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Join Adam Barralet, Ashley Leavy, Kyle Perez, and Nicholas Pearson in Episode #4 of the Crystal Confab Podcast as they explore Dioptase meaning and uses, including:

• Dioptase & Chariklo
• Connecting with your Guides using Dioptase
• Cultivating Powerful Compassion with Dioptase
• Dioptase & the Divine Feminine

Tune in now and dive into the magical world of Dioptase!

Crystal Confab Podcast Introduction: Are you just starting with crystals? Or maybe you have a whole collection but aren’t sure how to use them? Join 4 crystal nerds, healers, workers, and lovers for crystal confab, a casual chat about all things crystals.

Ashley Leavy: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the crystal confab podcast. We are really excited to share a lot with you today. We’re gonna talk about some magic related to the crystal dioptase, which I personally really love. It’s one of my favorites. I am Ashley Leavy and I’m here with my fellow co hosts, the amazing Adam Berlick, Kyle Perez, and Nicholas Pearson.

So hey, everybody. How are you doing?

Adam Barralet: Really good. Exciting to talk about a bit of a rarer crystal today.

Ashley: Yeah. I know. We have so much crystal wisdom in store to share in today’s episode. So why don’t we go ahead and dive right in? I believe Nicholas had something to share to kick us off.

Nicholas Pearson: Yeah. So it’s not a secret that I really love copper minerals for folks who listen to be nerd out about rocks. They were like one of the first moments that I had in my journey of, like, learning about the geology and how the energy kinda synced up with it. It would be like I’d find a weird, unusual thing I’d never heard of before in my museum days, like cyanotrichite or something similarly odd, that I had difficulty sounding out and pronouncing, let alone remembering how to spell. And I’d sit and meditate and, you know, come up with my own personal experience and then go look it up and go, wow.

This also has copper in it, and that’s why it has this property that reminds me of this other thing and that other thing. So it was like one of those big light bulb moments. So I’ve always loved, like, the whole copper family. And, Dioptase, I find, like, really exceptionally sweet. There’s a tenderness to it.

Copper minerals are so connective and synergistic on their own, but there’s something about it being like a copper silicate that makes it so much more expansive and radiant and luminous. And, some years ago when I was doing some, like, extra research on on copper minerals for, in bookstones on the Goddess, I found, like, these little threads that all fit together that kind of connect them to the divine feminine. You know, we’ve got the the word copper itself comes to us because of the island of Cyprus, which is cupros in Greek, which became cuprum in Latin, eventually copper in in English after making a few more stops along the way. And among among other great mythic things about Cyprus, it was a really historically important source for copper minerals and copper ore in the ancient world. It’s also said to be more or less the birthplace of, the goddess Aphrodite or Venus.

So, you know, when she first set foot on solid land after being born from the foam of the waves, it was in the island of Cyprus there in the Mediterranean. And so that place is, like, impregnated with her coppery-ness, if you will, in its local geology. But there’s this really kind of fun thread that connects a lot of copper minerals to the divine feminine. In some Slavic lore, you occasionally find references to, like, either a copper mountain or a malachite mountain that’s kind of the same as Mount Venus, which we find farther to the west in the European, like, witch lore that talks about this meeting place for magic, a connection to the witch mother, the witch queen, the queen of magic and mystery, the queen of heaven, and appropriately enough, and some of this territory, which is famous for its malachite mines, we also find really good evidence of some very fine, albeit rare, dioptase that can occur in similar regions. So in my own kind of reflections and connection to dioptase, I find this like, expansive, like, exalting quality that it brings to the heart, and it’s through that energy of love that we experience the divine feminine.

It’s surrender to love in its highest, most cosmic kind of sense, and that kind of love isn’t just like a, you know, whimsical feeling, it’s not a just limited to romance, it’s not an emotion, it’s a force of nature, and it’s it’s the kind of force of nature that mends the things that are broken. It’s the quality that helps us have new beginnings and that’s so appropriate for a stone that in the modern crystal world we see associated with like forgiveness, emotional balance. My other favorite little bit about copper minerals, that also connects to the divine feminine is, a little bit of a, we’ll say, off color, alchemical joke because alchemists apparently had senses of humor in the medieval and early modern period. And, you know, they’d write in the scholarly language, which of course was Latin for the most part. And you find references to the meretrix medalorum or the harlot of metals, referring to the metal of Venus, the metal copper.

And the idea here is that compared to other metals that only make certain kinds of ionic bonds or readily produce sulfates and salts and and and other chemicals, under very specific conditions. Lady Copper is easy and rejects no levers. She’ll bind to oxides and sulfur salts, and she makes all colors of the rainbow in her children as she blends with these other things. And I think that’s really part of the magic of the goddess. Right?

It’s being able to be in the moment and open yourself to receive this magic. You’ll never get this chance again. There’ll be more. You’ll make different magic. And it’s kind of how I think of the whimsy of so many copper minerals that are so brightly colored.

We’ve got the emerald green of dioptase, the neon blue of, Shattuckite, and just so many other colors. So, yeah, for me, it’s definitely a stone of finding those qualities of the divine feminine.

Adam: Nicholas, lots of people, you know, like us, we love to get into the geology of the crystals and what forms them, but a lot of people were just buying their crystals because they like the colors or they like the properties and that type of thing. I get you. You mentioned, you know, malachite and Shattuckite briefly there. Can you give a few more examples of those copper based crystals? And, you know, maybe even if you could explain a little bit for people about why the crystals are normally green and blue, but copper’s kind of an orange color.

Nicholas: Yeah. So, this is super fun. Copper minerals come in

Speaker 0: a really wide array of colors, and

Nicholas: it depends on, like, what they’re connected to. So other common copper rich things that we might have in our crystal toolkit could include things like turquoise and chrysocolla, maybe some cuprite. You can have malachite and azurite. You can have, as I mentioned, Shattuckite. There are things like chalcocite, some copper sulfides, like Covellite and chalcopyrite, and a few others that escape me at the moment.

And so, we find metallics in reds and golds and blacks and silvers. We find really richly saturated blues and greens. We occasionally find brilliant oranges and yellows, and it really depends on the kind of partner that copper has in the making of that. A lot of copper mineral deposits that we find are in these, like, oxidation zones. So we get we get some sort of superheated liquid in the earth, usually magma, but it it could also be byproducts of that that won’t yield our primary copper deposits, but because copper is welcoming of all lovers, she’s especially fond of water and the things it carries, and so that copper gets leached out as water percolates through and then oxidizes higher and higher up.

So we get a lot of these minerals like chrysocolla and turquoise and, azurite and malachite in these secondary and and even later stages of oxidation where the primary copper, that kind of raw metallic form is is eaten away and dissolved and and recombined. And every time it does so, it changes just a little bit, and some of these copper minerals are very closely related. If we look at something like azurite and malachite, they’re off by one tiny little ion, and one of them, malachite, is far more stable in more environments than its counterpart, which is azurite. So even just that one little bit of ionic charge that changes when we remove one thing, can give us a really big shift in color and luster and texture. And so we see these copper minerals kinda like blending into one another, forming these, like, really complex sedimentary rocks that have such brilliant shades and colors and contrasting patterns.

They’re just…they’re so magical.

Ashley: Okay. I wanna say thank you for explaining that because, Adam, that was a really good question, 1st and foremost. Like, you know, how do we go from this, like, beautiful metallic orange to these gorgeous blues and greens? And, Nicholas, I’ve never heard anyone explain a very complicated process quite as simply as that. That made it really easy to understand.

And I don’t want to take away from, you know, the importance of the scientific part that you just talked about. And I also don’t want to take away from the beauty that you described between, you know, Lady Copper and her many suitors and lovers and creating all these beautiful minerals. But there was something that you said very early on when you started your discussion about dioptase that I want to point back to because you, just like, slipped it right in there, but it made me think of how important it is. And that is, you know, often when you were first learning to work with a new mineral, you would have some kind of experience. You would work with it, and then you would go look that up for some confirmation, some context, some insight, and get some new information or affirm or confirm what you were feeling.

And I think that this is such a simple and overlooked practice of just working with the stone, giving yourself that space to be open to the experience, to play a little bit, to see what you’re feeling intuitively. And then, sure, go look it up in a book. Go listen to your favorite podcast host. Go, you know, look at your favorite YouTube channel, whatever it is, for a little more information, a little bit more context. And I wonder when you were in those initial stages, if you remember in your discovery with dioptase, anyone this question is open to anyone.

What were some of the little things that kind of first stood out to you? Does anyone have a story? I’m thinking, for me, it was like noticing the intense depth of color in that Dioptase and feeling, almost like the depths of ocean water, almost the depths of the sea and feeling so held. And I think that really kind of ties back in with this connection to the divine feminine that Nicholas was talking about this. I mean, thinking about the ocean, which has birthed us all truly feeling that sort of connection with that energy, that creative force of energy, I felt so strong from diopters.

And I’m curious if anyone else remembers any little experiences or or wants to share a story about dioptase.

Adam: I think when I first got my piece, you know, what I’ve found is that it’s obviously a bit of a rarer crystal. We’ve all got some amethyst. We’ve all got some rose quartz, but maybe not everyone’s got some dioptase yet. And, hopefully, we might inspire a few more people. But, you know, that vibrant green color and that rarity of it just really spoke to there’s something special about this stone.

And I really, really found for me, that it had a big impact on the heart and…but also this connection almost connecting your heart to the heartbeat of mother earth. And I actually find it pairs really nicely, a little bit with Kevin’s side. They kind of had that rarity in that kind of delicate energy, whereas Kevin’s side is very air-like and almost like the winds of the worlds. And I find that plays almost is that nurturing of mother earth and connecting your heartbeat to mother earth. And one of the things I used to do very early on, is just by laying on the couch, putting on some nice music, and just popping the crystal on a chakra and just sitting there and seeing what happened and allowing it to speak that way before going and doing my own research.

And that’s what I really experienced quite profoundly with diapause is that ability to just feel that embrace of mother earth. And it is so interesting what Nicholas is saying about, you know, all the copper crystals having that real goddess energy. I couldn’t agree more. As you were listing them all, Nicholas, I’m like, yep. That’s feminine.

Yep. That’s feminine. Yep. That’s feminine. All those crystals really helped to bring in that feminine energy and that feminine embrace.

But I think there’s also a power in each of the copper crystals as well that helps you to embrace your own feminine energy, and that priestess energy, that goddess energy, that, that magical energy as well.

Ashley: I love that. Thank you, Adam. I…you know…this had me thinking also about copper’s energy as a conductor. Right? It is such an amazing conductor of energy.

And because of that, I think it can also act as a conduit, not just to transfer energy like we would think in electrical wires, but also between ourselves and the divine, ourselves and our guides. And for me, Dioptase has always been this crystal about connection and particularly connection with guides. Now whatever that looks like for you, maybe you have a set, you know, spiritual guide that you work with, maybe you connect with angels, maybe you connect with animal familiars. However, you sort of view that, I feel like dioptase and and truly all the copper based minerals, but especially dioptase, I think this is true for, amplifies that connection. Like, it really acts as that sort of conduit to allow those messages, that energy that comes in symbols, phrases, clairaudience, clairvoyance, however, we are receiving in that moment to come through loud and clear.

And I found this was one of the stones that most supported me in working to stop second guessing my own intuition, to to just trust what my guides, what the universe, what spirit was sharing with me. Because, I mean, I don’t know about anyone else who’s out there listening, but I know for me, this was something when I first started to open up intuitively, I had such a difficult time with trusting that guidance that I was sort of being given instead of doubting or, really second guessing in a way where I was lacking discernment over, you know, what is is truly coming through in this moment, what is maybe my own stuff, my own desire sort of poking its head in, and was the thing that really helped me get to this place of stillness and receptivity. And so for me, holding this just over my heart, feeling that sort of comfort and tapping into the energy of the stone, taking a few deep breaths and just getting curious about what I was receiving, allowing myself to sort of explore it, brought me a great deal of comfort and trust and helping me understand whether what was coming through was okay.

No. That’s sort of my conscious mind wanting to, you know, get some things in the mix or no, I feel like this is really, you know, guidance that’s coming from my guides that’s being shared with me right now. And that was a process that took a great deal of practice, but Dioptase was my constant throughout that process. And throughout that time where I was really honing those intuitive skills to the point where anytime I I wanted to explore something new, whether intentionally seeking it out or just kind of unfolded and happened that way, I would bring that dioptase into the process and repeat that very simple practice of holding it over my heart, taking a few deep breaths, getting myself centered. It was like my cue to my intuitive self that, okay, we’re going into this other space where we’re open, we’re receptive and, letting sort of some of that day to day chatter that happens in the back of your mind, calm down a little bit.

So those messages could come through a little bit more clearly. And, you know, I think no matter how you experience these connections, and I think we’re all very different and unique in this way, the way that we receive messages, energy, intuitive guidance can look very different for each and every person. And no matter how that sort of comes through for you, diopters can help you get in that space where you feel open and able to receive that wisdom, those messages without a lot of judgment. And I think this is because it enhances our ability to connect being that conduit of energy. But it also creates that little bit of peace and tranquility to calm down a lot of that internal chatter so that it’s almost like trying to I think of it sort of like trying to tune into a radio station if you’re old like me and you remember, like, tuning into an actual radio station and not just opening your Spotify.

But, you know, you’d have to cut out the static. You have to get to the place where it’s most clear and being really centered and present was one great way to do that. And just keeping this a simple practice and repeating that over and over like a very mini ritual, just something that told my body, my mind, my spirit that I was going into that intuitive space.

Adam: Ashley, when you’re talking about working with the Dioptase in that way, you know, being a green crystal, did you feel that it was helping with settling, like, the intuitive feelings within coming through your heart and your feelings, or were they still coming through other ways as well?

Ashley: You know, that’s an interesting question. I think for me, that’s where I feel my intuition. It’s very much body centric. It’s very somatic. And so for me, like, that’s so central.

And so it felt very natural to hold that crystal there. And also because my breathing was such a big part of it, having it right over the lungs where, you know, you fill those lungs, you fill that belly with that deep breath and you actually feel that release happening as you kind of get present. That was a big part of it for me. And so I think that was why I naturally brought that to the heart. It wasn’t even so much about the color association, which I know many people associate those beautiful greens with the heart center.

It was just more of that’s where my intuition lies. That’s where my center of trust lies. That’s where my place of connection lies. And so I think, you know, that might be your belly. That might be your brow.

Think about where that place of connection is for you and hold the crystal there.

Adam: I I know this is not necessarily how I use Dioptase or why I’d reach for Dioptase, but a lot of people when it comes through this, our intuition and messages that are coming somehow. But sometimes also we have a lot of emotions. And do you think anyone who gets overwhelmed by their emotions might actually benefit from maybe either meditating or wearing a diopterist pendant over that kind of chest area?

Ashley: I think that’s a great idea because it does facilitate that sort of space of tranquility. So helping you be able to name the emotion, hold space for the emotion, and then decide how you wanna move through it. You know what I mean? Is it that I just want to acknowledge that I’m having this emotion right now and then sort of set it aside because it’s too much, or do I really want to get curious about it and explore into it and feel a little bit of that nurturing and support that comes from that Dioptase also to feel like I have a good companion, a good touchstone to sort of work through that. I think that is a very natural way to want to explore this stone and also because of this connection to discernment and trust, I think it can help shed some light on what we’re feeling, especially if we have a difficult time naming our emotions, identifying them, if they feel really muddled up.

And it can also help us, I think, provide provide a little support for us so that we can work through and get curious about those emotions, especially, you know, speaking personally here, when I’m feeling really overwhelmed and just like things kind of snowball into this big mountain that feels impossible, A crystal like Dioptase can just help me slow down and sort of tease apart all the little pieces and kind of break it down into something that’s more manageable. I think sometimes when we feel really strong emotions, we’re actually feeling lots of layers of emotion, and it sort of takes a little bit of working through them to figure out what’s at the core, what’s at the root so that we can address it if we choose to.

Adam: So would you say it’s probably more of a it’s not an everyday crystal that you might work with every day, but one that you’d need when you do want to kind of go that extra step?

Ashley: That’s a good question. I think if you’re doing that sort of deeper emotional healing work, then it could be something that you kind of plan for, that you take the time to, you know, set aside a space, a time to go through that work and process that. But, you know, in terms of working with Dioptase for that everyday guidance, that connection with guides, that enhancing of trust and your intuition, It can also really be an amazing daily companion. Now how you work with it, I think is where it gets a little bit tricky. I have seen a little bit of Dioptase jewelry from time to time.

Usually it kind of cut into a little shape on some matrix with a few little crystals, but obviously it’s quite fragile. So it’s not often set into jewelry. I’ve seen some, you know, pretty questionable beads and things out on the market too. No doubt there are some real ones, but there are some fake ones out there for sure. I think a lot of times you’ll see some other copper based minerals or just dyed whatever, and people will label it as dioptase because it’s a more unusual crystal, a little bit more expensive crystal.

So there’s always gonna be the fakes on the market when that happens. But so having it as something that you’re working with daily, I think you do still have to be really intentional about it. You do still really have to set aside that time and space to work with it as a stone because most of us aren’t just gonna be carrying around a big lump of dioptase in our pocket. It’s a little bit too fragile, little bit too pricey to want to, you know, risk damaging our stones that way. So keeping it in your sacred space, maybe somewhere where you can do some journaling or some meditation, just be really thoughtful and intentional, I think is probably your best bet.

And if you’re like me and you need that good visual reminder to actually get in there and do the work, Put it somewhere you know you’re gonna see it, whether that’s your kitchen table, next to your coffee maker, on your bedside table, just as that good solid reminder to take the time to connect.

Adam: I love that. Kyle, you’re sitting there very quietly today. What’s Dioptase brought to you and brought into your life?

Kyle: For me, Dioptase has been a journey stone. It has been something that I have had to do a lot of work with. Can you hear me?

Adam: Yeah. We can hear you just great.

Kyle: All good. For me, there is a term that comes through for Dioptase that sort of is the clear message, and it’s the transcendence of our human emotions whilst giving space for them. So we can kind of observe them. We can look at them. We can feel what we need to feel without being controlled or overwhelmed by them.

I found Igot taste to be something that I didn’t work with at the start of my journey. I didn’t connect with at the very beginning. I didn’t have an immediate connection and link with. But deeper into my journey, I found myself ready, and it was because I was ready to really open my heart to that level of compassion that I think Dioptase works from, and that compassion in action and being able to live in a way that is compassionate first and foremostly for self and then for the world around you. And I realized I probably wasn’t living in a compassionate way for self.

I probably was not taking care of myself as well as I could. I was compromising. I was not loving myself in that full way that the universe does. And I had to love my mistakes, love my misgivings, love the f ups, pardon me, that I went through, the frustrations that I’ve had with myself, the, why is this on my plate? Why like, those sorts of questions that you ask yourself and you get frustrated with, and it’s like, how about you just think about what you can do?

And right now, maybe you just need to give space to the emotion and feel the emotion. Maybe you need to start realizing that there are some patterns that need to change, and that’s actually the most loving way forward is by making those changes and implementing those changes on a personal level. For me, a huge it almost feels ironic and kind of disparate to the dioptase message, but a huge message that came through and has been a huge one for me with dioptase is the message of no as a complete sentence. And being able to just say, no. I’m not justifying.

I’m not over explaining. This is it. This is how I’m feeling. This is what’s happening. This is what I’m doing.

Does that make sense?

Ashley: It really does. And I’m curious how that idea of no as a complete sentence for you shows up as a piece of that self compassion and really taking care of self.

Kyle: It has been so much about the choices that I’ve been making. It has been so much about not doing what I would compulsively normally do, which is people please and say yes and go above and beyond and to want to be the one that reaches out, to want to be the one that puts everyone else first, to try as hard as I can when perhaps it wasn’t coming back in the same way. Perhaps there is a a need for me to take care of my energy better. Perhaps I wasn’t listening and that’s why I burnt out. And this is why nowadays, I am much more accustomed and happy to say no.

I’m in a much better place of taking care of those needs and learning. I’m still learning. I think we’re all still learning, but giving myself space to go. I’m having a really emotional day, so I need to give myself more space with those emotions. I’m having a very pain driven week, and so I need to make sure that I am saying, I can’t do that.

Can I actually finish this early? Can I be horizontal for more? Can I cancel some plans? Like, just this last weekend, I couldn’t go to family dinner because of pain, because it was too much effort, too much energy. Not that I don’t love my family, but, you know, sometimes it costs a little bit more.

And to know that these little things don’t make you a bad person, you don’t have to feel guilty about them. You don’t have to let yourself feel bad about putting yourself first and your needs first, and what is so important for you.

Ashley: So let me ask, do you think that this is showing up in that way as a stone of supporting the setting of boundaries, or is it more, that it’s acting on the side of self forgiveness, or is it both?

Kyle: I think it’s all of the above. It’s sort of I think that’s the complexity of as an energy is it’s like I think it connects to interconnectedness. Right? It connects to how things are layered, how things are so much more complex than just, I need love, rose quartz, or I need to release a little bit of emotion and speak clearly, blah blah blah. It’s like, guess what?

There are emotions that are caused by what your parents gave you. There are emotions that are caused by societal things. There are religion. There is the place that you are born and are living in. There is the economic situation of the world.

Like, there are so many complex things that create the emotions that we feel. And if we’re not actually going, okay. These are all separate things. I’m not as emotionally driven by this one thing that I thought I was. That was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, as they say.

Right? Like, there are things that push us over the edge, but they’re rarely the thing. And Dioptase, for me, has allowed me to understand and underpin so many different layers. And if you think about back to what Nicholas was saying about how the copper comes through and it changes color and it goes from the orange to the green, you guys from the United States should know with the Statue of Liberty, she started out that beautiful bronze y orange, and it took that color to patina and then become that green. And, like, it’s us.

Like, sometimes we go out there full force and fiery and passionate, and actually we need to settle down, get a bit minty green, chill out a bit, let the love come to us, allow us to mature. And I think dioptase is a message, and so many copper minerals have that message of receiving, receptivity, allowing. Just slow down. Chill out. Like, you have the time, and if you give time, create time, all of a sudden you have more time, and that creates more time.

And all of a sudden you have all of this space for yourself, and you can give to yourself, and you can take care of yourself, and listen to yourself, and change these modes of feeling selfish, and actually knowing that you’re being self full. You’re taking care of your needs, you’re prioritizing yourself, and by prioritizing yourself, you can actually be the best person for everyone else around you. You can actually do the best for the world around you, and you can be a better individual. But at the beginning, it feels selfish. It feels like, oh, I’m taking away from people.

Oh, I’m doing less than I would normally do. Oh, this feels uncomfortable. But it’s like, if you keep doing the same thing, you can’t actually reset properly and see it clearly and give that space. Like, if you think most of these things probably come from before you’re even born, and we’re carrying and not allowing ourselves to put the backpack down, empty it out. Right?

But this isn’t mine. That’s not mine. I don’t need that. Like, I’m going off into the desert. Why do I have all of this rain gear?

Like, it’s realizing that the stuff that we carry is often put upon us, and it’s up to us to actually put it down. That’s boundaries. That’s that saying no and going, you know what? That’s not mine. That’s not for me.

You have your stuff. I have my stuff. If I can help, I will, and I will always if I can. But I’m also not going to take away from myself and put myself last for people anymore because I know that that then makes me a worse person for everyone in the long run.

Ashley: I think this also kind of comes back to that discernment piece in a way. Because I think, like, you were talking about, like, do I really need to be bringing my rain gear to the desert? Sometimes there are things that have served us so well in the past, and so we have this connection to them. We wanna hang on to them because, oh, well, that worked for me. Oh, well, that served me really well.

Oh, that, you know, was an important part of my life, and this could be a way of being a person, a situation, whatever it is. But then as we grow and change and our circumstance changes and our situations change and just because something served us well in the past doesn’t mean that it’s what we need in the present or that it will be what we need in the future. And so having that discernment piece to realize, like, what is important and valuable, I think is important too. And, Kyle, I just love that you opened up so much about your personal experience with this stone because it’s really inspiring me. And I’m thinking about this, like, the people pleasing and all that stuff and how supportive Dioptase could be for this.

And it makes me think, Adam, I know we are coming up on some pretty big shifts cosmically. So how could someone start incorporating dioptase into their present so that they can be set up well for what is coming up cosmically in the near future.

Adam: Yeah. Well, there’s something really interesting happening this week. And I love what Kyle was saying about, you know, having that compassion for oneself because I think once we got once we work with DiopTize, allowing us to go through that process and then care for ourselves, we can then give from a full bottle rather than an empty bottle or an empty vessel in that type of way. And I do find that diapause works so beautifully with, what I call the higher heart chakra. So we obviously have the 7 main chakras, which we all know rather well.

And the heart chakra for me is very much about my relationship with the individual, how much love is there going backward and forward. Is there enough giving and enough receiving? The higher heart chakra, which is a bit more of a subtle energy chakra that have become more, fallen into our consciousness in the last, say, 50 years as we’ve become more sensitive to energies. We’ve noticed other sharpers in and around the body. The higher heart chakra has more to do with how we feel about humanity as a whole.

Do we feel that the blood sucking parasites bleeding the earth dry and selfish and all that type of thing? Or do we see that everyone is trying their best and we’re all on that journey? And I find that has really helped us to for me, it has very much allowed me to have that acceptance, that compassion, though, that feeling as well. And I think it is partly because of what Kyle said. When you care about yourself, then you’re able to care about other people, and you’ve gotta put your you’ve gotta put your own oxygen mask on first as the saying often goes as well.

Now what’s really exciting this week is we don’t have a retrograde happening this week. We have something coming out of retrograde, so something going direct. Now we all know that the planets…Mercury and that…go into retrograde, and there’s a few other astrological bodies floating around as well that are really interesting. One that was discovered in 1977 was Chiron. Now Chiron is what’s called a centaur, and it behaves a bit like an asteroid, bit like a comet.

But when astrologists discovered this in 1977, they found it gave us really great insights in understanding that what happened to us in our past, can often come and keep tripping us up in the future, or we could actually turn that around to be our superpower. So for example, you know, out of all the group here, Ashley is gonna be best equipped to understand what it’s best, what it’s like to be a woman and the troubles of being a woman in life because of you’re a woman. And so when we have challenges in our lives, it allows us to also excel at that later in our life because we’ve experienced that. So it’s turning pain and suffering into an advantage in that way, and that’s what Chiron’s about. Now there’s another centaur in the sky that a lot of people haven’t heard about.

It was only discovered in 1997, and it’s called Chariklo. Now Chariklo, which is charialo, you’re gonna wanna Google this one afterwards. The first thing that is really amazing is the discovery chart. So just like we can pull our own birth chart about how we were born and where all the planets were, you can do it when an astrological body was found. And when Chariklo was, discovered, she formed a perfect 6th grade star with 5 other astrological bodies in the sky.

If you Google Chariklo discovery chart, you’re gonna see this beautiful hexagram in the sky, which for me, the number 6 is very much about harmony. It’s about balance. Really, really interesting. Chariklo in mythology is actually Chiron’s wife, and she represents the grace that comes with healing. You know, we often look at healing of being like, oh, I’m gonna fight my way through the struggles and the pain and the agony and that type of thing.

That’s very Chiron. We’ve gotta fight through and win the battle. Whereas, Chariklo is very much about there is an ease and a grace and a beauty of healing. And not only is it beautiful for us to heal, but it allows us then to help other people and guide them on their way as well. So when we have a retrograde, retrogrades are like splinters.

It’s when they go in and when they come out that they can hurt the most. So Chariklo went into retrograde a few months ago and will be coming out this month. And what you might actually start to find is that the struggles you’ve been having over the last few months of especially emotional healing will start to ease up again. You’ll start to be grateful for the healing journey. You’ll be able to have more compassion for other people because it’s really hard when we’re suffering to help other people.

But you may find that this is gonna kind of ease away at this point in time. And this is why I love the payout page right now and why you know, I’ve got my little ring. I’ve got my piece, and I’m gonna have them close to me as Chariklo is coming out to kind of open back up because we know that the world is going through some challenging times. We’re all healing, and let’s embrace each other and embrace that healing, and it doesn’t have to be a struggle. Well it can be easy.

It can be graceful. We can be compassionate to ourselves, and we can be compassionate and accepting to other people as well. And I think Dioptase is absolutely perfect at this time.

Ashley: This reminds me a lot about something that I’ve been talking with people about recently, which is this concept of radical acceptance. And I feel like every single one of us sort of touched on this tonight without necessarily intending to or meaning to, but it’s this idea of accepting what is in a way where you kinda go, okay. This thing just happened. Here’s the situation I find myself in. What happens next?

What do I do next? And there’s this amazing TEDx talk actually about radical acceptance by Maria Milagros. So good. Look it up. Because it kind of talks about this idea.

And, Adam, I feel like what you just said really summed this up. You know, taking these things that we’ve gone through and sort of being able to maybe find that there are actually some gifts in there for us, you know, somewhere. We have to look and be creative sometimes to find them, but sometimes there can be these great gifts there just waiting to be discovered. But, also, I love that you’re talking about this idea of like the splinter. Right?

Something hurting a little bit when it goes in and a little bit when it comes out, because that’s when it’s most noticeable. Right? Sometimes we don’t notice while it’s in there, but we certainly notice when it goes in and we certainly notice when it comes out. So what is going to be happening, do you think, in addition to this idea of these sort of things that need a little bit more healing, and how can we work with our dioptase to help support us through that time?

Adam: I think what we’re gonna start finding is when, when terra chloride comes out of retrograde, when a planet or an astrological body is in retrograde, they take their help away from the planet. It’s you know, that we see that typically with Mercury retrograde. Mercury goes on the holidays for 3 weeks, communication which she governs, goes down the toilet. So with Tara close, she helped this ease and this grace and this acceptance, this radical acceptance of the healing process, of the growth process in that way. And so she’s returning.

She’s coming back from after a several month break. So I think that working with your diet pays and I think what you said before, Ashley, this is not one that you can easily carry around and throw in your pocket and that type of thing. It is probably one to, like Kyle says, cancel something, sit at home, have an evening, allocate now to yourself, and just sit there and hold it hold the stone to your heart and just see how you’re feeling, breathe through and accept things that are happening, and we’re all you know, every single person is has healing to be done on all different levels. And I think just to, accept that with ease and grace and be okay with that, that’s part of it, and to embrace that, I think would be the best way to kind of work with the stone this week.

Ashley: Thank you so much, Adam, for giving everyone some, like, real concrete, meaty things to dig into as we’re going through this time cosmically. I would love to just, like, leave listeners today maybe with something kind of fun. So I would love to know what is everyone’s favorite thing about dioptase? Something that it makes you feel a color, a crystal system. Like, it could be anything or maybe something about your favorite piece of dioptase.

Nicholas, can I put you on the spot to go first?

Nicholas: Absolutely. And, so I am profoundly color blind, but dioptase is so green that I can see that it’s green. And, like, that makes a difference to my perception of it. But the other thing that I really love about its color is that it has a very minor color shift the way we expect Alexandrite to, and it is more teal in artificial light and more emerald with that kind of yellow leaning color in natural light. And that is just like the most mystical thing about dioptase that invites this state of wonder in me.

Ashley: I love that. Kyle, what about you? What is it that really stands out about Dioptase and feels special to you?

Kyle: For me, it is totally even though I’ve spoken so much about the self love journey and boundaries and all of that of stuff. For me, Dioptase is like an abundance mindset. It’s knowing that there is more out there to work with. There is more out there to get. Your limitations or the perceived limitations that you have around you are not that they’re not true, but perhaps they’re not as, solid as you think they are, and there are ways through to create more and bring more of whatever it is that you need into your life.

Adam: For me oh, sorry.

Ashley: Well, I was gonna just say I love that so much. And, Adam, what’s your favorite thing?

Adam: For me, Duarte has really kind of embodied this experience I had when I kind of started my teaching journey when I was working in a crystal shop, many moons ago. And I remember this lady came in one evening, and she said, do you have any guided meditation CDs? I’m like, yep. We’ve got…this is back in the time when we had CDs still…But, yeah, I was like, we’ve got 100 of them.

They go have a look and, you know, see if there’s anything that you like. And I left a tour. And I went and checked back with her after about 10 minutes. I said, have you found anything that you’re looking for? And she said, I know this may sound a bit odd, but every single CD that you have here is really selfish.

I was like, what does that mean? And she said, well, they’re all about healing, you know, helping to heal my inner child and balance my chakras and connect with my guides and that type of thing. And we had a bit more of a chat about it, and I found it really interesting about spirituality or the new age movement sometimes can be very much about me, me, me, me, me. Now there is a need for that healing of the me, but for what effect? It’s so that we can then go out there and deliver our gifts to the world and help make the world a better place overall.

And for me, I feel that I’ve placed in the conversation we’ve had today really allows us to heal ourselves so that we can then go out and help the you know, the world’s a challenging place, and we need good people out there doing good things as much as possible. And I find diet pays is a stone that’s come into our consciousness, that’s come into our awareness to allow us to get through our own shit so that we can help others with their own shit and but it’s what a better place.

Ashley: Oh, I loved it so much.

Adam: Ashley, what about you?

Ashley: Oh, okay. So I’m thinking of a time where I was going through some really serious burnout. I was just not feeling myself. I was feeling super low energy, and I don’t mean, like, low vibrations. I mean, like, low like, lethargic, like, low energy.

Like, every I was tired all the time. I just did not have anything in me because I had just been giving and giving and giving and giving and giving. And I was really lacking a lot of that self care that Kyle was talking about earlier, and it just led me to this place of burnout. And I have this beautiful Dioptase cluster that is kind of almost like a little geode type shape. It’s like a little cave and just holding that little cavern and sort of visualizing myself going into that sleepy, dark, cozy, sparkly, Dioptase cave brought me so much comfort and helped me realize that I had really been neglecting my rest.

Like because I just kept thinking every time I held it, I just wanna curl up and go inside of there. And I didn’t stop and ask myself, why am I feeling this for quite a while? And I finally got to that place. Well, why do I feel this need to want to just shrink tiny and go inside my dioptase cluster? Because I was so burnt out.

I was so exhausted, and it was the people pleasing, the, like, doing too much, not caring for self, all of those things. But Dioptase helped bring a lot of awareness around that. And even though I’m human, so not perfect about this, I am trying really hard to work on creating more spaciousness for rest in my life. And I really feel like I owe a lot to that relationship with Dioptase and that connection to DIOPTASE for shining some light on that.

Adam: Well, I think we’ve gone on a really nice journey today with Dioptase. For some people, it may not be a crystal they have in their collection or have worked with that much. But I love how it’s all just kind of fell into place with this beautiful crystal that allows us to create space to heal ourselves and then bring healing to the world and open our hearts in that way. So, guys, thank you very much for joining us for this confab today. And I guess we’ll jump in next week and dive into another amazing gift from mother earth. Until then, take care.

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