Naisha Ahsian - The Book of Stones: Who They Are and What They Teach, Revised & Expanded Edition

by Robert Simmons

The Pocket Book of Stones

Stones of the New Consciousness

Moldavite: Starborn Stone of Transformation (with Kathy Warner)

Earthfire

by Naisha Ahsian

The Crystal Ally Cards

Copyright 2005, 2007, 2015 by Robert Simmons. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact Heaven & Earth Publishing LLC.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Dr. Mae-Wan Ho for material from the Institute of Science in Society website: www.i-sis.org.uk

From The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby, copyright 1998 by Jeremy Narby
Used by permission of Jeremy Narby, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Published by North Atlantic Books and Heaven & Earth Publishing LLC

PO Box 12327 PO Box 249

Berkeley, CA 94712 East Montpelier, VT 05651

Cover design by Kathy Warner and Margery Cantor
Book design by Margery Cantor

The Book of Stones: Who They Are and What They Teach is sponsored and published by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

Heaven & Earth Publishing books are widely available. For further information call 800-942-9423.

North Atlantic Books publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Simmons, Robert, 1951 author.
The book of stones : who they are and what they teach / Robert Simmons & Naisha Ahsian; with contributions by Hazel Raven. Revised edition.
pages cm
eBook ISBN: 978-1-58394-909-2
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-58394-908-5
1. CrystalsPsychic aspects. 2. Precious stonesPsychic aspects. 3. CrystalsTherapeutic use. 4. Precious stonesTherapeutic use. I. Ahsian, Naisha, 1968- author. II. Raven, Hazel. III. Title.
BF1442.C78S558 2015
133.2548dc23

v3.1

The stones are always circling Her,

Tumbled under ocean waves.

Theyve gazed upon Her star-white face

And danced the night moon tides away.

The stones are echoing Her name

In deep rock veins they chant and tell

Of rushing streams and hollow hills,

The blessed darkness of Her womb.

The stones all listen to Her Song

Harp strings touched by wind and rain

From Heavens arc to Earths deep core

In lifes great web each note a strand.

The stones are borne up from the Earth

Ancient sacral gown of jewels

And as they wake our vision sparks

A prismal glimpse of She who comes!

Anonymous

We know that much pagan thought, as exemplified in the famous phrase, as above, so below, suggests that the terms inferior and superior are unreal. The idea as above, so below evokes an awe toward Nature, a sense that we share consciousness with plants, animals, stars and stones, and that all living creatures, including stones, share a consciousness with the Soul of the World or the spiritual genius of the Earth.

Robert Bly in News of the Universe

In a crystal we have the clear evidence of the existence of a formative life principle, and though we cannot understand the life of a crystal, it is nonetheless a living being.

Nicola Tesla

T his extraordinarily beautiful book, by its title, The Book of Stones , softly and without fanfare, but with immense truth, announces that this writing comes directly from the stones themselves, is of them, not an imposed, conceptual theory about stones written from a non-soul-engaged perspective. Of the myriad books now available about gems and minerals and their metaphysical properties, this work is both the base and the crown. There is something different, very different about the book you hold in your lap. (It may be a little too heavy to hold for very long in your hands; but, after all, stones are supposed to be heavy.) The love, care, precision, beauty, embrace, depth and height that characterize this writing and the very design of the book itself resounds a new, emerging form of spiritual metaphysics; an engaged metaphysics, one that dissolves the separation between the properties of the stones and a passiveness of the stone-holder; a radical departure from the usual kind of spiritual metaphysics that expects to get something without giving very much.

This book, by the very way it is written and presented, boldly declares that working with stones beckons us to an I-Thou meeting rather than expecting the goodies to come pouring in the moment a purchase is made. The spiritual-metaphysical properties of stones as listed in the book are more the promise, spoken by the stones, of what could happen if we approach them as living beings. We can obscure and severely limit this most basic dimension of stone-work if we take the many attempts to put the intimacy of a soul-connection with stones into scientific terms and then proceed to take those terms naively and literally.

To take what is promised by the stones literally would trap us in a terrible kind of materialism. It is their promise and has to be heard and felt on their terms, not in terms of our personality needs. For example, if a stone promises prosperity, to take that offering literally is to abuse the speaking of the stone, for prosperity spoken in an intimate relationship cannot possibly mean you are going to make me materially rich. If I say to a dear friend, lovingly, with all my heart, I wish you prosperity, I am not saying, you will become materially wealthy because we are related. I am saying that because of our intimacy, your soul prospers and the world shines brighter.

The new work proposed in this writing begins, at last, to go beyond needing backing by science on the one hand and practices from the past on the other hand. Just as the human being emanates an electromagnetic field, so too do stones. However, I never relate with another person as soul-being in terms of an electromagnetic field, and the attempt to be scientific can obscure the mystery of our meeting in an effort to make it more acceptable to those who cannot understand loving a stone. It is time to roll the stone out of the closet! There is the unmistakable presence, a Who, that accompanies every stone with which we establish a relationship. And the connection is spiritual while being completely within matter. Here, by working in depth with stones, the age-old and false division between spirit and matter is demonstrated as wrong each moment we really take the time to notice what is happening while holding a stone. Matters spirit and soul reveals itself to us in utmost particularity. Sometimes we are shocked and are thrown into tears with the overwhelming recognition of the soul of matter. Sometimes we simply feel that it is going to take time for the relating to develop.