March 2008
Living With Crystals
A Newsletter from Beyond the Rainbow
http://www.rainbowcrystal.com/
PO Box 110, Ruby, NY 12475
Volume XII, Number 2
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Living with Crystals gives monthly information about working with crystals, flower essences, and aromatherapy.
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In This Issue
I    Welcome
II  Feature Article: Crystal Clusters: Peaceful Communities
III  Courses
IV  Bach Flower Remedy Classes
V    Consultations
VI  Your Prosperity Journey
VII Good Vibrations 

Welcome to the Beyond the Rainbow's newsletter about crystals, Living with Crystals, first published February 1997. The February issue marked the beginning of our twelfth year of publication.

Every issue of Living with Crystals is dedicated to all of you who read it; we dedicate this issue with special appreciation, and pledge that Living with Crystals will continue to serve all those who wants to learn more about working with crystals as our partners in creation.

May you every day become more crystalline.

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Crystal Clusters: Peaceful Communities

I have several quartz clusters on my desk. When I need a fresh perspective, I often pick up one of them and spend some time getting lost in their patterns. This has proven to be good for my mental health.

I visit two clusters frequently. The first, from Brazil, has two long points, and several very shiny points. It gleams with light and rainbows. Because all of the points in this cluster are flat, creating a series of crevasses between them, it reminds me of the Burren, a geological wonder in North County Clare, Ireland. This area is composed of miles of limestone pavements, with deep crevasses in which orchids, gentians, and other species of tropical, alpine, and arctic flowers grow.

People often visit the Burren to see dolmens, three-sided rectangular stone structures with the fourth side open, covered with a capstone. These are four to six thousand years old, and when I stand before one, I feel a timelessness that makes my problems seem insignificant. This crystal also helps to feel this way, that life flows on, and the best way to allow the flow is to get out of the way.

My second quartz cluster, from Arkansas, has lots of crystals overlapping each other, like a litter of kittens cuddling together for comfort. I, too, feel comforted, when I hold it and look at it.

(Pictures of both these crystals are on the web version of this article at http://www.rainbowcrystal.com/crystal/crystalcluster.html)

Practical Uses of Clusters

A quartz cluster has a multitude of uses.

You can use a quartz cluster to charge other crystals. So, for example, that you have a citrine or golden calcite that you want to program for a goal related to prosperity or personal power. You can activate this crystal to its full potential by placing it on a cluster.

If you have a large cluster, you can prepare for a chakra balancing meditation by placing each of the crystals you intend to use on the cluster overnight. This procedure applies to any meditation you plan with crystals.

A quartz cluster also makes a beautiful and focusing centerpiece for an altar. I like to position one in the center, then circle it with four quartz points at ninety-degree angles, terminations pointing outward, thus radiating the cluster's energy to whatever else I have on the altar.

Clusters for Integration

When you feel mentally or emotionally scattered, clusters can help you to more integrated.

For example, you may feel that your life is going in many directions, none of which seem to feel connected. Hold a cluster and look at it. Notice that although the points seem to also be going in many directions, they form a whole. Allow yourself to be open to the underlying wholeness of your life and trust that the pattern of connection will be revealed.

You may be experiencing a specific source of disunity in your immediate or extended family. Perhaps conflicts of interest are creating tension and/or anger. Again hold a cluster to contemplate its unity.

You may feel rejected by a group of people. In looking at a cluster, you will notice that none of the points seem to be avoiding each other and that rejection doesn't exist in the mineral kingdom. Imagine yourself as part of a greater community and allow that feeling of connection to enter your everyday life.

A cluster, for all the reasons above, can also help you contemplate a peaceful world.

Finally, you can daydream with a cluster, as I do with my two favorites. If your mind is wandering along paths that you don't enjoy, let your eyes wander along the paths created by a cluster until you feel a shift in attention and attitude.

Special Crystals, Special Purposes

Amethyst

Amethyst has a more specialized function than quartz. Its color is symbolic of twilight, a transition from waking awareness to the more unconsciousness perceptions that characterize sleep and night. Its calming qualities relax the mind, helping us to release attachment to life's daily concerns and allowing us to slip into a more expansive reality. This makes it very valuable for meditation.

1. A small cluster with a flat base can rest on the forehead during meditation/chakra balancing.

2. Keeping it on a bedside table can promote peaceful dreams. This is especially nice for a child or infant.

3. If you have an altar especially designed for meditation, an amethyst cluster makes an ideal focal point.

4. An amethyst cluster is handy to keep around on your desk, at home or at work.

Amethyst also helps to ease the transition between life and death. During the last two weeks of her life, our elderly cat, Angel, spent most of her time leaning against a large amethyst cluster. That cluster always helps me to remember a remarkable and beloved cat.

Celestite: Touch the Sky

The peacefulness of a celestite cluster has a different quality than that of amethyst. It can best be compared to the feeling we have when we gaze quietly at the sky, a sense that it's possible to transcend all earthly cares, a reaching for communication with spirit.

Celestite is traditionally connected to the throat center, but unless you have a very small cluster, it may be too heavy to place there during meditation. An individual piece is better for this purpose. Clusters, however, do have several particular uses.

To help quiet the circular and repetitive worries that so often fill our minds, I recommend holding and gazing into a celestite cluster. Celestite can help to quiet the circular and repetitive worries that so often fill our mind, whether we are worried about what has happened in the past or anticipating some future unpleasantness. These concerns make it difficult for us to be open to any new ideas and prevent us from being in true communication with ourselves. Celestite helps to calm the over-active mind and teaches us how to be receptive.

When we learn to release expectations, be they positive or negative, we develop a new kind of understanding that is based on trust, rather than on certainty. With this level of trust we are able to stop filtering out information that doesn't agree with what we "know," and learn to receive without judgment new insights.

Because of its peaceful energy, this crystal also helps to cool anger and to relieve tension. If your cluster is small enough not to dent your forehead, you can get some interesting results by putting it on the third eye (between and above the other two).

One cautionary note: this crystal should not be exposed to direct sunlight.

Pyrite: The Discovery Crystal

Though it has long been known as "fool's gold," the person who works with pyrite may discover in him/herself new depths of wisdom.

As shiny and reflective as hematite, it was in ancient Mexico fashioned into mirrors. Also like hematite, its reflectivity was considered to protect the person who carried, wore, or meditated with it, from the negativity of others.

This crystal is symmetrical in that it forms cubes, and asymmetrical in that the arrangement of these cubes is random. By combining precision and randomness pyrite helps us to blend our creative and intuitive abilities with the powers of logic and reason.

It is generally considered to be a stone that can spark creative thinking and open one to new ideas. Such ideas are characterized by not only being innovative but possible to realize. As a golden stone, it especially relates to the ability to stimulate ideas that, if fulfilled, can lead to abundance.

Pyrite is most logically placed on the third chakra (navel-solar plexus area). You can also place it on the third eye because of its mental properties.

http://www.rainbowcrystal.com/crystal/cluster.html

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A New Way to Learn About Our Courses

If you've been interested in our email courses but have been unsure which would be best for you, you now have a new way to choose. I've put together a pamphlet in Microsoft Word format that fully describes each course:

• Bach Flower Remedies: A User-Friendly Guide


• Crystals and the Chakras


• Allow More Love in Your Life


• Think More: Work Less