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Join Adam Barralet, Kyle Perez , Ashley Leavy and Nicholas Pearson in Episode #17 of the Crystal Confab Podcast as they do a deep dive into Carnelian meaning, including:

• Carnelian for clearing Tarot & Oracle decks
• Tyche Retrograde & Carnelian
• Less conversation, more action with Carnelian
• Evolution of Carnelian’s lore

Tune in now for a deeper look at Carnelian meaning!

Crystal Confab Podcast Episode 17: Carnelian Meaning – Transcript: 

Crystal Confab Podcast Intro: 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 a casual chat about all things crystals.

Adam Barralet: Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of Crystal Confab. When it comes to crystals, there are so many different colors, but orange is one that we all have to have because we need it for our sacral chakra. And I remember a few years ago, I was actually doing a bit of a stop take of all my tumbled stones and realized that I just don’t have enough orange crystals. It was actually the color I have least of. But one thing I think everyone has when it comes to orange crystals is the famous carnelian, and that’s what we’re diving into today.

Now carnelian is a crystal that has a long, long history. I believe it might even be mentioned in the Bible. And so I wanna ask Nicholas, tell us a little bit about the evolution and the history of carnelian today.

Nicholas: Yeah. I would love to. This is such a fun topic because I think when we look at the body of written lore of all gems, particularly in the nexus of civilization and forward in time, we see so much written about it. And it doesn’t always feel very consistent at first, so we kinda have to unpack it piece by piece. So, for those who may not know, carnelian is a variety of chalcedony, which means it’s cryptocrystalline quartz, just like onyx, which we talked about toward the top of the the the first season, and it gets its color from small amounts of iron.

And, this iron is something that feels kind of intrinsically motivating, grounding, energizing. You pick up any crystal book today, and you’re going to find those kinds of keywords. Maybe it’s about enthusiasm or energy or creativity. If we go back in time, we might channel the same kind of force to maybe more everyday concerns back then, you know, before we had phones to scroll on and spare time to write and draw, things like war and conquest, but also health and healing. So, some of the earliest magical kind of associations with Carnelian stem from a very kind of mundane use.

If you needed to put your seal of approval on something quite literally, you had to have a seal that was carved out of something that you could press into wax or later clay, and it needed to be a material that went in easily and came out easily without residue left over or you didn’t get a clear mark on it. And of all the materials that we find in places like Mesopotamia, Sumeru, Babylon, this general region, one of the most important materials for the use of these kinds of seal stones, cylinder seals, and inscribed gems is carnelian. And the reason is kind of twofold. 1st, there’s just the mundane functionality of it because of the thermal properties of quartz and therefore of carnelian. It goes into wax really well and comes out very cleanly.

Secondly, of all the materials that were available and durable enough to be carved, soft enough to be carved, but durable enough to last, carnelian really fit the bill. It was an added bonus that it was beautiful. Now these cylinder seals were things that were used by people in positions of power. So to own one was to represent your power. So if you were to inherit 1, even if you didn’t have a lot of, let’s say, like, social currency, it could signify a kind of symbolic agency.

And so Carnelian took on these associations with power, with wealth, with strength, with success, with the nature of magic, and would later kind of work its way into a lot of myth and magic all over the world. We see it really prominently used by the Egyptians, by the Greeks, and the Romans. There are definitely mentions of it in biblical literature. We find it as a really prominent stone in the kind of medieval and early modern lapidary tradition where we have these, like, encyclopedias of crystals being written in their time. And, you know, carnelian is just something that has always been just available enough, but just valuable enough to be highly coveted.

But it really stems from this archaic, very material use of it. And we’ve inherited a lot of this body of lore. We look at a stone like this that is bright and red or orange, and we think, you know, astrologically, it’s gotta be associated with Mars. It turns out that a lot of iron minerals have been given those associations. The alchemical kind of planetary metal system aligns Mars and iron, you know, hindsight being 2020.

We know that the reason that speck in the sky that we call Mars as red is because of iron oxide in its soils. So there is this kind of really interesting link that’s connected all throughout. And when we look at the influence of these medieval and classical and earlier sources in the modern day, you can’t separate them. Everything we think and do about Carnelian is in some way related to that. And even, like, the word Carnelian that we use today kind of tells an interesting story about this gem.

It’s originally derived from a fruit, the Cornell cherry, not a true cherry, but it’s kind of orangey red colored. But in the early modern period when Latin was kind of romanticized as the pinnacle of academic languages, the name of this stone underwent change from Cornelius or Carnelian to Anglicize it. It became altered by the Latin carnem, meaning flesh, because, you know, inside, our flesh is kinda carnelian colored, and became associated with these themes of embodiment of the flesh, of desire, of our autonomy and agency. So we kinda shifted it from this social magical kind of agency to a very corporeal and bodily kind of agency, and it continues that way to this day. I mean, carnelian’s a creative stone.

It’s a sexy stone. It’s a fun stone. It’s a a stone that really allows us to be present in life if we engage with it that way.

Adam: Nicholas, you mentioned a little bit there about, it became big in Egypt. Now with the more red carnelian, I’ve actually seen them, labeled as blood of Isis. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Nicholas: Yeah. So, I think I know exactly who we can blame for the propagation of this term. In Judy Hyde Judy Hall’s The Crystal Bible Series, we see I think it’s in the second one where she mentions a specific variety that is a deep red as being called the blood of Isis. Earlier than this, we find DJ Conway’s seminal book, Crystal Enchantments. She wrote a couple books on crystals, but this is the one everyone really knows and loves.

It’s one of those kinds of early a to z dictionaries. She also makes this claim that carnelian was known as the blood of Isis in Egypt. And truth be told, I cannot find to any extent literature derived from Egypt that actually calls Carnelian the blood of Isis. However, there’s still a link. So, in Egyptian art and religion, there’s a specific kind of, like talisman or amulet that’s called a tete or tete.

And it looks if we use our imaginations, it reminds us of an ankh, if an ankh had droopy arms. And it’s been thought to symbolize a whole lot of different things. It may have been a kind of knot. It may have been a metaphor for welfare or life, but one of the origins proposed for it is that this was a kind of knotted bandage that was meant to absorb menstrual blood, and it became a symbol that represented the goddess Venus the goddess Isis, among other things, had a lot to do with motherhood. And because this item, this symbol was associated with Isis and her blood and represented menstruation and was preferably carved out of red things, including, ceramics and glasses and carnelian and jasper, the stone became conflated with the extra symbolism of the shape it was carved into.

And this is something we see lots of times, you know, we’ve got, you know, for example, the connection between Lapis Lazuli and the evil eye, the, you know, the Nazar Bonsugu amulet, which came first, which was the blue color originally. Does it really matter? So does it matter that the stone wasn’t originally called the blood of Isis and only carved in the shape of something that was referred to as holding the blood of Isis. There’s still this kind of connection of life force and vitality and and power that comes through, whether we look at it through, you know, the the modern crystal healing, where we we give the title to the stone, or if we look at the kind of historical record and and see that stone is loosely associated with another glyph that is associated with the blood of Isis. Amazing.

Adam:  And, Ashley, I think you and I both were about to speak at the same time then. There’s something you wanted to add as well?

Ashley Leavy: Yeah. I was just thinking about what Nicholas was saying about Carnelian’s use as a seal. And it made me think of, you know, there are so many objects, crystals and other things as well that have a rather mundane use, and we infer their magical properties from that. And I’m just wondering as sort of an aside, even though our episode is about carnelian today, if anyone can think of another example of a stone that has, like, a rather mundane use that we can infer some sort of magical quality from it. 

Kyle Perez: Can I start with quartz? Right? Quartz is in clocks and watches, and, like, it’s there to just let the electrical current go through. Like, it’s doing very mundane stuff. Right?

And we can use it for so much to manifest and create and do stuff with. So I think quartz is a really easy option.

Adam: And when you think about how that would tie into the spirituality that clocks are timekeepers and that kind of eternal thing and it’s about, I guess, balance and harmony. Everything runs by the clock. And so quartz is also a healer and a balancer. So I guess does that make sense what I’m saying there in that way that that could carry through into its magical idea? But, yeah, I’m I’m I’m trying to think about the crystals now, Ashley.

Ashley: Well, like, piggybacking off of that, I’m thinking of quartz as used in, like, computer chips and that sort of thing and how we think of quartz as being, like, one of the most easily programmed stones. Right? That’s, like, really clear, has this really clear ability to receive and store that energy and intention that we put into. But I imagine there’s lots of industrial things. Nicholas, you have one?

Nicholas: Oh, I have so many because this is, like, the nerdy kind of thing that makes my heart happy. I’m gonna pick some low hanging fruit here and say Flint.

Ashley: There we go. That’s a great one.

Nicholas: Yeah. We find flint arrowheads and projectiles. It is long associated with projects with protection itself, but, also, flint is great when we feel stuck, when we feel like we’re just hitting a wall repeatedly. And, quite a long time ago, we’re talking like stone age era, flint and iron ore came together for the first time to create intentional fire, and not just accidental fire that we had to harness as as early hominids, and the kind of agency that that gave to us, the the way that it literally sparked something. We can use that for creativity.

We can use that for innovation. We can use that to empower us to go out into the world. And I think there are just so many examples. Maybe this is a topic for a future episode. We look for these material uses and their connection to the spiritual energies of the stones.

Ashley: That would be really fun because I’m I’m I’m just thinking, like, when you mentioned flint and you you were giving that example, maybe think of, like, napping obsidian into a knife blade and how we use obsidian to cut things away, like clear cords, energies. That could be a whole episode. It’d be so fun because I get really excited about that kind of thing too.

Adam: Yeah. I’m even thinking about sapphires and rubies being very hard and how they use your engagement rings for commitment and strength of a relationship as well. So we could probably go off on a whole you’re right. That we might have to book that in for an episode for sure. So we’ll also be talking about this real fiery energy, Kyle.

Do you find that Kanye’s really fiery for you as well?

Kyle: Well, if you have been listening, you will know that I have spoken about my fiery nature, my 5 fire placements. And when I began again on my crystal, like, my journey of connection, my first big piece of crystal was this carnelian was my first big piece that was not just a tumble or a little raw piece, and it was because it was orange. No information. Couldn’t care less about it. I just wanted it because it was orange and fiery, and it’s just an immediate link.

I have lots of orange clothes. I have several many pairs of orange shoes. I am a big fan of the color orange, and I love its link to fire, but I also love its link to action, to doing, and I like to put a bit of a playlist together. Carnelian, think about a little less conversation, a little more action, please. Elvis going on.

Maybe TLC, let’s talk about sex. Maybe something like Groove is in the Heart by Delight. For me, Carnelian is like it’s a fun playlist, it’s the party house, it’s the vibe and if you want to work with it in that way, it’s going to bring so much fun and so much pleasure. It’s going to get you out of your head literally for those that think too much, concern themselves too much with being perceived, too worried about and are very cerebral maybe in the way that you do things. Carnelian is more of action, more of doing, more of engaging, pleasure, sensuality.

Think about how it feels to let loose, to have a dance, to connect with someone intimately, not necessarily sexually, but intimately and diving into that connection of nurturing. Carnelian, yes, it does have that beautiful wonderful thing. Put it in the bedroom, add a bit of spice, but I find it’s perfect for friendship like put a bit of carnelian in the middle of a table with your dearest friends and you tell me you’re not gonna laugh all night long and just have the best time and that for me is pleasure. It’s if I’m not going a day and I’m not laughing throughout that day, I’m not alive. Like, I have to laugh every day.

I have to get through life through laughter and I think many of us do and I think carnelian has always been that reminder to bring play in, bring fun in, bring pleasure in. Yes, there are concerns. Yes, there are worries. Yes, there are things that are happening outside of our lives that we can control, can’t control that are very concerning, but right now, why don’t you have a bit of fun? Right now, why don’t you connect to what feels good?

Right now, why don’t you actually give yourself a bit of positive vibes, a bit of what you actually want, what your body is craving, then get to the serious stuff after that. Like, go out dancing and sweat and, like, let your hair down. Go and go to the beach which we spoke about in our last episode and play in the surf. Go and I don’t know what’s fun for different people. People play golf.

People go riding. People do poetry with their friends. Whatever feels good for you, involve carnelian and it will feel even better. It will help to unleash and release yourself from those inhibitions that hold you back from really having fun, the stuff that gets kiboshed as a child that we hold on to as we get older. It’s like, oh, no.

I shouldn’t step out of that. I shouldn’t look too weird. I shouldn’t go and do that because people will look at me judgingly and blah blah blah blah blah. And I literally had this conversation a couple of weekends ago when I was out with a friend, and he goes to certain venues and goes out and visits those certain venues, and I go to different venues. We’re different eras.

We’re about 15 years apart, and he was like, oh, it’s really weird going to a venue and not having everyone look at you. Having people, like, they’re just going out and they’re dancing and they’re doing their own thing, like, that’s really strange to me. Like, I’m used to going to a club and having everyone look at you. I’m like, yeah, this is why we don’t go to the same venues. This is why I have gotten a little bit older, and I went to those venues when I was a kid, when I was younger, when I was first clubbing.

You do it because that’s what you do. But you realize that as you get older, if I’m gonna spend money on something, if I’m going to do something, it’s because I want to do it. It’s because it’s who I want to see. It’s because I’m going to be with the people that make me feel good. I’m not going to put myself into a situation that makes me less comfortable than I need to, but I’m still gonna do things that make me have fun, that are fun, that are joyous, that are pleasurable.

I’m not holding myself back from that because I know I need it. I know it helps me regulate. I know it helps me to stay sane. I know it helps me to just live through this world. And if I’m not doing that, then I know I’m not sane.

I don’t. I don’t feel good when I’m not able to have a little bit of fun. I’m not able to regulate myself as well. And I think that whole letting off steam, letting our hair down thing is so intrinsically connected to carnelian, and it gives us that permission to have a bit more freedom, have a bit more fun, and have a bit more play.

Ashley: I think this might be the start of Kyle’s crystal playlist on Spotify. Like, I feel like we might just need, like, a 3 song playlist for different crystals because everything you just said made me so excited, and I see how those songs and that music really speaks to that energy you’re trying to convey. And I love that so much because if you had never worked with Carnelian before and you were like, it’s like these songs, I feel like somebody would get it.

Kyle: I think it’s just one of those easy connections. Music is always around us. It’s such a vibe, and I will make that a plan for 2025, musical playlist for Crystals.

Ashley: Yes.

Adam: I reckon, definitely, if you’ve got a suggestion of a song that you think fits with Kanye, put it in the comments below, and we’ll get a call to add it to the playlist so we can all bop to our Kanye in ones as well. I wanted to add, as Kyle was talking about this, getting out of your head and getting more, you know, onto the court kind of thing, a bit of an astrological aspect to this that may be of interest to some people. You’ll notice when they have the 12 zodiac signs that often they’re depicted in a circle. And so what you’ll find is there’s kind of an axis between the signs that are opposite each other in the wheel. So you have one axis, which is the Leo Aquarius axis.

Now anyone who is a Leo or has lots of Leo energy is very much acting now, think later. But if you have more Aquarian energy, then you tend to think now, think a little bit more, have a bit more of a think about it, and you might eventually act. And what we want to do is we want to look at where we might be on that axis. We might have more Leo energy in our chart or more Aquarian energy in our chart, or it might be balanced, which is great. But if we do need to move more towards that carnelian aspect or that Leo aspect, carnelian is gonna be really, really great for that.

That also kind of opens up another question I wanna fire at everyone. One thing I get several questions about on social media recently is, is this a good crystal to pair with this? Now, I find it a really challenging question to answer a lot of the time. I think when we come to pairing crystals or putting crystals together, it’s a bit like matchmaking. They all can work together in different ways.

You know, maybe something like a carnelian, which is really fiery and an amethyst, which is really calming, is a bit like washing down a sleeping tablet with a Red Bull to see what happens. But a lot of the time they will work well. But I do find carnelian really fiery. And I find it great for the sacral chakra. But if that sacral chakra is overactive, and when you test it with a pendulum, I’ve got a video on that on YouTube.

It has too much energy. The carnelian might not be right. And that’s where I actually had the amazing offer of Messiah. She’s a beautiful woman in New South Wales in Western Australia, sorry, in Australia, she makes these beautiful pendants. And she made me one with a bit of orange calcite to kind of calm down the carnelian and bring that balancing effect as well. But I’d love to know what the rest of you think about not just pairing things with carnelian, but do you have any rules when it comes to pairing crystals, Ashley?

Ashley: Yeah. I think that it really comes down to our intention. So, you know, in one instance, maybe you would pair 2 things together because they really amplify one another. They’re really cohesive. They work well together.

And maybe in another situation, you might pair together 2 things of really opposite energies to kind of balance things out, and you can sort of direct that energy through your intention. So I’m trying to think of a good example. Let’s say I was working with my carnelian for some energizing and motivation and action taking, and I wanted to work with some celestite for, like, calming. Right? Maybe at first glance, it seems like those two things wouldn’t go together and that maybe even my intentions were conflicting.

But maybe I want all that motivation of the carnelian, but I don’t wanna be bouncing off the walls. I don’t wanna be buzzing at 2 AM still when it’s time to go to sleep, which is like a constant struggle. So maybe that celestite is there so that I get that little motivational boost from my carnelian, but I’m keeping my energy in check. And really the only way in my eyes to kind of know whether or not it’s working is to set that intention to work with those crystals and to cultivate a little awareness and see how it’s going and make some tweaks and changes along the way. But I think when it comes to bringing together 2 companion energies, whether 2 different crystals or crystal with an herb or crystal with a tarot card or a crystal with anything else, we just need to keep that intention sort of front and center.

But, Nicholas, what about you? Do you have any tips and tricks when it comes to, pairing together these companion energies or things we should consider?

Nicholas: I always liken it to comparing combining flavors. I might find a combo I absolutely love, and it works really well for me. And for the next person, maybe that doesn’t work. And I know we’ve had this conversation before, here on the podcast, but another way that we can frame it is what is the story you’re trying to tell? And it’s not always a matter of does this crystal go with that story, but do these two things participate in the same story you’re trying to tell with your life?

And that’s a really different approach than just simply can I put rose quartz and amethyst together, or does my carnelian work with my black tourmaline? So when we come back to this space of what is the narrative, what is the moral of the story, what is my intention gonna be, we get to exercise a lot of creativity in how we weave those themes in and out. Just like Ashley was saying, we can take things that seem kind of contradictory. And as long as they contribute to the same narrative arc, if they help us get to the right place, then they’re absolutely the right stones to work together. And because those stories are personal, you get to figure out how you want that to work.

Ashley: Adam, I know you posed the question, but I’m curious what your view is on this.

Adam: Yeah. I think it’s going to be individual as well. I do tend to have a rule of just probably not going more than 2 colors. I think I may have mentioned that in the previous episode as well, but I think there’s gonna be a lot of opinions out there. I recently had someone message me saying, Hey, I’ve been told that you can’t just work with pink crystals, you must have a green crystal with it.

And I was really it’s the first time I’ve heard that. And I, you know, I always try to work through the spiritual logic of it. I’m like, I can’t see why that would happen. And, you know, I had a conversation with someone and they would say, oh, that the pink ones will make you too apathetic and relaxed. And, you know, you need a bit of vibrancy with the green, but I’m like, well, maybe sometimes we do need to calm down.

So I would say that we’re all going to have personal views but like Nicholas said, some people believe that chocolate and mint should be combined together. And I think that is criminal. Chocolate and chilli are a much better combination. So anyone who’s personally wondering, do these 2 work together? I think it depends on you as an individual.

Try them together. You know, there are couples, we see celebrities get together and you’re like, that is the oddest couple together, but it works and some are natural as well.

Ashley: I love the example that you gave about the chocolate and mint versus the chocolate and chili. Right? Because I think that is such a great example when we’re thinking about how our crystals pair together with other things. It may work for you. It may not.

It’s really that individual approach. So when I hear you should always, you should never, I heard this, I heard that. Like, anyone who’s trying to give you a hard and fast rule about how a crystal will work 100% of the time, Like, we know, like, life doesn’t work like that. Right? So I just toss those things right out.

Or for me, they’re kind of like in one ear out the other. They don’t really, like, influence the way that I work with my stones. I might have a thought experiment like Adam did and think about, well, Now why would someone think that? What is the thought process behind that? And the thing is maybe that’s true for some people.

Maybe someone has had the experience. Oh, for me personally, I can’t really work with those pink stones, those big heart openers without that green energy to keep me balanced and a little grounded and what do you know what I mean? Like, that person might have had a really good rule for saying that, but that doesn’t mean that that applies to everybody else also. They can be good thought experiments, good things to keep in mind. But yeah.

Adam: I think I’ve said it before and I’m gonna say it again. We are not right, and neither is anyone else who’s offering crystal advice as well. We’re all guides sharing our experience and things that other people have experienced through history as well. But we want you to know, last week, I shared a story about a lady who attracted the love of her life with Larimer. Now Larimer would not even feature on the top 50 of love crystals generally, but it worked for her.

So listen to the guidance, see how it fits with you, and then play around and then let us know. It’s always really interesting to hear.

Kyle: And I’d casually like to throw my hat in the ring with my chaos energy and just say, work with whatever you feel comfortable working with. If I showed you every one of these grids of crystals behind me, you would see some chaotic combinations but they’re all working for a purpose. I know what they’re doing. I’m a maximalist and that’s how I work. If you are, enjoy it, work with it.

If you’re a minimalist, do your thing and I will only judge you inside, and that’s how we work together. We’re all different. We’re all doing our own thing. Whatever works for you works for you or works for me works for me, and no hard and fast rules.

Adam: One thing actually I will and I might be taking this. We will come back to carnelian in a second. But one thing I have a strong aversion to is organized, I actually cannot handle it. And everyone I find that works with them, I find them to be really scattered as well, because you’re throwing all these different crystals into the thing together. It’s like a crystal orgy, and everyone’s ending up blissfully, badly pregnant and disrupted.

And it’s all the wrong kind of thing. So I don’t know how the 3 of you feel about Organite, but I avoided it at all costs. And that’s just my

Speaker 0: experience with it because I do find it so scattering.

Adam: I also experience it because I do find it so scattering.

Ashley: I also avoid it at all costs. For me, it’s twofold. 1st, I really don’t like the idea of my crystals being, like, encased in the resin. It’s not my jam. I don’t like it.

2nd, when I first heard about Organite and did about 2.5 minutes of Google research about it, and this was, you know, a 1000000 years ago because I’m a dime store. But I was like, ew, gross. Like, ew, David. I had a ‘ew, David’ moment. There were far too many outlandish claims that just made my skin crawl.

And I was like, I’m out. That’s not for me. But that was my experience.

Kyle: Yes. Me too.

Nicholas: I am perfectly acceptable. I’ve made peace with the fact that it exists, and it appeals to a group of people who find value in it. And I’m all about affirming practices that have value for people. One of my dearest friends in the crystal world, Devin Hunter, who’s got a great book called Crystal Magic for the Modern Witch, he, for many of the same reasons already cited, just cannot tolerate it. So every time I’m out in the wild and I find a particularly heinous piece of crystal art in resin, whether or not it’s trying to be organized, I always take pictures and send it to him, with the most innocuous captions.

So, thank you for reminding me that I have to go antagonize Devin soon with some organized pictures.

Adam: Oh, wow. I actually didn’t think that we’d get a 0 and a 4 for support for Organide. But anyway, there we go. Let’s come back to carnelian. There’s gotta be another like, it’s got this real fiery energy and fire can be quite cleansing and that type of thing, actually.

Do you kind of visualize this fire energy at all, Ashley?

Ashley: I do. Yeah. So this is actually a really easy practice that I learned from Judy Hall, who Nicholas spoke about in our last episode. Most of you will be familiar with Judy’s work. She did the whole crystal bible series of books, crystal prescription series of books, and then about a 1000000 other books as well.

She was an incredibly prolific writer, and an amazing force to be reckoned with in the crystal world. And she had this amazing crystal oracle deck that when it first came out, it was called the crystal wisdom deck. And then it got republished in the US under a different name, and I can never remember exactly what that title was because I had the original one. But the original one was boxed with a carnelian stone. And in the little guidebook, Judy talked about how she always liked to keep a carnelian stone with her tarot cards or oracle cards because that fiery energy could keep the deck cleansed between readings.

So I loved that. And this was a practice that I just started to do. Although I don’t just have a deck that I can pop a little carnelian stone in the pouch with, you can do that. I have a large carnelian that sits above my mountain of decks, and that is sort of what, how I’ve adapted this little practice. But I just love that it’s something that really stuck with me.

Think of, like, the way that we might use a selenite charging plate or bowl to throw some jewelry in at the end of the night on your bedside table. The idea behind this carnelian is that that fiery transformative purifying energy will just keep any of that sort of outside energy at bay between readings. So although you may still have a process in place that you do for clearing some cards, something like that before you do a reading for yourself or others, and I know Kyle could probably definitely speak to this. Carnelian, just keeping one in your box or bag with your deck is a really great way, pretty effective I found to actually keep that deck pretty clear. But the other thing that I always sort of turn to Carnelian for has to do with a holiday that we are coming up on here in the northern hemisphere very quickly, which is Imbolc.

So carnelian, because of that fiery energy, I relate it to the holiday of Imbolc and the wheel of the year because it is this time, at the same time as candle mist. So we have this connection with fire, with the light returning to the land, and for me personally, with the goddess Brigid. So the goddess Brigid, is a Celtic goddess, particularly Irish, but we see her kind throughout the whole Pan Celtic region, including in Great Britain. And she, in some regard, may be considered a triple goddess or a goddess with multiple aspects. So I like to honor Goddess Brigid at the time of Imbolc as the hearth keeper, the goddess of the forge, and her healer aspect.

And Carnelian in particular, I associate with goddess Brigitte’s, aspect as the hearth keeper. This is so important to me because, you know, I talked, a little while ago in one of our episodes about the important, importance of the hearth to me as this gathering place, this place where we tell stories, where we connect with family, where we nourish and nurture ourselves and the people that we love. So having some carnelian, on your hearth, be that in your kitchen somewhere, your stove near your stove or oven, or if you have a a physical hearth like a fireplace, indoor or outdoor, keeping a little carnelian there to honor that energy of the hearth and its symbolism and what it brings to your life is so important. But particularly at the time of Imbolc, placing a carnelian to sort of honor or revere the energy of goddess Brigid as the hearth keeper and to welcome her blessings into your space, into your home at the time of in bulk when the hearth is so important. Here, it’s just in the dead of winter here in Wisconsin.

It is so cold. Often that time in bulk is one of the coldest, snowiest, iciest, most miserable times outside, and it just makes you extra grateful for the warmth of the hearth. And, the ability to nourish ourselves, feed ourselves, stay warm, and connect and gather. So I love Carnelian for connecting with goddess Brigid, and I also have some on my Brigid altar which stays up year round because she’s such an important part of my life. I’m trying to remember what year it was.

I think 2019, I went on a trip to Ireland with my mom, and we visited many of Brigid’s sacred sites, holy wells. It was such a profoundly transforming experience for me to connect with her in her home place and to get to understand the cultural and historical significance to see how she has changed and evolved throughout history and to see what she has meant in so many ways to so many different types of people. It was really a beautiful experience. And being at her sacred well in Kildare was, I think, the highlight of my experience. And so you’ll find at many of the sacred sites connected with Brigid, there will be lots of offerings and things left.

I always strive to, if I’m leaving an offering, leave it something that it won’t last, it will biodegrade, something like that. But in this instance, I did leave a very, very tiny carnelian at Brigid’s Holywell, and it just helps me feel so connected to that place.

Adam: I love that, Ashley. Would you say for people that wanted to work with Brigid, obviously, there’s great resources as we can find. But when would you call on Brigid? Is it when you’re wanting to get through it, a wintery time and bring new birth, new things into your life? Or is she an abundance goddess?

How would you describe her?

Ashley: I think she’s all of the above. She has this triple aspect, you know, so we can call upon her as healer for when we need some extra support, whether that’s, you know, physical health and healing, we want to call upon emotional well-being, just looking at the ways in which we need to find healing in our lives and calling on her for some extra strength. She’s also that goddess of the forge. So the ability to craft, to create For me, she’s really this goddess of inspiration and creativity that I call upon when I need that sort of boost to fill me up, when I need that little whispering of the muse. But she’s also that hearth keeper aspect, that sense of comfort, that nurturing energy, that sort of great mother in so many ways.

And I think that because of how dynamic she is as a goddess, there are infinite ways that you could connect with her and call on her support.

Adam: I don’t know if anyone else noticed this, but as you were talking, I was like, are you talking about Brigid or are you talking about Carnelian? And you’re obviously talking about Brigid, but all the traits you were describing, they worked so beautifully together. So I think that’s amazing. Another little exercise I like to do with my crystals is a little tradition of having a little tea light crystal on an east facing window and putting all your solar crystals. So for me, that would be sunstone, citrine, imperial topaz, amber, golden apatite, carnelian might be one, although I find it a bit more fiery, and lighting that candle each morning.

And it said to help to welcome the sunlight back into your home and the warmth after the cold depths of winter. Of course, in the southern hemisphere, we’ve got till August to worry about that. With the the corresponding one will be lunisade, which is the the end of summer, the kind of the start of the harvest season. And it’s a really great time to also work with Carneli, and I find it’s a really great cycle chakra time. This is traditionally, agriculturally, when people are starting to harvest grains and fruits and prepare for the winters ahead, but it’s also a time for us to reflect on what we’ve achieved.

And it’s also being named after the god Lu, who was, you know, a very powerful god, but also was associated with artistry, and music and the arts. And, of course, that all comes from creativity and carnelian and the sacred chakra as well. So all of us could be working with carnelian at this time, which is really, really brilliant, I think.

Ashley: Yeah. Especially great for that celebratory energy of the harvest. I mean, that would be such a big deal to be, just elated knowing that you are gonna be taken care of and nurtured for that darker half of the year. So getting that little bit of a ruckus celebration energy with your carnelian also, perfect time for that.

Adam: Yeah. Now something that is actually happening this week, we normally bring in a little bit of astrology somewhere. Well, you may be comforted to know there’s nothing major happening. There’s no full moons. There’s no new moons.

There’s no major planetary retrogrades. But there is an interesting retrograde this week that really ties in nicely with carnelian. And there is an asteroid called Tyche. Now it’s spelled t y c h e. She is a Greek goddess of good luck and fortune.

And she’s probably better known by a Roman name as Fortuna. Now the asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter. So in the big scheme of things, it’s pretty close to us, all these asteroids, although they’re not as big as the planets, and they can, especially if we become more subtle Lee, aware of energies and aware of subtle energies, they can impact us a little bit more. So with Tyche going into retrograde this week, what you may find is that your sense of good luck, your sense of good fortune, may kind of go out the window, then you may have to create your own luck or work a little bit harder for things to go your way. And when you reflect on what we’ve talked about in Carnelian of, you know, being fiery, being abundant, being supported, getting off the court, not just talking about it, but getting into action, Carnelian would be a really beautiful crystal for everyone around the world, regardless of what season it is of working with this as Taki goes into retrograde, the guide, right?

Sometimes I’m getting the blessings of the gods and of the asteroids and the planets to help me favorably with gold, fortune and abundance. But while Puck is in retrograde and she withdraws her energy away from this planet, then I’m gonna have to create my own luck. And I think Carnelian would be a really great one to do that this week.

Kyle: I think that kind of pairs with Carnelian’s ability to, like now this is the theater kid in me. Like, it’s a yes and stone. Like, if that makes sense. Like, it’s going to help you to say yes and what’s next. Let’s, like, throw out all the ideas and then we’ll pick the ones that we need.

Like, there’s no bad ideas. There’s a few ways we can put it. I think Carnelian helps you to go, let’s just put the ideas out there. Let’s just try. Like, what if we fail?

It doesn’t matter. Like, I think it helps with that encouragement of yes and why not?

Adam: Yeah. It’s such an amazing fiery crystal. And I think we’ve, you know, we’ve discussed so much of it this week of all the different ways that’s being used, not just now, but throughout history as well. So I assume most people have it in their collection. I hope that today we’ve actually brought in a few more ideas of how you could work with it.

But sometimes with these kinds of everyday crystals like carnelian, like red Jasper, like a green adventuring, they’d sit there and they might get kind of shuffled off to the side, because there’s more exciting crystals to play with these days. But I hope that this week we’ve been able to fire up your enthusiasm for carnelian again, and this is the perfect week to work with it. So we will be back next week with enough. I’m fired up with Carnelian. We’ll be back next week with another crystal confab on another crystal.

I’m gonna settle down and we’ll see you then. Take care and be blessed.

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