BIRTHSTONES
JANUARY - GARNET
Serenity, Passion, Devotion
Characteristics: Red garnet is one of the most common and widespread of gems and identifies with the January birthstone. The red garnet produces an intense and sensual deep red hue. The stone is found in metamorphic rocks (which are rocks altered by heat and pressure) on every continent. But not all garnets are as abundant as the red ones. A green garnet, tsavorite, also occurs in metamorphic rocks, but it’s rarer because it needs unusual rock chemistries and special conditions to form.
Energy: Garnet is known for its utilisation of creative energy. It grounds spirit forces within the body and helps in the ability to work lovingly on the physical plane. Yet Garnet is a sensual stone. It represents primordial fire, the creation of the world out of chaos, purification and love.
FEBRUARY - AMETHYST
Stability, Balance, Clarity
Characteristics: Amethyst, the birthstone of February, is made up of crystals that grow on the inside surface of agate geodes. While the crystals themselves may grow to be several inches, the geodes containing the amethyst crystals often reach several feet in height. This majestic gemstone ranges in colour from deep purple to pale lavender depending on the presence of manganese and iron. Amethyst can also appear reddish-purple or yellow-purple depending on the combination of minerals present in the clear quartz.
Energy: Amethyst is used as a symbol of peace and unification. It is also thought to evoke feelings of serenity and calmness in those who wear it. It is a meditative and calming stone which works in the emotional, spiritual, and physical planes to provide calm, balance, patience, and peace.
MARCH - AQUAMARINE
Cleansing, Empowerment, Serenity
Characteristics: The name aquamarine is derived from the Latin word aqua, meaning water, and marina, meaning the sea. Aquamarine is most often light in tone and ranges from greenish blue to blue-green; the colour usually is more intense in larger stones. The blueish green colour is caused by iron oxides within the chemical makeup of the stone. This gemstone is mined mainly in Brazil, but also is found in Nigeria, Madagascar, Zambia, Pakistan, and Mozambique.
Energy: Aquamarine is a Water element stone, powerful for cleansing the emotional body and opening communication. Its gentle energy brings emotional patterns to the surface and assists in understanding the reason for holding onto old thoughts or patterns that are limiting forward motion. It allows for better relationships, love and compassion.
APRIL - DIAMOND
Affection, Amplification, Purity
Characteristics: The Diamond is made of carbon and is the hardest natural mineral. It is a stone that grows in the mantle of the Earth and is pushed up rapidly toward the surface. If it is not pushed up rapidly enough, the carbon dissipates.
Energy: The Diamond, in its rarity and beauty, is a symbol of purity and innocence, of love and fidelity, and embraces strength of character, ethics, and faithfulness to oneself and others. It is indicative of the loving and open nature with which one came into the physical realm, and encourages the aspect of truth and trust. It is a love-bearing crystal, regarded in antiquity as dependable in its virtues only when received as a gift. Today the engagement ring, wedding ring, and other articles of jewellery symbolise the gift of persons in love.
MAY - EMERALD
Communication, Truthfulness, Honesty
Characteristics: Emerald is the green to greenish blue variety of beryl, a mineral species. The deep green hue is owed to trace amounts of chromium and vanadium, and colour is best admired under natural daylight. One of the easiest methods to identify green emeralds is to test for specific gravity (density) and hardness. Like all forms of beryl, emerald is harder than apatite, quartz and feldspar, but is slightly softer than spinel, topaz and sapphire. However, emerald is generally more fragile than other beryl, owing to its naturally included state.
Energy: Emerald is a stone that is well used for intuitive awareness, meditation, and spirituality. As a stone which can increase spiritual awareness, it can help realise Divine love. It is also used to remove barriers to spiritual growth and thus raise consciousness. Emerald can increase psychic and intuitive awareness, and is said to "grant all knowledge of past, present and future."
JUNE - PEARL
Calming, Charity, Purity
Characteristics: Pearl, identified as June's birthstone, is a hard, and lustrous gem typically white or bluish-gray, formed within the shell of a pearl oyster or other bivalve mollusk and highly prized as a gem. Perhaps the best-loved gems of all time, pearls—both natural and modern cultured pearls—occur in a wide variety of colours. The most familiar colours are white and cream (a light yellowish brown). Pearls are unique as they are the only gems from living sea creatures and require no faceting or polishing to reveal their natural beauty. Natural pearls form in the bodies, or mantle tissue, of certain mollusks, usually around a microscopic irritant, and always without human help of any kind.
Energy: Pearl signifies charity and innocence. It enhances personal integrity and helps to provide a focus to ones attention. Pearl symbolises purity and is known as a “stone of sincerity." It brings truth to situations and loyalty to a “cause."
JULY - RUBY
Power, Prosperity, Integrity
Characteristics: Ruby is a variety of the gems species corundum. It is harder than any natural gemstone except diamond, and is extremely durable. Fine-quality ruby is extremely rare, and the colour of the gem is most important to its value. The most prized colour is a medium or medium-dark vivid red or slightly purplish red. Distinguished for its bright red colour, it is one of the most famed and fabled gemstone. It is a most desirable gem due to its hardness, durability, lustre, and rarity. Transparent rubies of large sizes are even rarer than Diamonds.
Energy: Ruby is able to create a strong sense and means of power within oneself. Ruby is a stone of great courage and inner strength. It is a stone of self-confidence, self-love, and increased inner power. It also is a stone of honesty, which can assist with issues surrounding and interfering with self-confidence and inner power.
AUGUST - PERIDOT
Balance, Compassion, Confidence
Characteristics: Peridot is the gem variety of the mineral olivine. Its chemical composition includes iron and magnesium, and iron is the cause of its attractive yellowish green colours. The gem often occurs in volcanic rocks called basalts, which are rich in these two elements. Peridots colour comes from the basic chemical composition of the mineral itself and not from minor traces of impurities. Thus, peridot is found only in green. In fact, peridot is one of the few gemstones available that can be found only in one colour, although the shades of green may vary from light yellowish to dark brownish-green.
Energy: Peridot gives off a friendly energy and is excellent for healing. It assists in rebirth and renewal of all kinds. Peridot also bring abundance and prosperity and enhances the healing and harmony of relationships of all kinds. The stone stimulates psychological clarity and inspires a sense of happiness, empowering one to detach the mind from outside influences and have confidence in one’s own abilities, looking inward for guidance and accessing the wisdom of the higher mind. It initiates independence and assertion without aggression, transforming it with clear intention to create the reality one wishes to have.
SEPTEMBER - SAPPHIRE
Strength, Focus, Self-discipline
Characteristics: Sapphire is the most precious and valuable blue gemstone. It is very desirable due to it's excellent and rich colour, hardness, durability, and lustre. Blue Sapphire ranges in hue from pale to deep azure or dark royal blue, to indigo, with the most highly desired colour being the velvety cornflower blue, also called Kashmir or bleu de roi. The name Sapphire is derived from the Latin sapphirus, Greek sappheiros, and Sanskrit sanipryam, meaning “blue stone.” Recent research indicates what we know today as Lapis Lazuli was also referred to as Sapphire in the ancient world.
Energy: Today Sapphire is still a Stone of Wisdom, a royal stone of learning, mental acuity and psychic activation, a seeker after spiritual truth. Its pure Blue Ray brings order and healing to the mind, lending strength and focus, and an ability to see beneath surface appearances to underlying truths and to utilise that knowledge. It stimulates the Throat and Third Eye Chakras, allowing one to access deeper levels of consciousness in order to gain a fuller understanding of self. Associated with the planet Saturn, Blue Sapphire embraces order, structure, and self-discipline, and is ideal for accomplishing goals and manifesting ideas into form. Sapphire’s power to transmute negative thoughts and energy also makes it highly effective for earth and chakra healing.
OCTOBER - OPAL
Happiness, Luck, Purity
Characteristics: Like lightning in a rainbow, Opal flashes its brilliance with even the slightest movement and claims notice by all who witness its phenomenal “fire.” This is a stone so dedicated to the eye, so pleasing to the sight, it inspires love and hope, innocence and purity, luck and happiness. Opal is a precious stone containing the fiery flame of Garnet, the resplendent purple of the Amethyst, and the sea-green glory of the Emerald - all shining together in incredible union and exquisite pleasure
Energy: Opal is most known for its ability to bring one’s traits and characteristics to the surface for examination and transformation. Just as Opal absorbs and reflects light, it picks up thoughts and feelings, desires and buried emotions, amplifying them and returning them to the source. While magnifying one’s negative attributes may prove to be uncomfortable, it allows for understanding how destructive these emotions can be and assists the process of letting them go. Opal also illuminates the positive actions and emotions of the self, enhancing the good and true, and fostering one’s highest potential. It is a karmic stone with a reminder that what one sends out will return.
NOVEMBER - TOPAZ
Communication, Good Fortune, Attraction
Characteristics: Topaz conjures thoughts of opulence and luxury, influence and generosity, vibrancy and strength. Topaz forms in various tones and saturations of yellow, gold, orange, red, blue, green, purple and brown, as well as colourless. From the pure light of clear Topaz, to the gold and sunny yellows, to the fiery pink-red varieties. The name for Topaz originated in the nineteenth in Russia. Ownership of the gem was restricted to the royal family.
Energy: Topaz warms to its solar energy, diffusing and radiating its gentle power in all directions…soothing, healing, stimulating and recharging. It brings solid, lasting energy, joy, generosity and abundance. Topaz brings true love and fidelity, friendship, and a gentle nature, bestowing the gifts of courage and wisdom, and success in all endeavours. Its energy, harnessed from the sun, transcends both time and space.
DECEMBER - TURQUOISE
Communication, Inspiration, Enthusiasm
Characteristics: Turquoise, a stone ranging in colour from blue to green to yellow, is filled with wonderful patterns of brown and black that are composed mainly of copper deposits. Although turquoise has captivated man's imagination for centuries, no one is sure exactly when it was discovered. Prehistoric people used and prized it for its blue-green colours because carved pieces have been found in burial and archeological sites spanning the globe.
Energy: Turquoise is heralded as the stone of communication. It encourages enthusiasm, thus inspiring new projects and bringing to light undiscovered artistic abilities. Turquoise also provides understanding and encourages attention to detail while attracting prosperity and success.