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Join Adam Barralet, Kyle Perez , Ashley Leavy and Nicholas Pearson in Episode #10 of the Crystal Confab Podcast as they do a deep dive into Red Jasper meaning, including:
- Red Jasper for Pendulum Dowsing and Dream Recall
- Navigating Mars Retrograde with Red Jasper
- Balancing the Air Element with Red Jasper’s Earth Element
- Historical perspectives on Red Jasper
Tune in now for a deeper look at Red Jasper 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 4 crystal nerds, healers, workers, and lovers for crystal confab, a casual chat about all things crystals.
Adam Barralet: You’ve probably got at least one of these stones, if not many of these stones, floating around your home. Today, we’re gonna be exploring here on crystal confab, jaspers, in particular of the red variety. But I am joined by 3 of the most fabulous crystal experts from around the world, Ashley, Kyle, and Nicholas. Welcome to Crystal Confab, everyone. Today, we’re looking at red Jasper and Nicholas. You’ve become – I don’t know if this was intended or not – but you for me, you’re feeling like a crystal historian. You’re really, really great in telling us where the crystals have kinda journeyed through things. And Jasper, it seems like any rock that you don’t know what it is, you just call it a Jasper. Is that playing a bit of a historical thing or why are we calling everything a Jasper?
Nicholas Pearson: You know, it’s kind of interesting. We’ve almost come full circle in this. So I think before we can build that context, we gotta, like, talk about what Jasper really is. And the short answer is it doesn’t mean anything, except that it does, but different things to different people. So, to make that make sense, we have to consider that there’s a geological definition of Jasper, a gemological definition of Jasper, and then also historical and linguistic one, and very seldom do they agree.
So if you ask a gemologist what the definition of jasper is, you’re usually going to get something, and Kyle’s please correct me if I’m wrong here. You’re usually gonna get an answer that sounds a lot like a cryptocrystalline or microcrystalline variety of quartz. It is often defined as a variety of chalcedony. So chalcedony forms, and we have, these, length fast fibrous, microscopic crystals of quartz that form together. They usually form out of a kind of colloid or goo, if we wanna be unscientific about it.
And as that kind of gel solidifies, we get these tiny little crystals to emerge. And because of the way the crystal lattices kinda line up and twist and form those little fibers, there’s space in between them. They don’t form in neat little stacks like a box would because they’re not shaped like a box. They’re shaped like microscopic quartz crystals, and so they have a little twist to them, a little spiral, and there’s room in between, which allows for so much variety and color and texture and pattern in the chalcedony world. That’s how we get our carnelians and our Botswana agates and blue lace agates and red jaspers and green jaspers and bloodstones and, I mean, if you name it, if it’s chalcedony, that’s what it is.
Except the challenge here is that, socially speaking, a lot of the things that get called Jaspers are maybe in fact a variety of quartz, but don’t meet that length-fast fibrous definition that makes a chalcedony a chalcedony. So some of them are actually something called quartzine, which is a very, very close cousin to that. The crystals orient slightly differently, but still form in fibers. It makes room for different shaped gaps in there. We can also end up with chert, which is also known as flint except when it’s not.
And then we get a whole bunch of other hard stones that don’t necessarily fit a perfect little catchall term, so we call them anyway, whether or not they are rich in silica, rich in ports or not. And the truth is that this kind of latter definition is the one that we see most frequently applied in the historical record. When we look at early writings about things called jaspers, they were often durable hard stones, which may or may not be rich in quartz. And now we’ve circled the background, and we call everything that we don’t have a good name for Jasper. Dalmatian stone, not Jasper.
Kambaba stone, also not Jasper. Bumblebee Jasper, not Jasper. Technically speaking, ocean Jasper, not Jasper. It’s spherolytic chalcedony, which is a much sexier term anyway if you ask a geologist. But historically, this word Jasper comes to us in English from a really, really long kind of circuitous route.
We can’t really track its origins, but we can see that there are a lot of related terms and some, like, Afroasiatic linguistic groups. They eventually give rise to Iaspis in Greek, which referred to spotted stone. And in some of the early Lapidary texts, the finest and most coveted of these spotted stones were green in color. And so they were often either equated to or considered a special variety of another famous green stone in the Greek lapidary canon, which was Smaragdus. We know that that came to mean emerald eventually, but often didn’t back then.
There are some analogs. If we look at, like, the Acadian language, we see Ashpu. If we look to Hebrew, we see Ashpu, which more or less translates to, like, polished stone or gleaming stone. We assume it meant Jasper, but we can’t. It’s not a very good assumption. And so, ultimately, when we look at a lot of this early lore, we have to recognize that what people called Jasper was often very local, very individualized.
And so we end up with so many kind of attributes of Jasper today that have been filtered through so many layers, through our own kind of current modern era of experiences with new materials we’re discovering, but also we’ve inherited this kind of, like, historical record of things that jaspers do, which is almost everything, because they weren’t all the same stone. And we’ve certainly had this interesting kind of cultural shift from, you know, the archetype of the finest jasper once being red to nowadays, our green rather, and our modern one. The first thing we think of for most of us when we think of Jasper is red Jasper, and that is in fact what we’re talking about today. And I I suspect it may have something to do with jasper being a catchall term, particularly by the medieval period or early modern period for chalcedony, any fine gem quality chalcedony with the exception of carnelian, but because carnelian has this really strong Martian influence and is typically reddish to orange in color, since they began to take on a lot of similar attributes, spiritually and therapeutically, we we kinda allowed red jasper to, jasper to, you know, take over that that role of the umbrella of our jasper family and and share a lot of those same properties.
Adam: So I know that I’ve got a red jasper. It was one of my very first tumbled stones in my collection. So I’ve had it for about 30 years. It’s a small one and, you know, a couple of others have come into my life since then. Would my little red jasper tumbled stone that I bought at a crystal shop 30 years ago be similar to what we might find if we walk into any general crystal shop these days? It’s kind of got that earthy red kind of color, Nicholas?
Nicholas: Probably. So a lot of our red jaspers that we find on the market that we label pretty universally are, silica rich rocks that are part of, what we call BIFs or banded iron formations. That is a whole deep dive we can do onto the geology and the archaeozoology involved in that, because they are the products of really unique cycles and geological time and how that affected life on earth. But, essentially, we have oxygen rich cycles and oxygen deficient cycles, and that kinda shapes what got deposited. In the ones that had less iron, but still a fair amount of it, we get those silica rich bands that are the red jaspers.
They are at least the kind of social designation of Jasper or chalcedony in that sense, but they’re probably not necessarily as fibrous, and they might not form out of a colloid the way that a true chalcedony would. They may in fact just be silica rich sedimentary rocks, and that’s kind of the challenge. Jasper means a lot of things to a lot of people.
Ashley: Okay. I have to, like, throw something out there that this was just sort of like a passing thought that came to me when you were talking about this evolution of Jasper going from, you know, something we typically thought of as being green to now almost everybody thinks of as red, it it made me think of especially, like, in the English language, there wasn’t, like, a firm word for orange for a really long time. So we have carnelian, right, being, like, distinct from something like Jasper, which maybe was green, red, whatever, but this distinct more, like, orange red variety that was a little bit more translucent, a little bit more more whatever had its own kind of name because we didn’t even have that that word to represent that specific color, ray, yet. I’m curious if, like, you think there’s something that we already sort of knew that these energies were quite different or that there was something really different about these two stones because largely, we see historically things of a kind of similar color often get lumped together.
There was really no way of knowing what was what unless it had real distinct qualities to it. Right? So do you think that, you know, people throughout history were kind of aware of the fact that there was something quite different between carnelian and red jasper that they were sort of already starting to distinguish this, or what does your gut say about that?
Nicholas: I do have a theory on this, and it is, carnelian, generally, the term applies to a smaller and smaller group of materials. Whether or not they have bands, they’re all chalcedony, and so they all share very important physical properties. Carnelian is like one of the most important gem materials of the far ancient world, and was very prized for making cylinder seals because of the properties of chalcedony. Wax didn’t adhere to it, clay didn’t adhere to it, and that took on certain spiritual and social connotations as well because it was rare and precious. Only the really wealthy could afford them or people who were proximal to the really wealthy.
Whereas Jasper didn’t always mean the same kind of thing. So these are rocks that didn’t always share the same physical properties. If we look at some of, like, the early writings, we see references to, like, a purple Jasper from Phrygia. We see, like, green stones being confused for the Scythian emerald, which almost certainly was not any kind of emerald. We see some that are referred to as blue and gray and green and spotted.
And the challenge also kind of comes back to this idea of, like, the language of color is that the colors known to the ancient the color names known to the ancient world don’t always coincide with what we know them as today. I mean, if you read the Iliad or the Odyssey, Homer keeps referring to the ocean as being the color of wine, and they knew wine to be a deep dark red purple color because they didn’t have a separate shade for that kind of blue green of the sea. So, definitely, I think we have to assume that there are other physical and therefore metaphysical traits that were being attributed to the umbrella of Jasper and the much tinier umbrella, although still an umbrella, that was carnelian in the ancient world.
Kyle: And I think in modern gemmology, this is where the differentiation is important because the simplest way, and I’ll add to what Nicholas was saying earlier, is the microcrystalline thing; it’s basically opacity versus translucency. It’s really that simple. And so in Carnelian terms, they would have picked it up and seen the light shining through it, and they would have picked up the red zones and no light shone through it. Like, that in itself would have gone, oh, this is more magical because I can see the light shining through it.
Nicholas: Yes. Yeah. Except that in a lot of these ancient writings that describe Iaspis or Jasper, they are described as translucent, and, it is probable that the finest green jaspers of the ancient world were actually Nephrite Jade.
Adam: Interesting. So we’ve talked. We’ve been kind of talking a little bit about, like, Jasper and Carnelian. I feel that they have very not only does it say very different energies, but different energies would and and I can see you all nodding as I say that. It’s quite interesting. Before we jump on and and and head our concept each week, we kind of talk. We kind of have a little bit of a plan of what we might discuss.
And I know, Kyle, you were talking about the energies of air and earth and how these mix together. I’m really interested because I might disagree with you, but I’m really interested to know a little bit about how you kind of regard the energy of red jasper and how you describe it in that elemental aspect.
Kyle: Absolutely. For me, as someone who the elements and colors and crystals are all heavily intertwined, and the feeling of what the crystal is saying to me when I pick it up is going to be either earthy, fiery, watery, fluid, a combination of things. And Jasper’s red Jasper specifically always comes up with, like, a grounding earthy connection to the interconnectedness. And we’ve talked about this with chalcedony before with blue lace agate. It’s the fact that there’s this microcrystalline interconnectedness that helps me feel like it’s more earthy.
And then I think red jasper is probably iron heavy for the most part, and we’ve talked about how iron connects us to grounding, connects us to energy, connects us to our physical body. And for me, the physical body and the physical earth is how it intertwines. I know that our physical body has water and fire and all of the elements, like, working with it together, but it’s the physical body, our physical reality, the element of earth is how I have connected with red jasper. And as someone, if you look at my astrological chart, there’s no earth placement. I’m air, fire, and water, and my propensity to be ungrounded and cerebral and, like, is big and constant.
And when I have been handed red jasper, it’s like an immediate, like, feet on the ground. Like, the feet just go down. And I feel like I can be more practical. I can exist in a more practical way or I can put more practical things into my day, into my life, but then balance the air element, my mind, and my thought process, and my mental process. I find it points out, why don’t you journal today?
Why don’t you garden today? Why don’t you do some yoga and some stretching? It’s like, what physical thing can you do when your mind is thinking too much? And it’s generally always from Jasper that has taught me this, and it’s been, like, as Adam said, we start with, like, the little tumbled stones, and I’m a twin. Pear thing twos is always what I do.
And then I upgraded to a couple more bigger pieces that have a bit more interest to them, if you will, as I was learning to be more grounded, as I was learning to, like, ground more information as well. I found myself always getting too excited. I’m one of those people that can be very enthusiastic, and I can sort of allow myself to get very excited about things. And I know as you get older, you need to pace yourself and, specifically, the physical body thing. I have chronic pain issues.
I have bulging discs through my spine, so I literally have to be more conscious of my physical vessel. I actually have to take things slower or my body will shout at me, and I’ve talked about this before. And if I don’t, this is why I’ve upgraded to bigger pieces, larger pieces, good palm sized pieces that I can have and I can hold and I can walk around in my backyard. I can sit on my bed or on my couch, however it is that my body is feeling at the time. It’s like, what do I need?
How can I slow down? And then my head slows down as well. This is the thing. My physical pain issues have a huge bearing on my anxiety and my mental health. The more pain I’m in, the more pain I’m in my mind.
The more it goes, the more frustrated I can be with myself. And so it’s really important for me to keep that balance in check and to always be reminding myself that I can’t compare myself to the teenage me. I can’t expect too much of myself. Like, I literally was like, okay. I’m gonna go for a walk, and I walked to the shops.
And I did a little bit of shopping, and I walked home, and I was in pain for 3 days afterwards in my hip because of my lower back, specifically in the bulging discs that I have. And so I have to go, you know what? I’m just gonna order it and get it delivered. I have to actually be practical and go, it’s not about what you think you can do. It’s about what you actually can and need to do.
And that, for me, has been a huge, huge thing of the Earth and then the air, my head and my mind, and how I’m able to
Nicholas: regulate that. I wanna thank you for sharing this because, like, you just gave me an that reconciles a bit of geological history with this kind of elemental balance. I hinted at these, like, deep cycles of time, and they involve respiration. They involve air. We get red jasper because of these microorganisms that thanks to the wobble of the Earth’s axis, its tilt.
We had cycles of more energy reaching Earth’s atmosphere and less, which we call these Milankovitch cycles. They’re the reason why we have flint strata in chalk. It’s the reason why we get these really iron saturated, beautiful strata in magnificent canyon walls, but it’s also how we get red jasper. And it’s because of this relationship of the earth itself breathing. And I love that you’ve just intuitively got to these same 2 kinda elemental correspondences.
That’s really wonderful.
Kyle: I love that. It’s so exciting. And I think the thing that has helped me is I didn’t have any. I don’t have them on my table except for one especially this first piece, it’s quite brecciated. So it’s gone through that, like, it’s broken apart and come back together and it’s got a bit of quartz in it. It’s helped that, like, mental process of, yes, you can break.
Yes, you can heal. Yes, you can be strong enough to, like, do what you need to do. And my other favorite piece that I came across is Western Australian red jasper in malachite or malachite in red jasper, and it comes from the Pilbara. And this one was quite key in me connecting to and understanding the physical connection because malachite has such a physical energy and physical connection, and it was like, you need to learn to redistribute and use your physical energy in different ways. You need to learn how to not push and think so hard when you can’t because the balance is shifting dramatically.
And if you don’t get with the program, you’ll actually put yourself back in words. It was a huge, huge lesson in how my mental state and my physical body are connected, and it makes so much sense. That whole ancient thing of microorganisms. And I didn’t realize those patterns of the earth. That’s really, really fascinating.
I love learning these things from Nicholas.
Adam: Kyle, I was really interested. I’ve always loved knowing how people use their crystals and get them off the shelf when they’re using them from day to day practice. And as you’re talking about your relationship with your red jaspers, you’re saying that it’s they’re ones that you hold. Now we know, I guess, we’re kind of summarizing that one of the great things about red jasper is it’s very grounding. Do you find it’s a better stone to stop at at to it physically stop and hold for a while as opposed to wearing it all the time or do you think both would be worthwhile uses?
Kyle: I love the immediacy of holding it and what it does. I’ve actually watched this. So my mum used to own a crystal shop and we used to watch it with small children that were really hyperactive and would feel the buzz of the crystals and they would be like woah and my mom would hand them a piece of red jasper, and they would calm down in seconds. And they would then be like, oh, asking questions, being curious, and not buzzing like they were.
And, you know, it was a tumbler stone of red jasper. It was $3 or $2. They would be given the crystal. Take it. It’s all good.
Everyone wins from this situation, but I would watch it in real time work and that’s why I was like, oh, I need to do this for me because I am not grounded at all but also like wear wear it as a daily crystal as a bracelet or a, a pocket stone or something that you just have on you just so that you’re reminded day to day what you’re doing. I think both. It’s very much poquenalas with this situation.
Adam: Talking about that kind of settling down the mind as well, one of the favorite ways I really like to use red jasper is as the worry stone. So, you know, I find that, you know, obviously, we get through the day and at the end of the night, people who have got themselves in such a state or there’s so much happening that falling asleep can be a bit of a hard challenge. So all I suggest is take your red jacket, but I like to do things outside. I think anything outside nature, your crystals sing a lot more. And what you need to do is either out loud or in your head depending on how close your neighbors are and how crazy you want them to think you are.
Just basically talk to the crystal and tell them what your worries are. And what I found why I find this to be so powerful is if we try and map our thoughts, they’re like ping pong balls going around. They’re not linear. But as soon as you have to speak it or even write it, you have to linearize it, and it kind of settles a little bit. And the idea is then you send that energy into the crystal.
It’s kind of stuck with you know, it holds on to that energy, and then you leave that out on the earth throughout the night and let mother earth deal with that. And hopefully that will help you to get a good night’s rest as well. So I really love it for that, but I think, actually, you might be keen on actually taking a red jasper into the bedroom.
Ashley: Yeah. So this you know, I’ve just been kind of sitting listening to what all of you are sharing, and I’m feeling so connected to so many of the things that each of you has said. And I think, especially, Kyle, I wanna mirror I’m definitely someone that thinks of the crystals in terms of their elemental connections as well. That’s a really big way that I feel their energy, that their energy kind of speaks to me, that it gives context for me on, you know, how, I can sort of relate to these stones. And red Jasper for me is one of these rare crystals that I really feel all of the elements in.
A lot of times, you know, I gravitate toward, like, 1, 2. With red jasper, there are these bits of each of the elements there. So, clearly, we have that really earthy energy, that really grounding energy from that iron content that is so alive and so present, which I love like a rough piece like this because when you look at that grain texture up close, when you really feel it in your hands, it’s like that iron is so alive and so present, and you get that that great sort of grounding. And I definitely feel that air connection as well with the mental aspect and especially calming those thoughts down. But a big one that comes through for me with red jasper is one you might not immediately think of, and that’s this water element connection.
And the way that I feel that comes through is really in this support of our intuition of sort of leaning into the trust of our intuition. So if you’re someone like me, especially in the beginning of, like, your intuitive development journey, you struggle with leaning into that intuitive guidance, trusting that intuitive guidance. Red Jasper can be an amazing companion. And Adam hinted, at, yeah, bringing red Jasper into the bedroom and the way that this comes through for me is always in this connection to dream practice. So I feel like red jasper is one of the greatest stones that we can work with for dream recall.
So tucking a piece in your pillowcase, keeping one on your bedside table is so useful because, you know, if you think about trying to remember your dreams, a lot of times we wake up, things are so crisp in our minds. You know? Maybe we’ve had this really fantastical journey in the astral plane, or maybe we’ve just had something that’s like a little snippet that we are like, that’s interesting. That really stood out. I don’t remember the rest of what happened, but that felt really powerful.
And the moment you open your eyes or you reach for your dream journal or you put your feet on the floor, it all sort of fades away. Right? I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s had that experience. So keeping that red jasper right there and again, that act of getting really tactile and involved physically holding it in your hands, and you can do this while your eyes are still closed, especially if it’s in your pillowcase, on your bedside table, reach for that stone before you even open your eyes, Hold it for just a few minutes and sort of play that dream over and over in your mind. Try to see the details.
Try to follow the thread. Remember the plot line. Whatever it is. Getting that kind of the juicy bits of that experience out of it. You don’t even necessarily have to try and interpret it right now.
This is just about the recall, just about the memory, the connection of that experience. And then after you’ve had that couple of minutes to sort of really let it sink in, and it’s that iron rich, Jasper that lets that really sink into your body, then you can put your feet on the floor, then you can reach for the dream journal and jot down some notes, some bullet points. But the red Jasper just helps it sort of anchor. And the other thing that I really like about it is a few days later, you can go back to that dream journal entry or later that day, whatever works for you. Hold that red jasper again.
And you might even wanna pair this with some amethyst, which is great for, you know, stimulating our intuition, and helping us interpret our dreams. But I find the red jasper almost acts like this sort of tether, right, into our physical body while we’re making that connection with the astral plane. So if you get to that space where you’re revisiting that dream, you’re trying to interpret, trying to understand what the meaning is there for you. It’s helping you lean in and trust your intuition, and then especially paired with some amethyst. And you can just hold 1 in each hand for a few minutes before you start to really dive into this interpretation process.
The amethyst can then pull through, you know, this little bit of intuitive insight. It’s kind of bringing that intuitive wisdom to the forefront of your conscious mind where you can interpret it, and the red Jasper is helping you lean into that space of trust and sort of connect with that. So this is a really a really great stone for this whole sort of start to finish of dream recall, dream interpretation, understanding, and gathering insight, of things that might be important and meaningful and give you, you know, solid information about what’s alive for you right now. That might give you a little bit of a look into that subconscious mind that might give you a little bit of a look into where things are headed in the future. And it’s for this reason that I feel it really connected to the water element because it’s so deeply connected with intuition.
And one other way that I see this come through is actually in pendulum dowsing. I am personally not a big pendulum person. I know a lot of people that are. I really struggle with using a pendulum for divination. I love a pendulum for reading energy.
I feel like I’m a little bit more detached from outcomes in that way. So it’s good for sort of scanning energy of a space of, an energy body, a field, an aura, something like that. But for me, trying to use a pendulum for divination is, like, torturous. It really is. It’s so difficult because I feel like I have such a strong will and sometimes I’m, like, really connected to the outcomes.
And even if I’m not, like, you know, intentionally moving a pendulum in a certain direction to get it to tell me what I wanna hear, I think subconsciously, all those little micro movements, they’re coming right through. And sometimes that can be affirming. Don’t get me wrong. Right? Sometimes it’s like you already know what the answer is and you’re trying to get some confirmation.
That’s different. I’m talking I’m just, like, showing myself what I wanna hear. That’s not always useful. So for me, pendulum dowsing is really tricky that way, but holding a red jasper before doing some pendulum dowsing or better yet working with a pendulum made of red jasper, I found helps just sort of balance this out a little bit. I think it helps give you some healthy space from those outcomes by keeping you grounded and present rather than getting too wrapped up in that mental aspect and worried about what the answer is going to be.
And also I think there’s something about that grounding that just if you’re like me and you have a a difficult relationship with your pendulum, that just creates that little bit of space between you and the tool that you’re working with so that you aren’t influencing the outcome of that work.
Adam: I wanted to offer a little tangent for a second about how you mentioned there that you like red jasper pendulums. It’s a question that I occasionally get is, does it matter what crystal the pendulum is made out of and what are the best crystals for pendulums? For me, I’ve got a few and I’d find I just pick up the one that I’m drawn to. I think I’ve got one that’s clear quartz. I’ve got one that’s, aqua aura quartz.
I’ve got one that’s biolane. And those tend to be the main ones that I will work with. But I’d love to know first, Ashley, and then the boys as well. Do you find that you’ve got to think clearly about what kind of crystal you need when you’re choosing a pencil?
Ashley: I think it’s useful. I think that different stones can work with you in different ways. There could be different reasons that you might gravitate toward one versus another. For me, personally, my kind of go to and, again, I rarely work with a pendulum. It’s just not my favorite sort of method.
But when I do, I love a clear quartz with copper. There’s something about that copper that’s such a great conduit for energy and that clear quartz. It’s such an excellent amplifier that I think really helps sort of bring those movements and that pendulum sort of to life so that I can get that clear sort of movement that I’m looking to interpret. I’ve had a few others in the past that I’ve worked with for different reasons, and, ultimately, I just found myself again and again going toward the clear quartz and copper. So that’s generally sort of the wheelhouse I stay in now.
Adam: What about you, Nicholas? Do you have a pendulum preference when it comes to crystals?
Nicholas: You know, I will use whatever is handy. I learned how to dowse when I was, like, really young, and I got into the habit of using any weight attached to any dangly bit, whether it was a chain, a piece of thread, an embroidered floss. And, these days now that I have a budget to spend, of course, I have things I prefer. I have a really inexpensive clear quartz pendulum that has a little castellite on top that I just adore. I don’t know why I didn’t need a 12th pendulum when I saw it, but it wasn’t very much money and it’s become my default.
But for, like especially if I’m dowsing earth energies, I love a copper pendulum. I am really fond of Preseli Bluestone for dowsing earth energies as well, but I’m kind of a sucker for Preseli Bluestone in any shape or size. So, yeah, I will take the utilitarian answer of whatever’s on hand I’ll use.
Adam: What about you, Kyle?
Kyle: So I am a pendulum breaker. I have too much energy for pendulums to work subtly with, and they will do, like, they have come off the chain. Every single pendulum that I have owned, I have broken. So for me personally, I now work with a wooden pendant on a chain, and that is my default pendulum because I can’t break it. It is safe and sound, and it’s literally a really beautiful little tactile, brown with a couple of bits of paint on it, this little piece of wood that was a pendant that was given to me as a present, but just has the right shape, has the right movement, and I can’t break it.
So for me personally, go for whatever works.
Ashley: I definitely wanna jump in too on what Nicholas said. Like, yeah, anything that’s attached to, like, a bit of cord or string is great. I mean, like, a really traditional pendulum would be anything that was, like, on a necklace, a pendant, an iron key on a piece of string works so great, especially for, like Nicholas mentioned, dowsing earth energies. There are so many options, so it doesn’t have to be, like, the world’s most fancy, beautiful thing. Although, there are lots of those available and they’re kind of fun.
But, you know, especially when you’re sort of just getting started to see if you even enjoy the practice, to see if it’s something that resonates with you. Like, it can be a bead on a piece of string. It can be a pendant that you have. Give it a try and see what you think.
Adam: When I teach, chakra balancing workshops, I actually get everyone we we get some cotton or some thread and we all, use star anise herbs and tie a bit on that because star anise is actually renowned for being really great for helping with the 3rd eye chakra and intuition as well. And that’s, you know, that’s how I can supply a group of 20 people with a pendulum each, at a cost that’s only a few dollars. So yeah. Exactly right as well. I wanna talk a little bit. It’s interesting.
I think we’d all agree that there’s definitely earth energy in red jasper. Kyle’s kinda talked about how it can work with that earth and that air. Ashley’s talked about how it works and you can bring in some of that water energy. Now I’m gonna talk a little bit about how I actually find, although it’s primarily earth, it kind of works really well on that earth fire axis. You know, when we look at these 2 from an astrological point of view, the earth signs, they’re slow, they’re steady, they’re practical, they’re very deliberate.
Whereas the fire is quite erratic, quite spontaneous, quite impulsive, quite fast. It’s very much that famous fable of the hare and the tortoise. You’ve got the tortoise that’s earth and the hare is fire, but both can win. We need both in our lives and we need that imbalance. And I find that Red Jasper almost kind of has its depth in it.
I feel that the flame contained red jasper. And why, you know, there is a method to our madness and how we choose our crystals each week. And the reason that we’re talking about red jasper this week is this is the week that Mars goes into retrograde. Now Mars, being one of our closest cousins in the solar system, in fact, is the major planet that goes into retrograde the least. It only goes into retrograde every second year.
Now I’ve talked, especially if you watched our or listened to our Blue Barite episode a couple of weeks ago about when a planet goes into retrograde, what it does is it’s like a parent and it leaves us at home by ourselves to see if we’re going to burn the house down or to see whether we’re going to thrive. So what do we know about Mars? We know that Mars, traditionally, is known as the planet of war. But I, again, turning that into a more modern twist or modern interpretation, Mars is about our drive, our motivation, our passions. It’s very sexual, and it is a very fiery kind of planet.
And so red jasper, I find, works really well with that. Now what are we gonna be expecting in the next couple of weeks as, remember, it’s not on the day that the planet goes into retrograde as a major day. It’s a wave. It comes in and it goes out. And what we’re gonna find is Mars, which is our primary awakening of passion and motivation, and is going on holiday for a while.
So how are we gonna find it? We’re gonna find that we just can’t be bothered doing things as much. So there’s gonna be that lack of pride. Sometimes people do start to feel a little bit depressed, and I do like that kind of play on words where people go when we’re depressed, there is a need for deep rest, and this is a really great time for this. But every retrograde lesson has a really cool lesson, and the cool lesson of Mars well, if Mars isn’t motivating me to do it, think about Mars almost being like that, that gym instructor getting behind you and going, come on.
One more rep. One more rep. One more rep. If Mars isn’t there telling you to do it and you can’t be bothered doing it, then why are you doing it? So Mars retrograde is a really great time to recognize our true passions and what we truly want to be doing with our life.
It’s a really great time to go, why am I driving all that way to do that one thing once a week? Why am I putting up with that meeting or putting up with that phone call that I’m actually not enjoying and that type of thing as well? Mars wants us to have a life that’s full of passion. And what I love about red jasper is that red jasper not only has its Mars energy, it’s danced between the earth and the fire, but it also is a really great story for helping us to simplify our lives. Most people we talk to, if they said they’ve got nothing to do or too much to do, the majority of the world has got too much to do.
And Mars, retrograde, is a really great time to go, well, hold on. If I know, what are the small amount of things that I want to do well in my world rather than being spread too thin, being overwhelmed, hating my life or whatever that may be. So this is a beautiful stone. I would wear it, but maybe, you know, I you know, that in my social media, when Miles goes retrograde, I put pondering questions out and type them. Ask me to think, why am I doing this?
What am I passionate about? What would my most fun life or my most inspiring life look like? That kind of journaling and sitting with red Jasper, well, let’s go. Okay. Well, maybe it is time to kinda cut some things.
And then when Mars goes direct again, then you’re living a life that you really want to live, following those passions rather than doing what you’re obligated to do. So it’s a great stone for this week.
Ashley: Adam, how would you recommend incorporating, like, the red Jasper for that visualization practice, journaling practice? However someone can take the time to reflect on those things that are most meaningful. I know you said wearing a piece of jewelry would be great during this time. And and and well, okay. I have 2 questions.
1st is, is there another way we can incorporate red jasper? 2nd, I wanna clarify, it’s not that the red jasper is, like, pushing you through and making you do all the things anyway. We’re not relying on it for motivation. It’s more the reflection. Right?
Adam: Yes. No. It is definitely more, like I said before, it’s more than earthing energy, so it does ground us in that. But we still, you know, when Mars is not around, we are very unmotivated. So it’s kind of like I’d kind of say the amount of fire in a red jasper if I had a visual is like that flickering flame.
It just keeps us tethering along so that we actually do get out of bed in the morning, in that way. I I think there’s 2 ways. I think we still have to go about our day, whether it’s a full moon or a retrograde or that type of thing. So I’m very deliberate in my crystal choices. And so around this week, when Mars is going into retrograde and again when it goes out of retrograde, this is a really great time to just have it knee have its energy permanently within your aura type of thing.
So wearing it is a really great thing to do. But then I think the things that come up and people might know that I’ve mentioned this, as people were watching or as they’re listening, they might kinda go, yeah. Actually, recently, I just can’t be bothered doing things. Or there is something that I’ve been, like, really having to push myself to do. And, you know, exercise may be a classic one.
You can’t be bothered exercising. Am I saying, no. You shouldn’t exercise when we know that’s really good for you? No. I’m encouraging you to maybe sit with the red jasper and go, well, what other type of exercise would I actually benefit from and find more enjoyable?
Maybe, you know, you don’t like going to the gym and sitting there by yourself for now. Maybe a team sport might be something as well. So wearing it during the day will support you, but I think there is time for that contemplation, because red jasper does encourage us, like Kyle said, to slow down on things. So I think we need overall support and concentrated focus with it at times as well.
Ashley: Amazing. If you know, this is a stone that I think is so underappreciated because it’s such a common one, and I think it sometimes takes a really special piece to catch our eye. And I just wanted to share a piece that I personally really love. It’s this little carved leaf, and we’re just, like, on the very tail end of autumn here in the northern hemisphere. And this little red jasper leaf has been on my altar for a few weeks, just kind of soaking up all of that seasonal energy as we sort of shift and pivot.
And I know, you know, we’ll be like at least here where I live, like, by the time this episode comes out well into the deep cold of winter, and you’ll probably be in the very fiery summer down in the southern hemisphere. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this, I don’t know, kind of like a deep connection with cycles with this stone. Like, this is one that I always find really supportive through the ebbs and flows of life and looking at, you know, how that sort of plays out in our own day to day. It’s making me think a lot of what you’re talking about here, Adam, with this Mars retrograde where we have these periods of productivity and rest, and we need both. That both are really important.
But I feel that on this grand scale too of annual cycles and, smaller through the lunar cycle, like, we can feel those times, those ebbs and flows of productivity and rest of summer and winter, of the full moon, the new moon. Like, all of that, I think, is really well encapsulated by red Jasper. I wonder if anyone else has felt anything like that from this crystal.
Nicholas: Yeah. This talk of cycles, which is coming up cyclically in our conversation tonight, I turn to red jasper when I feel like my my, like, synthetic time cycles need me to be on when my deeper spiritual cycles want me to pull back and rest. So I use this to kind of reconcile the difference. What I do is wear beads around the clock, so I treated myself to some very nice red and jasper beads, very spendy ones quite a long time ago. And, I had a mentor who described it as like crystalline caffeine.
Like, it’s so nourishing, so vitalizing, so energizing when we need it to be. But unlike caffeine, it doesn’t disrupt your whole cycle. It helps you draw from that wellspring that you’ve got and just apportion it differently. So when the cycle I’d prefer and the cycle that life requested of me don’t line up, it’s one of my go to’s.
Adam: Another oh, sorry. Kyle, go on.
Kyle: I think for me, it’s about the longer cycles because for me, I’ve been fiery for so long, and it’s been about the longest slowdown through my life. So for me, it’s been a longer cycle stone of work that I think is attaching itself to the story beautifully.
Adam: I was just as we’re talking, another talking about the cycles of nature and and thinking about rain for a second. I know I have seen some references, and I’m gonna lean maybe to the North American that there was in North American practices, maybe in some of the different tribes that would use red jasper as a rain bringing stone. Can either of the northerners comment on that at all?
Ashley: I do feel like I remember, some references to that in some of the kind of, like, older late eighties, early nineties crystal books. I can’t place them. I wanna maybe lean toward melody here, but I can’t place that for sure. But I would say I haven’t seen that substantiated by any indigenous people that I’ve seen.
Adam: I think the ritual was something along the lines of that I saw was putting red jasper maybe in some water and then throw take then take it like, making an elixir, then throwing the water in the air as a prayer for rain carving and letting it all fall upon you, type of thing. But I always think, you know, when I talk about that, there’s a caveat of, you know, when we put mother nature does what mother nature knows best and how often should we be encouraging it to rain anyway. Maybe there’s other things we should focus on with every Jasper, like calming our own farm. But, yeah, it was another interesting reference and it kind of leans into what Nicholas was saying at the start if there’s been so much discrepancy in what on earth a red Jasper actually is. And that would suggest why around the world in different times as well, different uses of crop top and bottom is good for this.
Ashley: Yeah. And I I think one thing to just to note that happens here in in North America quite a bit is that a lot of writers, particularly white writers, will attribute some practice that they largely made up to an indigenous culture or let’s say it’s in a, quote, unquote, ancient practice trying to give it more legitimacy, when it’s it’s just something that they’ve they’ve made up. So anytime you see references that way, definitely take it with a grain of salt because, a lot of the practices that do exist in these very much, like, alive living cultures are closed practices and wouldn’t necessarily be shared. Or if they are open practices, they’re largely distorted or incorrectly described. So something to keep in mind.
Adam: Before we wind up, I’d love to just find out if anyone has any other practical uses because I am so keen on that as well. I do also wanna acknowledge, Ashley, I love that you said to put the red Jasper in your pillow slip. I think we’ve all got many books from some of the well known crystal authors, and there’s lots that always say, put it under your pillow. And I think that is the worst advice ever because I don’t know how you all sleep. But if I had put a crystal under my pillow, within 5 minutes, my arm would have done this, and I would have woken up in the morning trying to find my precious crystal that disappeared somewhere in my bed.
So a tumbled stone in a pillow slip, much more advisable than under the pillow. So I just wanted to sing that out as well. But does anyone have any other practical uses of how they like to use their red Jasper?
Kyle: Me, it’s about incorporating it into something practical that can help to regulate your physical energy like that regulation of physical energy, as I spoke about earlier, helps me with the mental side of things and regulating my mind. So for me, it’s incorporating it into something like doing yoga, walking on the beach, walking in nature, cooking, gardening, really simple practical practices, even journaling. Like, something that I can have in my pocket, have it hold, have it on my wrist whilst I’m doing something practical, so I’m not overextending myself. I’m not forcing anything. I’m in the moment of what I’m doing, and I’m not trying too hard, and that helps to regulate.
That’s been a really beautiful, simple way to work with that. And if you have hyperactive children, give one to them so that they can settle down at home space, and you’ll feel things a lot more balanced in that way, I think.
Ashley: I love that. You know, one thing that I’ve also always felt from this stone is this energy that really helps with setting boundaries. I find it’s kind of a stone of courage and bravery. And for someone like me, I’m introverted. I’m really confrontation averse.
I have a difficult time with that. So when I do need to set boundaries, it’s challenging, and it’s something you know, I’m getting better every year that goes on, a little bit more experience under my belt with it, but I still struggle. And just for that support, when I know that I have a difficult conversation coming up or something that will be challenging that involves those boundaries, Red Jasper is an amazing support. And I think the reason it works so well for that is because it is a really protective stone. It has this iron that is very shielding, that is, you know, very grounding.
It kind of, like, roots you into your center, and so I love it for that. Which reminds me, speaking of protection, Nicholas has a new book coming out very soon, and I think you just got your author’s copies, didn’t you?
Nicholas: I did. Thank you so much for reminding me. Yeah. So, coming out here in the States in early January and a little bit later in other parts of the world, my brand new book is called, Crystals for Psychic Self Defense. It has 145 different gemstones for banishing, binding, and magical protection.
Of course, it’s got a handful of Jaspers in there. You’re gonna see red Jasper and one of those not real Jaspers, which we love anyway, Bumblebee Jasper, and one named after, my late friend and colleague collectively in the crystal world, Judy Hall. So Judy Jasper, it is also in there as my little homage to her because she was quite an adept in the subject of psychic self defense. So, this is I just got my author copies, and I’m just over the moon to see it finally. So thank you.
Adam: One thing I wanna mention for another author as well is that where we buy our books from can sometimes vary and support an author in different ways. Sometimes, an author will get paid as little as, you know, 3 or 4¢ per copy, whereas they’ll actually, in other cases, you know, get a majority of the profit or the majority of that sale. So when people wanna get a hold of your book, Nicholas, where is the best place that you would love them to buy it from?
Nicholas: Well, of course, my mantra is every copy sold is a good copy sold. So, individual accessibility comes first. If all you can do is order on Amazon or one of the other big box stores so it can come to you because that is what you need and that’s what works for your life, I’m gonna celebrate that. But please go find your local indie bookstore, Especially before it comes out, feel like, hey. This guy writes books on rocks, and you sell rocks, and I’d love to order this book from you.
Can you preorder it for me? They might go, yeah. And maybe we should get one for the store too so it can kinda, like, double your impact. Plus, we wanna support our local, independent bookstores and metaphysical shops and, you know, rock and mineral stores. So I always think that’s, like, the best thing you can do.
Adam: I love that. I love that. So stay tuned. We are gonna do a little bit of impromptu shameless self promotion each week and let you know different things because between the 4 of us, we write books, we have shops, we do online events, we do readings, we sell other products and a whole range of different things. So remember that underneath, whether you’re watching on Youtube or listening on a podcast, we have our 4 link trees, which are 4 menus of all the different things we do.
You may be familiar with 1, 2, 3, or 4 of us, but probably have a look at the ones that you don’t know so much as well. One little thing I’ll shamelessly self promote is when we’re talking about dream work. I work with a particular type of juniper berry, which when you anoint it on the soles of your feet, it will stop night terrors in children, but everyone else, it actually makes your dreams more vivid. So maybe a bit of juniper berry with a bit of red jasper. And if you’re interested in getting that at a cheaper price, then drop me a line and I can help you out with that as well.
That is our red jasper for this week. We could talk about it more and more and more, but the essence of this, Krista, is about simplicity. So we’ll leave it there. Enjoy Mars Retrograde. Get your red Jasper out, and we’ll be back again next week for another confab about another crystal.
Until then, take care.
Are you interested in becoming a Certified Crystal Healer? Find out more about the CCH and Advanced Crystal Practitioner Program HERE!
