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Join Adam Barralet, Kyle Perez , Ashley Leavy and Nicholas Pearson in Episode #27 of the Crystal Confab Podcast as they do a deep dive into Blue Sapphire meaning, including:

• Blue Sapphire for commitment
• Sharpening the mind with Blue Sapphire
• History and folklore of Blue Sapphire
• Blue Sapphire and Full Moon in Libra

Tune in now for a deeper look at Blue Sapphire meaning!

Podcast Transcript:

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 four crystal nerds, healers, workers, and lovers for Crystal Confab: a casual chat about all things crystals.

Nicholas Pearson: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the crystal confab. My name is Nicholas, and I’m joined by three of my crystal besties, Kyle, Ashley, and Adam, and we are gonna confab about another gemstone. So this week, we are going to talk about the sibling gem of one we just recently covered. And although we alluded to the fact this was coming, I think it’s gonna be really fun to talk about sapphires. And before we really, like, dive into our our separate topics, I would love to just kinda open the floor to, we’ll say, the the cornucopia of things we see labeled sapphire on the market from maybe different flavors and colors of it to things that are maybe a little disingenuous that can also be out there.

Kyle Perez: I am so excited to talk about a little bit of sapphire. Sapphire is a stone that is very important to me. I spoke about this in our last episode. I have orange sapphire in my wedding band as one of my important stones of connection, but I would really like to talk about fakes first. Fakes, synthetics, imitations because sapphire being one of the big four, emerald, diamonds, sapphire, and ruby, it is one of the most imitated and faked stones.

Right? It’s one of the most and I’ve been doing it the longest. Right? Because these stones have been loved for so long. And I’ve got a couple of examples that I have and you’re not going to be able to see it as well as I’d like you to, but this is a really pretty blue sapphire pendant.

It’s got a lovely little clear stone on the top. But this is one of the lyres that is out there. And what I know with my little loop when I look at it sideways is it has a clear portion on the top, a tiny little sliver of dark blue, and then clear underneath. That means it’s a foil scented stone, so it’s an imitation. It’s not even a real sapphire.

It’s totally, totally imitation. And then within this little box, you can see a lovely bright blue stone in the middle. This was actually our gift. There’s a couple of real ones on the outside, but it’s, you know, gotta keep them together because they’re all sapphires. The one in the middle is actually a synthetic manmade sapphire that was a gift to all of our gemology class when we graduated.

We were told it was. It’s one full carat. It’s really, really beautiful, but it is a lab grown example. And it’s really interesting to know that we have lab grown. We have synthetic.

We have, like, imitation. There’s all of these different layers of fakes that are out there. So it’s really important that if you can, when you’re looking at jewelry, fine jewelry, especially examples, a nice triplet loop as a base is an amazing place to start. These have come a long way in a really long time. They’ve got UV lights on them.

They’ve got lights on them, so you can really dive into and look at stones and see within them. And that’s something that reveals a sapphire. Sapphires will often have layers of blue color, which I alluded to with Ruby last week. That dichroic nature of showing more than one color is something that is very common in our sapphires. So it’s important to look for that subtle difference in color, but not necessarily clear blue in such dramatic spaces.

Ashley Leavy: Let me ask you, Kyle. In your training, did you ever come across, like, where you had to inspect different types of sapphires and see if they were fully genuine or not? Because I have read that there are sapphires that are glass filled, where it would be like a natural sapphire, and they would actually fill any little tiny microscopic holes with glass to make it a little bit more solid for use in jewelry. And they’ll typically be disclosed, and they’ll typically be a little bit more affordable, but maybe not always. Is that something people have to look out for when they’re buying fine jewelry, or have you ever seen any examples of that?

Kyle: Honestly, in sapphire, it’s not something I’ve seen a lot because it’s quite dramatic. The refractive difference between glass and sapphire, it’s quite dramatic. So it’s not something that you’ll see too much. If they have to, they will and it should be disclosed. Obviously, they probably won’t.

But basically, there’s this really big difference in diffraction that you see with the glass and the sapphire. So it looks different. It looks odd. It won’t sit correctly within it, if that makes sense.

Adam Barralet: It’s all I’m going oh, sorry, Ashley. Go on.

Ashley: That’s okay. Thank you for that. I also know that we have to look out for, heat treated and artificially irradiated enhancements, which are obviously gonna make the color of the sapphire more blue, but I wanted to kind of tell everyone about something that I’ve seen for pretty much, like, my whole career out there, but I didn’t know what it was until just about a year ago. So have you ever? I know we have jewelry vendors come to my shop all the time and they’ll be like, oh, let me show you all these great things we have. And a lot of times you’ll find some fantastic, really unique pieces.

But I kept having this one jewelry vendor come up from Chicago to my shop to bring some things to sell wholesale, and she had rubies, emeralds, and sapphires in her jewelry that I could tell were not rubies, emeralds, or sapphires. And I was like, what on earth is this? All of the stones looked very similar and they looked unusually bright, and it looked like, from my research at least, from what I could find, it turns out that it’s dyed sillimanite. I don’t know if I’m even saying that right. Nicholas is, like, shaking his head.

Nicholas, do you have any, like, knowledge of this? Because I see it a lot now.

Nicholas: Yeah. It’s gotten really pretty common. I actually bought a large piece of this material faceted in, like, your classic kind of rectangular emerald cut, like, chunky, oversized because it looked from a picture on the Internet to be a lower grade kind of matrixy emerald. And we took a picture of it and put it in a book. And then later, I would find out that this is dyed fibrous sillimanite.

So forms in really big masses. Sometimes if it’s good enough quality, it will have the kind of cat’s eye effect. It will, when cotton cabochon, be really nice to look at if the fibers are really well organized. If you cut it differently so the fibers are oriented in a different way, it’s also fiber optic the way selenite could be. But most of the material that we’re seeing in in the gem trade that’s being dyed in offensively bright colors and being sold as more precious gems, is more like a kind of felted mass of these fibers that’s the result of, like, metamorphic activity kind of squishing the the rock together to produce them.

Silimanite is an indicator species that we often use to understand how strongly metamorphosed a rock that contains it can be. So it’s not uncommon to find it in this kind of format, but it seems to be getting more and more widespread as the years go on to sell it off as these other gems.

Adam: Well, I can imagine as people are listening and watching this, they’re kinda getting worried about how do I pick you know, I’m gonna go buy an engagement ring on the weekend. How do I know? And that type of thing. And one technique I learned from, another jewelry vendor that I knew, who used to buy a lot of his stones in parts of, like, Southeast Asia and so on, is he relied on the good old Mohs hardness scale, which is a scale of hardness from one to 10. And, of course, rubies and sapphires, are nine.

So what he would do is he’d take a little quartz point with him and which is of Mohs hardness of seven. So in reality, I guess what happens is a harder stone will always dent or scratch the softer stone. So he would go to these stores or these distributors and go, hello, I’d like to see your rubies. And they’re like, oh, here we go, sir. And, it got these real rubies.

They’re like, yes, sir. Real rubies. And that’s why if I get this quartz point and scratch them, it’s not gonna scratch them because they’re harder. Is that right? They’re like, sir, come out back.

We show you other rubies and that type of way. So that’s a kind of real basic way of telling, you know, a ruby and a sapphire from something. Do you know what the Mohs hardness scale of selenide is, guys? Nicholas?

Nicholas: Yeah. It’s a seven like quartz, but this is where we also have to remember that hardness is not the only trait that is going to influence the reading. We have to talk about tenacity and toughness, which don’t get numerical scales like our hardness scale. The hardness scale is actually a comparative chart and not a scale of absolute hardness because a nine is in reality many, many, many, many times harder than an eight. And a 10, like, inconceivably harder than a nine, but, like, a two and a three, they’re pretty darn close.

So it’s a ranked chart, and the challenge here is because we’ve chosen some indicator species, we’re gonna have to group things similarly that may not read the same way. So because of that, like, fibrous structure that the sillimanite has when it’s when it’s in that kind of big massive form, it’s gonna be really resistant to abrasion even though an individual crystal, if you could isolate one, has about the same hardness ever so slightly more than quartz probably does.

Ashley: And I will say, like, Nicholas, you brought up that you purchased this beautiful, you know, seem to be emerald online. And I think this is, like, part of part of what people can look for with this particular variety of fake, whether that’s looking at sapphire, ruby, or emerald, is looking for it’s almost always, from what I’ve seen, in those faceted stones because when you cab it, it looks a little different. It catches the light a little differently. It’s a little bit more obvious that it’s not quite what it seems. So those emerald cuts, any type of really faceted shape, honestly, I’ve seen it in the nice emerald cut like rectangles, I’ve seen it in ovals, that sort of thing.

And then if the color looks just a little too good to be true for the price, that’s usually an indicator. And then the other thing is if you’re purchasing online, keep in mind that a lot of sellers, they’ll show you a picture of a real ruby, they’ll show you a picture of a real sapphire, and that’s not what you’ll get. Or they can enhance or change the color on those photographs. Right? They can show you exactly what it is you really are buying and not disclose what it is.

And I don’t think, for the most part, that people are out there really trying to, like, pull the wool over your eyes. I think, like, this vendor that I had coming up from Chicago, this wasn’t intentional on her part. I think she bought those stones thinking that they were genuine gems, and they weren’t. And so it was kind of like she was sold something that wasn’t quite right. She didn’t really have the knowledge, and she was reselling it.

So I think that happens a lot as well. And most of us, we won’t be able to do the hardness test, we won’t be able to do that thing, but just knowing this is an example, looking for those faceted stones in colors that are a little bit too good to be true, usually coming out of India honestly and a lot of the jewelry manufacturing there, so looking for a lot of the sort of styles that we see and almost always with these set in sterling silver, which it’s not that you won’t find precious gems set in sterling, but, usually, they’re reserved for a little bit nicer metals too, more precious metals. So those are kind of all giveaways. Look at that stuff and see what you can piece together.

Adam: I’m really interested. Kyle mentioned the lab grown crystals before as well. I’ve seen some different little snippets of information coming up recently. And, you know, one argument might be, oh, lab grown is better. They’re still the same structure and everything like that, but it’s more environmentally friendly because we’re not mining them and taking them all out of the ground.

However, I then got some extra information about, well, all the different things that are required, like the ingredients need to be sourced from all around the world. There’s actually three other people nodding at the moment. So they’re actually environmentally less friendly than mining real stone as well. So if you thought, oh, well, you know, I don’t like the idea of digging things out of the ground. Know that all the different stuff that needs to be dug out of the ground to make your artificial diamond or sapphire or whatever it might be can actually have a worse consequence than actually getting a real thing as well.

How does everyone feel about that? Nicholas?

Nicholas: Oh, this argument I’ve seen coming from such well intentioned people. And all we have to do, like, if we are approached with this argument, because people and as we’ve talked about it, people have strong opinions about the ethics of the crystal industry at large, which, of course, under late stage late late stage capitalism could do better. But the crystal healing market is also the smallest representation of all mining and extraction performed in the world, and there are far more sectors that do more harm, which is not to give us a get out of jail free card. But when someone brings the argument that, you know, if we use an artificially made gem, it is more sustainable. It’s better for the earth.

Number one, where did the raw materials come from? And if you just ask that question open hearted, gently, sincerely, you’re gonna see the light bulb go on, the eyes get wide, and the jaw go slack every single time. And then we have to also consider how much energy it takes to grow these things. I’ve heard it said, and I don’t. I don’t really know how true this is because there are too many variables. But, like, a decent sized batch of diamonds, synthetically grown diamonds, you could power a small city on for the amount of electricity that it takes.

I think maybe city is a generous term to describe this, but the point is it takes a lot of energy to do it. And there are lots of different methods for growing different kinds of synthetic gems, but the truth is that the environmental impact is only one piece of the puzzle. If we’re also trying to sidestep the ethical impact on human beings, there are still human beings mining those raw materials, and they’re probably doing it under equally bad conditions. So it is complicated. I’m actually not anti synthetic gems.

As long as we disclose what they are, we use honest labeling. We’re not taking things that appear to be something and calling them something else because that’s what we call a simulant and not a synthesized gem. Those words are different for a reason. Some episodes back, we chatted about the honeycomb ruby, which is a ruby simulant, but it’s not synthetic ruby because it is not structurally identical to ruby. So if you have a structurally identical lab grown sapphire, and it is in your budget to have that, but not the perfect precious natural sapphire.

Get what’s in your budget. Like, don’t stress yourself out. Work with what’s accessible to you. You can also choose lower quality sapphires. Sapphire is something that is frequently mined for industrial purposes, and some of that material ends up getting turned into jewelry or cabbed or tumbled, to find its way into the crystal healing market.

But, I’m all about, like, just having a really transparent conversation about all of the gray areas in this.

Ashley: I think this is a great question that you posed, Adam, and and it kind of led me down the same path that Nicholas ended up at, which is when it comes to those synthetics, those lab growns, if you’re looking for something that really is, like, transparent, gem quality, that sort of thing, and that’s what’s in your budget, then go ahead and go for that. For me, personally, I rather have just, like, an everyday quality little stone than have the, you know, synthetic version that’s gonna be the gem grade. For me, this is kind of more energetically what I feel aligned with, but, you know, everyone’s gonna be a little different there.

Adam: I was just reflecting, and I guess, you know, if someone just wants a sparkle, something ornamental, then go for lab grown if that’s within your budget. But I think we all talk about the magical powers of these crystals, and I think that’s something it’s not just in the structure and the ingredients. It’s in the time and the energy and the essence of what mother earth put into actually growing it and all those situations. And we’ve had some great discussions in the past of how crystals form. I remember just recently, Nicholas talking about how a petticoat is formed.

That journey is kind of, you know, creating the crystal and it’s part of it just like we are who we are because we’ve been on a journey. It’s like us all downloading doctorates from the Internet and going, I’m a doctor now type of thing. We’ve gotta go through the journey. And for me, you know, if it’s not a natural crystal, I’m not willing to use it in my magic or spiritual or healing works at all. Now moving on, we’ve been talking about what’s happening with sapphires now, but I can imagine just like when we mentioned with Rubies last week, there was, you know this is not this is not a thing that’s isolated to the here and the now.

These beautiful stones have probably been yearned for for centuries, and there’s probably been some mistakes along the way. Nicholas, is that true? Sapphire’s kind of had this interesting journey of what a sapphire is and what it’s good for and so on?

Nicholas: Big time. I hinted at this last week. And the really like, the the bottom line is that our word for sapphire today, only fairly recently in the span of human history became associated with the variety of corundum we know as sapphire. And for the majority of the use of this word and its cognates, it referred to lapis lazuli. So, the origin of this word in English, we have a journey it takes from English back into middle French, earlier than that into Latin where it was borrowed directly from Greek.

The Greeks probably got it from the Phoenicians who ultimately sourced it from the Hebrew language, and that word is sapphire. And sapphire is one of the most recognizable gemstone names that we see in the Hebrew Bible. It’s there there’s a lot of references to it, and although a lot of modern English translations just use the word sapphire because they’re cognates, it is absolutely not the gemstone that the ancient people knew as sapphire. So when we start looking at those biblical texts and we’re trying to get a feel for what the energy of sapphire is, we have to frame everything within the idea that they’re actually talking about a very, very different rock. So, ultimately, this association is really well evidenced in textual history.

I’m a big old nerd. We’re gonna, like, fast forward a few centuries from biblical Hebrew and look at the early adoption of this term into Greek. And from there, it kind of spread through, we’ll say the Hellenistic period, Greco Roman literature, and ultimately throughout Europe. But one of the earliest references that we have in Greek to this is a very famous book, by Theophrastus, usually translated as on the stones, would be like the end of the fourth century BCE. So about, you know, twenty three, twenty four, a hundred years ago, this text is written.

And it’s also the first time that we see the word saphiro or saphiro written in Greek. And luckily for us, this is also one of the very few times there is a very lucid depiction of the term and the rock it’s describing. So rather than just describing the radiance or the brilliance of sapphire like we see in most earlier texts, sometimes describing it as transparent or colorless, which is also challenging, given that we knew it applied to Lapis Lazuli originally. We get a really clear depiction. And there is a passage in this book that reads something to the effect that there are also other stones from which seals are cut.

Some of them only for their appearance like sardium, which would be carnelian, Lapis or Jasper, and the sapphires. The last of these seems to be spotted with gold. And this phrase at the end is our clear indication that the ancient sapphire was actually lapis lazuli because it’s a metamorphic rock. It is metamorphosed limestone, believe it or not. And one of the most iconic features of high quality lapis are little flecks of pyrite in there.

Another really important clue is that Theophrastus is reporting on an already ancient tradition of cutting this gemstone into seals. There is a really spurious etymology that’s out there that suggests the word, sapir comes from or, which might mean, to cut or to engrave. Now we were talking about the Mohs hardness scale earlier. Diamonds were not regularly available in The Levant or The Mediterranean in the times that these texts were written. So if we were talking about engraving or cutting corundum into a seal or into anything else, you would need a diamond to do so.

And that simply was not an option. And lapis lazuli is significantly softer. Its number one ingredient by volume is calcite, which has a Mohs hardness value of three. So we’ve got some other pretty clear references that the biblical and post biblical early kind of, we’ll say classical sapphire was in fact lapis lazuli. But over time, the two gems did get kind of conflated.

In some of these Greek texts, there’s an interesting phenomenon that takes place where sapphire was adopted after they already had a word for this material. And that that that word is. It’s the origin of our word cyan, which also gives rise to the word kyanite, for example, whose name means blue stone. And was a really rich blue stone. Eventually, that and Saferas referred to the same rock, but they diverged.

And Keanos took on the association being pure lazurite as opposed to the sapphire, which was the metamorphic rock of lazurite, calcite, pyrite, and dozens of other accessory minerals. And the challenge here has been trying to find the earliest iteration of this term. There are a lot of associated words that we can find, allegedly in Indian, although this is also kind of spurious to find these Vedic texts, Sanskrit texts that have seemingly related words, although they don’t appear to refer to a specific gem species. We also find marginal cognates in ancient Egypt. For lapis lazuli, that shares at least a majority of the consonants with the origin of the word sapphire.

We also see it in Ugaritic, in Aramaic. So what our takeaway is is that, there’s a kind of term that we use when talking about gems in an anthropological and historical setting that I think we can apply here. And a really good example of this is found with jades. And maybe one day we’ll talk about how complicated jade is in the archaeological setting, but you have what are referred to often as precious jades, which will be whatever the native version of that is in the region, jadeite or nephrite. But then you also have social jades.

They are usually softer, more plentiful, less valuable rocks that serve the same function. And although the stone carvers would have known the difference between serpentinite rock and true jadeite because one is a heck of a lot easier to carve than the other. They would have been used very similarly in social settings, in religious settings, in magical settings. And we can assume by the time we get to the medieval period when we have the the kind of noble sapphire emerging, particularly by the time we reach the sort of the height of our medieval lapidary tradition, we start to see, like, a a rise in the, Christian lapidary tradition where, like, all of this pre Christian imagery is being reinterpreted. Now we’re starting to take that word and apply it to what is otherwise an entirely new gemstone.

One that is transparent. One that can be very luminous with a good reflective refractive index, one that is also not nearly as easy to cut. And so it becomes associated with royalty, not not merely for having come from the rooftop of the world in in the high mountainous regions like Lapis Lazuli does, but because it is so difficult to work that you had to pay people quite a lot, who were very skilled artisans to have access to it. And so in this period, we get a kind of blending of the use of both of these stones. And, ultimately, it kinda circles us back to our earlier topic where as these two gem species got really murky and muddy as to who was who based on which text and which term, eventually, any blue stone could be called sapphire.

Any faceted piece of paste or blue glass could be called sapphire. And so even until the early modern periods, this is after the renaissance, we find pharmaceutical texts that still talk about lapidary medicine or using gemstones and healing. And almost all of these that we find circulated by the guilds in Western Europe have sections about being able to determine the authenticity of your precious gems, particularly stones like sapphire, because there is no new problem under the sun. The problems that we have in today’s market are the problems that people had three hundred years ago, are the problems that people had three thousand years ago. There are lots of people who’ll do anything to make a buck.

And so the moral of the story is that if we look only to ancient texts, it gets really difficult to know what a sapphire really means to that author, especially if they were writing down someone else’s story that they heard from someone else, who heard it from someone else. And that actually sounds a lot like what happens when we memeify our crystal descriptions on the Internet. Again, there are no new problems under the sun.

Adam: That’s really interesting when you think about how many people take their ideas of what sapphires have been used throughout history for on a magical kind of purpose. You know, a lot of that information could actually be about something like lapis lazuli and how it’s been used in the past in spiritual or religious ways as well. So I guess we should try and, you know, unpack what we feel that sapphires are really good for in this episode. Kyle, what do you find that’s really great for?

Kyle: Well, for me, my journey with sapphire started way back before I even connected to crystals. Not necessarily because I had them, but because I worked in hospitality, I would notice a certain type of person that wore ruby, diamond, sapphire, and emerald. The person that wore sapphire was always shrewd, maybe a little cold, very intelligent, sharp. There was always this decisiveness, this intelligence that I always got from someone that was wearing a blue sapphire. Generally, subtle earrings, a little ring, a man with a signet that had a little blue sapphire in it.

It was never gendered, but they were always really sharp. I dealt with a lot of lawyers, CEOs working on Saint George’s Terrace in Perth, serving coffee to all of those that did all of the work basically in our central business district. I noticed this. And then when I got into crystals, I started noticing the same thing. Very shrewd, very decisive, very great at picking for other people, very great at, like, deciding what they needed for themselves coming in.

This is what I’m getting. I’m getting a present for this person. Thank you very much. I’ll see you in three weeks. Like, it was always very quick.

And so when I started working with Safra, I was like, okay. Let’s see how this works. And it I felt it sharpening, honing, like, directing the mind, helping me to know where my intelligence was. It wasn’t necessarily about being smarty pants. It’s about knowing yourself, knowing your own intelligence, knowing what you know, and not trying to kind of overthink things.

Like, this is what I’m doing. This is what I know. This is what I need to get done. Sometimes we need that coldness, but it’s not cold. It’s just I need to get stuff done.

I need to make decisions. I need to do things. And I found Sapphire really coming into its own with that for me. A really lovely dangly earring. It’s a lovely little piece, but it was this beautiful piece of corundum that has a really soft blue center, and it’s an old stock, old collection piece from a guy named Jerry Norville, who’s an Australian collector.

And this is an Indian specimen. And there’s just something about holiness. I was immediately drawn to it. And I think we touched on it last week with the ruby, that hexagonal strength, that support. It kind of brings everything in and helps it to focus really beautifully.

And I found this balance, this ability to find balance within myself and be more decisive, to hone what I already had, to focus my skills. And I’ve been able to direct it basically with crystals and what I do. Like, what I do with my work, with my crystals, with my knowledge, with my readings, it’s allowed me to hone all of those skills. It’s allowed me to focus all of those skills, bringing them to an even better place. And there’s lots of stuff that I now have gaps of that I don’t worry about because I don’t need to know about it.

Like, it’s not important to hold space in my mind. It’s not important for me to worry about things that I can’t fix or control. I find Blue Sapphire especially able to bring it in and rein it in and go, this is what you can do. This is where you can focus. If you can improve, you can improve bit by bit, but don’t worry about the things that are outside of those realms of what you can and can’t control.

I find this fortification, this insulation, this strength, and I think that hardness, that inner strength really comes with it. I really love all the colors. As we have touched on, I’ve got a little handful of a few here. I’m not really gonna be able to show them properly because of the angle. A bit of orange, a bit of blue, a bit of green, a bit of yellow.

This is a chatoyant brown, gold one that is really, really lovely energetically. The strength that comes from strong crystals, I think, is related to us. I think that, like, Ruby not only has hardness, but it has toughness. Right? It has that strength within us.

And I think one of the key ingredients within it, aluminum, aluminum for everyone in North America, is an ingredient that brings flexibility. For me, the idea of, like, creating a sword and needing it to go through those melting, hardening, melting, hardening to become sharp and perfect and able to be used, our mind is the same. Right? We sometimes have to go through this bending, this warping, this pushing, this pulling, this plunging into something cold all of a sudden to fortify our own mind and our ability to work. Sometimes we actually have to go through these pressurized situations.

I think Sapphire helps us to embrace that. Like, yes. Do it. Go through it. Expand in a way that’s going to push you because there’s more within you.

You’re actually really smart. You’re actually really brilliant. You’re actually really capable of being a leader or doing whatever it is you need to do. Sometimes you actually don’t know you can do it till you do it, and you have to push yourself into it.

Adam: Oh, I’m fascinated by this idea of certain personality types with certain crystals. I must admit, I hadn’t thought of sapphires. I have noticed certain people that wear lapis lazuli have a certain kind of archetype as well. But I’m kind of thinking the way you were describing the sapphires. This might be a bit of an unusual reference for some people, but Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue USA, would you say that she’s that kind of sapphire energy?

Kyle: Yeah, totally. There is a coldness, there is a detachment, but there is creativity, there is knowledge. Like, I think people that know themselves, it’s a really great stone that I think really enhances that. But if you do need to kind of develop that and hone that and have strength within that, absolutely. And just on the touch of stones and their names and where they come from, I learned in an Uber ride the other day, “Neelam” is the Indian term for blue sapphire.

I was asked because the guy knew where I was going to my work, crystal in the name. He’s like, you know about crystals. Do you know about Neelam? And I had to Google it, and it is the Indian name for blue sapphire. So if you see that come up, if you see that in texts, that’s what I understand it is referring to.

An Indian corundum is well known. Ruby sapphires of all colors are so prominent throughout the Indian Subcontinent. I think it’s quite an interesting little note.

Adam: I love that. I love that. And I love how we can then take that hardness and that strength of the Sapphire and we can, you know, we may not wanna be that personality type, but those attributes of loyalty and commitment, I think, are really, really powerful. Now one of the traditional things that we’ll see Blue Sapphire being used for is obviously in engagement rings, and that’s a nice way. But there are other things we want to commit to.

You know, this could be a great crystal to work with when we need that strength and resolve to commit to a goal, whether it be an exercise regime or saving money or different things like that. I find it’s also one that I recommend people use when they need to create a team environment. You know, it is whether it be a sporting team, a community team where you’ve got a whole group of volunteers. Because whereas employees have to do what you tell them, volunteers are like herding cats, that type of thing. Or whether you maybe you are an employer and you do find that people’s loyalty to your business is waning and maybe you keep losing employees to other companies and things like that.

This could be somewhere where bringing Blue Sapphire into space would be really good at helping to fortify that commitment and that loyalty and bring that energy and that strength as well. I’m kind of pondering, though, after listening to what Kyle was saying as well, with that quite that sternness, about it, I’m wondering if when we were, you know, doing something like we want to keep it all our workers together, our team together, maybe we need to bring something in like, I don’t know whether a yellow sapphire would have a bit more joy to it or even something like the Citrine as well. What do you reckon, Kyle, in order to not get too serious and people feel like they’re caught in a situation? Does that make sense?

Kyle: Yeah. Absolutely. For me, I think because I bring so much heart into everything I do, I actually need a little bit of that sharp coldness. So I think it helps to balance me out a lot. Mhmm.

I think adding a bit of warmth with citrine would be lovely. Green sapphire could be a really great option. Even star sapphire, because star sapphire brings this sort of illumination. So I think that would be a really lovely way of balancing out any detachment that maybe we need to balance.

Adam: Yeah. Very much so. But, you know, I think it’s still a great one for commitment and loyalty in, in relationships as well. You know, we do live in a world now where there are so many options, and there’s online and all that type of thing. Fidelity can be an issue.

And even a simple practice of having a beautiful photo of the two of you somewhere prominent in the house. And you could even look at a bit of Feng Shui where the relationship quadrant is in your house and put settings where you first get together or when you put it together to sapphires. And, you know, like Ashley said, you can get some tumbled ones that are quite affordable. Pop a couple there. And each year on your anniversary, pop another one there.

Just kind of strengthen that relationship as the challenges go through as well. A final little strength thing that I’ll throw in there as well is often our gums represent commitment and strength to life and different things like that as well. And popping a sapphire near your toothbrush is one of those kinds of medical and crystal things you can pop together. Look after your teeth and brush your blooming teeth a couple of times and floss like you tell the doc the dentist you always do, but a sapphire near your toothbrush could be an energetic supporter as well. Ashley, I noticed you ran off and went and grabbed something.

I’m intrigued by what you’ve got to share with us.

Ashley: It was actually my book, Cosmic Crystals, because, Adam, I am taking a little bit of your role this week in talking a little bit about the upcoming astrology. So we will very soon be in the time of the full moon in Libra, which will happen, I think, just a little short of a week from the release date of this episode. So you have some time to sort of get prepared and ease into that energy. Now I love this because so many of the themes that Adam just discussed like partnership and cooperation are huge themes for this full moon. So Libra is associated with the air element.

Its ruling planet is Venus. So if we think of that combination of the sort of wit and wisdom, intellect, and clarity that the air element brings with that connection to love and relationships, partnership and cooperation that we see with Venus. These really create this interesting dynamic during the full moon in Libra. So during this time, and I would say this is, you know, for the few days before the day of or evening of that full moon and for the few days after, it’s really important to be super mindful of your interactions with others. This is an important time for relationships of all kinds, not just our romantic partnerships.

This could be business partnerships. This could be friendships. This could be relationships with your neighbors, with your community members, friends and family, all the way to acquaintances and coworkers. Look at those dynamics that are presenting themselves during this time and really getting your attention, especially the people that you already sort of have a difficult time seeing eye to eye with. Be extra sort of vigilant and aware of what’s going on with those relationships because these opposing energies during this time can create a little bit of competition or cooperation, and you get to choose.

And this is one of the things where bringing sapphire in can really support you. Right? It can turn those competitive energies on their head and help create and foster an environment of cooperation instead. So think about working with this stone in whatever way that will support you, in whatever way you’re gonna be able to have it near you, on your person, around you. So put some on your desk if you’re worried about those relationships at work.

Wear it as jewelry if it’s gonna be, you know, potentially a fiery time with the people that you’re closest to to sort of cool things down. Cooperation is always gonna be so much more pleasant than that competition, So make an effort to really, put your best foot forward in your relationships and take time to smooth things over. Keep a cool, calm, collected head. That’s gonna be really important. So Blue Sapphire is one that really promotes a lot of peace and harmony, especially among bigger groups.

So if you have any type of group project, any type of cooperative project, this is going to be like your best friend during this time. If you’ve been dealing with any sort of tumultuous situations, Blue Sapphire can help you just sort of take your personal feelings and pet peeves and ego and sort of set it aside. You know, not that you don’t have to go tend to that later on, but during that interaction with other folks, set it aside and find the common ground. So if you feel like your toes are getting stepped on, you can go journal about that later. You can vent to your bestie.

There are things that you can do to sort of be a little bit more tactful, and Blue Sapphire is going to help you let that cool mindedness sort of prevail. So in order to use this stone at this time, and this exercise comes from my book From Cosmic Crystals, this is what it looks like if you’re watching. You can get some paper, a bowl, some colored pencils, some scissors, and one, two, or three blue sapphire stones. You can trace the bowl on the piece of paper to create a circle and cut it out and then draw some lines dividing it into eight equal sections. So you’re going to label the eight sections of your circle with some different archetypes.

The artist, the dreamer, the fool, the healer, the leader, the scholar, the servant, and the warrior. Then you’re going to make yourself comfortable. Take your one to three sapphires, hold them in your hands just a couple inches above that casting board that you’ve created, and drop them into the circle. So, what you’re going to do is pay attention to where these stones have landed. Those are the particular archetypes that you really need to embody during this full moon in Libra time.

So, if you have a crystal that falls on the line between two areas you want to make sure that you’re acknowledging both of those archetypes. If you have a stone that falls outside of the casting area you’ll just disregard that one, but especially in an area where you have more than one stone fall that one’s going to be really, really important. And if you’ve cast a stone and it’s fallen right in the center then to some extent a little bit of all of those are going to play a role. So this is a great way for you to just sort of pay attention to those areas of your life that you need to focus on, that you need to call upon, those strengths that you need to bring in during this time, and, you know, really sort of embody to, make sure that you are connecting with people on the right way, that you’re acknowledging those relationships, but also that you’re creating whatever boundaries you need to create in those relationships as well.

Adam: I love that, Ashley. And I’m not competitive at all, but I do wanna throw some extra astrology in here because remember a few weeks. There’s a few different things that are happening around this full moon, which are really, really important that I’ve noticed playing out in people’s lives. So I’ve kind of been getting on my bandwagon on Instagram and everything like that and talking about it as well. So on exactly the same day as the full moon, we talked about in turquoise a few weeks ago Venus going into retrograde.

This is when her loving energy goes away. We start to feel a bit unloved. We start to consider the relationships in our lives, and this is the lesson to start giving yourself some love rather than relying on other people. But what I’ve noticed is that these retrogrades are also times of introspection. So I’ve noticed a lot of people are ending relationships or breaking relationships, not necessarily romantically, but working relationships.

They’re quitting jobs. They’re doing other things. They’re not this other work. We’re meant to use the retrograde to learn the lesson, and then when it goes direct, we apply the lesson. So be careful that you haven’t broken something too early.

And what I do like is the lessons finish on the thirteenth, which is then the same night as the full moon. So you can then use that full moon as Ashley is, beautifully described to, to then go, well, what do I wanna bring in in my new relationships, whether it be the current ones or existing ones? You’ve also got Juno still in retrograde. She’s very much about loyalty and devotion and being the best partner you can be. And my favorite crystal for her is Blue Sapphire.

So that’s a really good one. It’s about focusing on rather than keeping score, you just being the best person you can be rather than, you know, go, oh, they did that, so I’m gonna do that and so on. Then we also have on the seventh no. Sorry – April 8 going into retrograde.

Now Ioxon’s a bit of a rebel. And normally what happens when Ioxon goes into retrograde, when people do you wrong, you’re like, stuff it. I don’t care. And you wanna rebel. And that might happen in all different types of situations.

But Ioxon actually wants you to listen to your heart and go hold on. Am I just rebelling just because I’m angry? Am I dropping into a lower emotion? Or is there a reason that I’m actually, you know, am I upset? But what is gonna be best for myself in the long term and for everyone else in the long term as well?

So if you put them all in a bloomin’ big pot, relationships are gonna be a little bit rocky at this time. And I would recommend Blue Sapphire is perfect, and I’ll, I think it’s a great way of helping you to remain loyal to what’s important. And, you know, maybe you need, as Kyle spoke about, that real energy of that sternness and that devotion and that you know, just withdraw a little bit and analyze things and wait till the month kind of unfolds a little bit more for that to unfill. But actually, I am so excited to go draw my circle and divide it into eight quadrants. That I really, really love that.

Are there any other applications you’ve used for that? What is that divination tool?

Ashley: I honestly use stone casting so often. I love cardamancy, so I love working with tarot and oracle cards, but stone casting is probably my next go to. If you don’t feel as comfortable with that, you can use that circle also as, like, a pendulum chart if that is something that you align with a little bit more. I personally really struggle to use a pendulum effectively. It’s just not, like, not in my wheelhouse.

I feel like I’m a little too strong willed, and I’m always influencing, like, the movements, you know, very unintentionally, but subtly. So I really love stone casting because I can just get in that zone, hold my stones, hold them above, let go, and see what really needs my focus and attention. But you can use this for anything. You can create, you know, a little circle with three sections, or it could just be on a sheet of paper, divide it into different sections. The circle is nice because it’s a little bit more whole and complete and, a little bit easier to sort of break into different areas, but, you know, do this with different themes in your life.

Do this with different decisions, right? If you have a really difficult decision and there are different paths you could take, put each of those in those little areas and cast those stones and see what calls your attention. I have this little kit I’ve been collecting for ages of tiny tiny tiny crystal gemstone chips. They’re all in a pouch. I assign each one of those a one word meaning just to give me some focus and direction for what that stone is representing.

I will often use those little gemstone chips. I’ll reach in at random, pull some out of the pouch. Whatever I’m pulling out, I’m trusting, you know, these are the options that the universe is presenting for me. Drop them on whatever casting board I’ve created and go to town interpreting. And this is something that’s a little bit more fluid, a little bit more free form than some other divination methods.

And, Kyle, what did you wanna share about that?

Kyle: You literally just finished like, I was just gonna ask, could you just pick different stones with those different archetypal meanings and then throw them onto a piece of paper and just see what’s just you’re drawn to or pick one out of a bowl and see which one is the one that speaks to you? You literally just said what I was gonna ask.

Ashley: Yeah. I think especially for more advanced stone casters or lithomancers, you can definitely do that, and you can use a blank casting board at that point. Have each stone represent a different archetype. Cast those onto your cloth, your board, your space, whatever it is, and let them tell a story. Which ones are near each other?

How are they grouped together? You have to be really creative and really, I think, discerning and open to sort of seeing the picture that’s painted and the story that is told among the stones, but that is one of my absolute favorite ways to do this work.

Kyle: Consider it added to my repertoire of things I’m going to be doing regularly. Thank you very much.

Adam: Well, you’ve come to Crystal Confab every week for answers, and this week, we’ve even shown you how to get the answers yourself. So thank you very much for joining us for another week of Crystal Confab and Craft Corner. We’ll be back next week when we dive into another gift of mother earth. Until then, go and find the answers you seek. We’ll see you then. Blessed be.

Are you interested in becoming a Certified Crystal Healer? Find out more about the CCH and Advanced Crystal Practitioner Program HERE!