borrowing light

28 Feb 2012

wearing a snowflake obsidian bracelet to remove these psychic hooks, a find from mucking around my alien, adopted city last weekend. Came across a highway cutting through a building, a shop selling rows and rows of sweet-smelling shampoo, dyes, hair accessories and all the things you'd ever need, should you choose to set up a hair salon. All the while it was foggy, a wet, misty not-quite-rain that left my hair damp and these fingers, cold. And a row of jade shops, followed by a street of crystal shops - We walked through three without finding anything, till the fourth, owned by a man with a childlike humour and gentleness.

Picked out a sunstone bracelet and a snowflake obsidian bracelet from him. As he rethreaded them for me (tiny wrists only ask for 17 beads), we chatted. I asked him, so many people come to your store to buy crystals for love, wealth, protection. Why have you not used any of it for yourself? To call love to you? He said, love is something the young like you hunger for, when you get to my age, after a divorce, you've been there, and the thirst is stilled. I am reminded of the crystal merchant in the Alchemist. He asked us to stay for lunch and gave us both a labradorite ball. Beneath its dark gray, off-yellow sheen, there's a deep sparkle of blue.

At the last shop we went to, a dragon lady presided over it - graying hair and a joie de vivre, a loud voice scolding a customer she was displeased with and refused to give a discount to. From her, I got jade, lapis lazuli, red jasper, rose quartz, smoky quartz crystals in tiny balls, and a jet stone - protection, clarity, abundance, healing, love, but mostly, I liked their shiny colours. Then my friend called my attention - something she'd been looking for, for years - a soulmate crystal. As she picked up her piece, I found one for me too. a quartz crystal formed of two distinct halves, growing together, with a hidden rainbow between. The dragon lady gave it to us cheap, with a wink. They are sitting on my window sill now, after a wash, to take in some sunlight and moonlight. Their shimmer makes me happy.