10/14/2025
✨ New Blog Post: Reflections With Smoky Quartz ✨
I am sitting here with 15 smoky quartz tumbles. Early on in crystal collecting I had purchased wholesale lots of smoky quartz and agates, and they've been in a bowl mostly, some taken out and moved around and returned, and some gifted to others. Different ones have called to me or caught my eye at different times, and like now, I would spend time with them.
Crystals grow in the earth over long periods of time we humans can't fathom. They are patient. Patient in growth, in observing and witnessing, in changing and evolving, and in waiting. They live in their purpose at each stage of being and growth, and wait patiently for any evolving new purpose to unfold. We can learn from this.
I imagine them forming in the earth, a part of large masses of smoky quartz, moving as the earth moves, breaking apart as a result. I imagine them being mined by men who are just doing their daily work so they and their families can eat and have shelter and buy what they need or want. I imagine them broken apart further with hammers and chisels as they are extracted from both the earth and the large masses they were a part of.
I imagine these rough, raw-formed smoky quartz being gathered in trucks like gravel, separated further perhaps, but taken to places where they are put into tumbling machines. Round and round they go, clanging and banging for days upon end, until the process is considered complete.
I wonder what it's like when they emerge, smoother, rounded, "rough" edges polished with time and motion. Some nicks and dents remain, perhaps being the parts of themselves they held onto tightly in the harsh "storm" of a tumbling machine, like remnants they knew would hold meaning to be witnessed and observed.
In the contrast of the fashioned smoothness, these nicks and dents will be seen as flaws or scars. They will repel some, but attract others for the beauty they represent, the endurance and transformation they underwent. In this new state, not fully polished, not shaped or carved, not "perfect", they go out into the world in wholesale lots and are sold as wholesale, then sold as individuals.
All this time, gathering and forming and solidifying in the earth, becoming their essence. Handled roughly and objectively in the mining, the transportation, the tumbling, and the packaging. Patient and "being" throughout all of this. But I wonder, as they evolved, were they also patient in waiting for connection and a home, for a time would they would be seen and be able to share their healing energy and lessons with the world above the darkened depths from which they came.
I wonder, were they waiting - content but also somewhat eager - for the divine plan to unfold in which they would one day come into the possession of a person who would hold them and turn them around slowly, gazing at them and into them with wonder, awe, and appreciation. With reflection. With openness - pliant and receptive to any lesson or wisdom they would impart.
In this manner, I see them as more than patient teachers, and almost like monks who have spent time in the stillness of being and contemplation, gathering knowledge and wisdom through deep inner connection. There in the high wilderness of some ancient mountain finding a deep spirituality that is fulfillment incarnate. They are content, the monks, to be there by themselves or amongst brethren in their common quest.
But I imagine the smile that spreads across a Tibetan monk's face as a wanderer or a seeker comes trailing up the mountain toward them, and I see the smile broaden in greeting. There is an extension of sacred connection and embrace in that smile. There is welcome and rich gratitude, and a delight brimming below the surface to share all the jewels of truth, love, wisdom, enlightenment, and freedom with the one who has come into his presence.
And this is how I see these smoky quartz tumbles that sit before me now. I kind of like that imagined history and imagery, perhaps not too far from some truth. So I will have these tumbles out for a few days, in the open, nearby, in my auric space. I will "be" with them and let them share their being with me.
In stillness, in gazing and in holding, I will sit before them as a student and "listen" to their stories, to their teaching and wisdom, and discover any deeper journey that they, in their time forged patience, are so well equipped to take me on.
Blessings ~ Sara
Image attribution: Adam Kiss at vecteezy.com
