ever did in any of my schooling.

Meanwhile I was working as a digital marketer for a small business who sold yoga and metaphysical leaning clothing and jewelry. I was asked to create a crystal grid and speak on the benefits of different stones and how to use them in a grid. In order to accomplish this I had to buy many more polished stones than I already possessed.

This is where my love of science and my love of spirituality collided. I realized as I bought stone after stone that with some more effort and a few tools I could turn my rock collection into something beautiful that spoke to my spirituality.

Rock polishing tools are expensive. Way beyond, for me, anything approaching an impulse purchase. So it was a couple of years before my husband and I decided I wasn’t going to give up this newfound hobby I loved so much. That day we went to Santa Fe to buy a rock polisher. By the next morning I’d polished more than half a dozen stones.

Polishing the stones I’d collected was the first time I made a strong connection between my spirituality and the stones I was holding. As I’d shuffle through stones I realized some grabbed my attention much more than others. There were the obvious differences such as size and color that made some stones more desirable, but there was something else too. Some stones simply “felt right.” I already believed that stones carried their own energy. Taking these already energetic stones and polishing them became something of a ritual. So as I polished each stone I gave a bit of myself in the process hopefully amplifying the “good mojo” I’d already felt. It felt natural at this point to turn some of my stones into jewelry. I’ve always found wearing stones to be an easy way to ground myself to the earth. What better way to remind yourself of your connection to the earth than to wear a small part of the very earth itself.