Leopardskin Jasper & Sterling Silver Handmade Earrings

Here’s the really good news – you can enter as many times as you wish. You’ll get your name entered AGAIN for every blog address I like well enough to link to!

What could be easier?!

And what’s this month’s prize? A free pair of handmade earrings. These beauties are little leopardskin jasper hearts. Of course they’re dangling from sterling silver earwires. I made the head pins, with an extra special twist of wire down the length the earring. Total length from top of earwire to bottom of heart is 1½ inches. In my next entry I’ll tell you about the healing properties of the gemstone leopardskin jasper.

Entries are due by June 26th.

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Now I know that many medical professionals will tell me that my mother wasn’t necessarily right, that I can’t GET a cold from BEING cold, but somehow that doesn’t feel true. I can’t get over many of the things mom taught me. Anyway, it certainly is true that the easiest way to get a cold is from someone who already has one. They cough or sneeze and those airborne germs fly through the air to us. Or, even easier, we shake hands with the person with the cold, or touch the doorknob they just turned, and then touch our faces – eyes, nose, mouth – giving the germs an easy entry into our systems.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how you got the cold, once you’ve got it, you’re sick. You’re coughing, sneezing, and blowing your nose till its pink and raw. Breathing through your mouth is likely to result in chapped lips, a sore throat, and disturbed sleep. If you’re like me, you’re doing lots of things to minimize the cold’s impact on your life; things your mother told you, things your doctor told you, things you heard from your friends. So I’ll drink hot lemon & honey, slather my neck and chest with a menthol vapor rub (both from mom), take zinc, extra Echinacea, and munch raw garlic (friends), get plenty of rest and drink extra fluids (doctor). All those things are commonly known and help.

But gemstones? Can gemstones help you get over your cold? I think they can.

What are your symptoms?

Gems for a cold

Common cold? Get some fluorite or red coral. Or if you’re lucky enough to have any of these three lovely gems, use yellow topaz, jet, or emeralds.

Watery eyes? Aquamarine and onyx may offer some relief.

Swollen glands? Blue lace agate, topaz, and aquamarine are the gems to try.

Sore throat? Carry amber, blue lace agate, or aquamarine to speed healing.

I’m not suggesting that you stuff your pockets with all of the named gems. That would make your needed naps much less comfortable. Instead, think about what’s your classically weak area, and get some gemstones that are noted for healing that area. If you can strengthen your lungs, or your ears, or whatever, it will be easier for your immune system to step up to the plate for the rest of you. As always, don’t use gemstones in place of other healing remedies, use them to augment your other health care methods.

Contact me and I’ll be happy to work with you and create a talisman just for you. Unfortunately, this isn’t a quick process, and your current cold may be over by the time we’re done, but then you’ll have it for the next time those germs try to move in!

I asked if I could prepare a talisman for Benjamin, and was given the green light. So I began by doing lots of research into which gems might be of benefit. I looked for gemstones that are soothing and calming, gems that are protective, gems that enhance courage and power, gems that encourage pleasant dreams, and more. How would I decide which of these characteristics was most important?

As I was doing this research, I was thinking about the form of the talisman. This was a small child – only about 2 years old at the time. Obviously, something that he would wear or carry, particularly in bed, was out of the question. Beads are quite small, and I certainly wouldn’t want any kind of choking hazard, so something that would hang from his bedpost or get pinned to his pillowcase was also inappropriate. But I wanted it to be something Ben could see easily from his bed, whether it was before he went to sleep, when he woke frightened, or when he awoke in the morning.

Finally I arrived at a creative solution to the two problems – including multiple gemstones to provide multiple benefits and making something both safe and easily visible – a relatively large talisman that would hang from Benjamin’s window via a suction cup!

With that decision made I could proceed. I ultimately ended up with a talisman that contained 13 different gemstones, one in a particularly protective shape. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Well, here’s a photo of the finished piece, which I think is attractive & tasteful. (Sorry the photo quality isn’t better – I hadn’t yet mastered my digital camera.)

Ben's talisman

I mailed it directly to Ben, along with a page that explained what each stone was and their characteristics. His mom and grandma both reminded him who I was (we’d met a few times) and explained what the talisman was. He was really pleased to receive it, and to hang it in his bedroom window.

I can’t say that the talisman made dramatic improvements, nor, even three years later, can I say that this poor little guy’s nighttime problems are completely gone. But I do know that the next time I saw him after he’d gotten the talisman, he was eager to bring me to his room and show it to me, and was clearly happy that he had it.

So what healing gemstones did I use? Amber, amethyst, blue lace agate, fluorite, green aventurine, hematite, labradorite, leopardskin jasper, peridot, rose quartz, ruby, smoky quartz, and turquoise. The green aventurine was in the shape of a Zuni bear, a powerful creature in Native culture.

I’ll be covering many more gemstones in the future, but if you can’t wait, here’s where you can learn a smattering of information about healing gemstones.