Living Stones
by Jo Winter

Everything that Nature creates lives and is biodegradable.
- Except stones.

Wrong. Stones are just as alive and biodegradeable as everything else; they just live at a slower pace than most things. Stones are the slowly-changing backbone of the earth. It is their longevity that makes them so precious in a rapidly-changing world. They are the markers of previous cultures and reminders that older civilisations have existed and, through the pyramids and standing stones they erected, they live still.

Information preserved in this way far outlives man and the messages, the way those people perceived their world and the way we can build on their knowledge, is irreplaceable.

The capacity for crystals to heal us is widely accepted. Perhaps their beautiful structure is the starting point. Who can fail to be amazed by such exquisite formations? Healers find the unique properties of crystals to be a powerful way of balancing and harmonising the body's subtle energies, unblocking channels which have become choked during our journey through life, causing illness and dis-ease. Rocks may not immediately appeal like crystals, but they do have connections with our deeper levels and affect and heal on a more profound level. The LaStone Therapy massage uses warm and cold lava stones to deeply penetrate aching muscles and 'ground' the body.

Ancient Chinese scholars of the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD) appreciated the spiritual properties of stones and selected them for meditation. In contemplating something as mundane as a stone, they also came to appreciate the macrocosm of the galaxies in the microcosm of the stone. As above, so below.

Stones and rocks give us a sense of perspective that in itself is healing and comforting. Over the ages hermits have retired to live in caves, where they felt able to connect with nature and meditate. The innate property of stone absorbs negativity and replaces it with positive energy. Various religions use stone for preserving precious information. In the Bible, Moses carved the Ten Commandments on stone. Tibetans for many generations have carved stones called Mani and left them at temples or on mountaintops. In 1938 a chinese archeologist found 715 discs covered in heiroglyphs in a cave in the Himalayas. They are estimated to be 12,000 years old. They were translated by Doctor Tsum Um Nui and found to contain details of a people called the Dropa who crash-landed on earth from outer space. There is still a tribe of small people (average height four feet two inches) calling themselves Dropa living in the area who are an unknown and unidentifiable race. Some Pagans use stones to symbolise their intentions during rituals.

There are still hundreds of cairns and stone circles that have been carried many miles to their final resting places. Stones for the great pyramid at Giza were carried five hundred miles and the great Bluestones for Sonehenge came from West Wales. These granite stones were obviously especially chosen. Granite's composition contains fifty percent quartz crystal, which amplifies the earth's energies. In Melody's comprehenive book 'Love is in the Earth' it states that quartz also tends to clear the effects of radiation and radioactivity and creates altered states of consciousness, stimulating psychic ability, synchronising the individual and total consciousness with the heavens and advanced life forms.

Granite therefore acts as an aid to help focus intent during rituals. Joseph Jockman's, in 'Earth : A Crystal Planet?' posits that ley lines are the result of the earth's crystal structure, that it has its own energy centres, like our chakra points and that standing stones could be a version of acupuncture for the earth. If so, they could help balance the earth and restore harmony.

So, bearing all this in mind, remember each time we are drawn to a pebble or a crystal, whether on the beach, in a shop or whilst just out walking, that they and we have a great connection. Whether we believe we choose them or that they choose us, we are joining in a worldwide and generation-wide bond with our slower-evolving siblings.

Rocks are alive.