Moonstone represents the great Mother Goddess. Her strength lies in her gentleness, and her ability to experience, process, and neutralize her feelings.

Introduction

Moonstone is one of the most mythical of all gemstones. With its exotic, lunar name and its milky unique rainbow sheen, moonstone is highly prized by many practitioners of crystal and stone healing, as well as some mystic religions.

A stone for “new beginnings”, Moonstone is a stone of inner growth and strength. It soothes emotional instability and stress, and stabilizes the emotions, providing calmness.

Moonstone has been associated with the emotional energy of the moon and is reputed to help you go through your transitions with optimism. It is the stone of "wishes, hopes and dreams" that helps you remember that everything comes in its own divine time. It attracts nurturing people and energies. It is also known as a "goddess stone" since many ancient cultures associated the female presence of God with the moon. Moonstone has the energy vibration of 'Yin'.

• Brings good fortune
• Assists in foretelling the future
• Enhances intuition
• Promotes inspiration
• Brings success in love as well as business matters
• Offers protection on land and at sea

History

Moonstone is associated with all goddesses, but especially the Moon goddesses. Resembling the Moon or "moonshine", the ancient Romans believed the stone was actually formed from moonlight and that the wearers of moonstone would receive wisdom, wealth and success in battle. In the Orient, people believed Moonstones were actual rays of moonlight that had solidified, and that the shimmering light held within the stone was a good spirit that lived there. Hindus thought shimmering Moonstones to be earthbound bits of moonbeams, and the stone is still considered sacred in India today.

Amulets of Moonstone were frequently hung in fruit trees to ensure fruitful and abundant crops. In Asia and Europe the stone was associated with love and fidelity and was often worn when trying to attract a faithful lover. The Indian culture believes this elegant and subtly beautiful gem will arouse tender passion, and holds them sacred. It was believed that if held in the mouth, Moonstone would help one make proper decisions. This versatile stone was also used in ancient times to cure insomnia.

Due to its association with water, Moonstone is said to be protective of those at sea. It is also protective of those that travel at night and especially during New Moon phases, and was once called the "Traveler's Stone". It was also thought to protect against insanity, epilepsy, and any adverse wanderings of the mind. The ancient Greeks called Moonstone "Aphroselene" after the goddesses Aphrodite (love) and Selene (moon).

General Healing Properties

Moonstone is used by healers to stimulate the functioning of the pineal gland and balance internal hormone cycles with nature's rhythms. Moonstone is a stone of inner growth and strength. Though often considered to be a woman's stone, it can be beneficial to men in opening the emotional self. Its variants of different colors are supposed to have different healing effects, e.g. the grey moonstone is better for intellectual purposes, whereas the peach-colored one for spiritual and feminine connections.

Physical

Moonstone aids the digestive system, assimilates nutrients, eliminates toxins and fluid retention, and alleviates degenerative conditions of skin, hair, eyes, and fleshy organs such as the liver and pancreas. It stimulates the pineal gland and balances hormonal cycles, being excellent for PMS, conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and breast-feeding. It is a good stone to carry with you when pregnant.

Emotional

Moon stone helps to soothe and balance the emotions. It assists in the mastery of your emotions by bringing them under the control of your will, instead of repressing or expressing them. It will bring emotions and feelings under control without becoming hardened to the human suffering seen on a daily basis.

This is a great stone for Doctors, Nurses, Technicians, and other Health Care Workers, who sometimes feel they must repress much of what they feel in order to function more effectively, at the expense of gentleness that comes with empathy and compassion.

Mental

Moonstone will help achieve a balance between heart and mind without losing the gentleness and caring needed, yet keep it in check to allow you to function effectively.

Spiritual

Moonstone carries lunar energy and helps to balance emotional upsets. Moonstone has a gentle energy that helps to ease stresses and feelings of anxiousness. It can be used to enhance intuition. Moonstone is a good crystal tool for anyone who wishes to reflect on past circumstances to learn life lessons from. It is also useful as a manifesting tool, drawing in your desires.

Application  For spiritual experiences, lay a piece on your forehead. Lay a piece on your heart area for soul and emotional experiences. For all other purposes it is suited for wearing just about anywhere else.

Metaphysical Properties

Moonstone is a stone of wishes, intuition, and balance. Helps all be more comfortable with our gentler feminine side. It brings to you all that is needed. Discernment: "Want" and Need" do not come from the same place. Moonstone can assist you in absorbing those things that are “needed” in life while helping you discern what is merely “wanted”.

Magical Uses

Other names for this stone are water opal, fish-eye, and wolf's-eye. Long considered to have inherent connections to the moon by all ancient cultures familiar with the stone, it was used during the waxing of the moon for love charms and during the waning of the moon to foretell the future.

Many people who work with Tarot Cards, Runes, Crystal Balls, Medicine Cards or any other type of divining tool, keep a Moonstone with them to heighten intuition and perceptions while working with them.

The moonstone in India is a sacred stone; it is only permitted to be displayed on a yellow cloth. In this culture they called the moonstone Candra Kanta, and it is told that moonlight from a full moon gives the gemstone occult and magical powers. It is believed to bring much good fortune and allows one to see the future.

In the Eastern cultures, Moonstone was favored for LOVE. They believed that wearing or carrying a moonstone would bring a new love into your life. They also believe that holding a piece of moonstone over their hearts after a quarrel, and then exchanging the stones with each other, would bring you back together.

To dream of moonstone means travel and good health, but may also symbolize the unfolding of spiritual and psychic development.

Associations

• Astrological Sign: Cancer, Libra, Scorpio
• Birthstone: June
• Planet: Moon
• Element: Water
• Direction: West
• Day: Friday
• Chakra: Third Eye (Brow), Solar Plexus
• Moonstone is a 13^th Anniversary gemstone
• Vibrates to the Number: 4
• 4^th Ray
• Color: White
• Careers: Doctors, Nurses, Technicians, and other Health Care workers
• Other: Sailors, Coast Guard
• Activities: Gardening, vacation cruises, swimming, water sports

Like Moss Agate, Malachite, and Jade, Moonstone is associated with Gardening. All four are attributed to nature, water, and fertilization. Wear moonstone during planting, weeding, or watering, and visualize your garden bursting with fertility as you work. Hang a small wind chime and dangle these stones over your garden, or bury a few small pebbles in the earth.

Moonstone can come to the aid of many Executives, who have sacrificed feeling emotionally connected to the people that work for them in an effort to function more efficiently, only to find that his employees now are difficult to work with and have little loyalty because of his detachment. You can rebuild a caring environment while maintaining order by allowing yourself to get in touch with the emotional aspects of management.

Unhappy workers who feel you are distant and detached are not productive employees. Slip a piece of Moonstone in your pocket to remind you to take the time to ponder decisions from all aspects.

Moonstone Lore

• It is said if you give your lover a moonstone necklace when the moon is full you will always have passion with each other.
• The moonstone is associated with the moon and was the stone of the goddess Diana. The most powerful time to use the moonstone is in a full moon.
• It has been worn as an amulet to bring good emotions to the wearer, while protecting those of a sensitive nature. It can reunite lovers who have quarreled. Moonstone is also considered a good luck stone.
• Moonstone is a very personal stone. It is a reflection of the person who owns it. It does not add or detract, only shows how it is. This is why the moonstone is said to perceive that which "is". Moonstone is an excellent stone to use in meditation to understand oneself.
• Placing it in the moonlight of a moon reaching its fullness, not a full or waning moon, can revitalize it. This is a particularly good gemstone for women. It is a good stone for young women or teenagers.
• It was once thought that the gem's luster waxed and waned just like the moon itself, and moonstones have always been used in jewelry by moon worshipers.
• Moonstones are generally set in silver, which brings out their characteristic bluish-silvery sheen.
• Moonstone is claimed to be the gemstone for lovers as it symbolizes passion. It is said that it enhances our ability for empathy and understanding and is believed to bestow the power of clairvoyance.

Remedy Benefits of Moonstone

• Blue moonstone helps facilitate telepathic communications
• Grey moonstone assists clairvoyance
• Peach moonstone is an emotional healer
• Rainbow moonstone (white labradorite) protects against psychic attack
• White moonstone facilitates spiritual growth

Corresponding Chakra...

• Peach Moonstone/Heart: Heals the heart by bringing Goddess love into it and fosters a spiritual heart and emotional healing.
• White Moonstone/Crown: Enhances psychic knowing, psychic sight and increases intuition.
• Gray Moonstone/Third Eye: Creates new realities and understanding other than earth plane realities. Increases the ability to focus on your life path.

Moonstone, Rainbow

Rainbow moonstone has a gentle, calming energy. It helps to strengthen intuition and psychic perception, and enhances creativity, compassion, endurance and inner confidence. It is a stone that brings balance and harmony. The Rainbow effect brings in a spectrum of light, and can help with clearing and bringing in uplifting energies. It has been said to have the power to grant wishes. Rainbow Moonstone is primarily related to the Crown Chakra.

Physical Properties

Moonstones come in a variety of colors. The body color can range from colorless to gray, brown, yellow, green, or pink. The clarity ranges from transparent to translucent. The best moonstone has a blue sheen, perfect clarity, and a colorless body color. It is often worn in rings, pendants or bead necklaces.

Moonstone is actually a variety of Orthoclase Feldspar that contains a schiller (shimmering) effect or adularescent sheen. Adularescence is described as "an effect seen on certain minerals (the most famous, Opal and Moonstone) which causes it to display a billowy, rounded, ghost-like reflection with a bluish-whitish color emanating from the surface when the mineral is cut into a cabochon. It is caused by structural anomalies or build-up of water in the mineral." Adularescent is derived from the mineral name, Adularia, of which Moonstone is a variety. Polished Moonstones also commonly exhibit chatoyancy (a narrow band of reflected light that produces a "cat's eye" effect) or asterism (a six-rayed star effect produced by reflected or transmitted light).

Found as a rock-forming mineral in igneous, plutonic, and metamorphic rocks, Moonstone breaks (or cleaves) into blocky chunks very often at 90º angles creating tabular crystals. Most are complexly twinned, meaning they often grow as several sets of two interwoven crystals that are mirror images of each other.

The most common Moonstone in the Feldspar family is that of the mineral Adularia, but many famous and rarer specimens are from the Plagioclase Feldspars of Albite (Sodium Aluminum Silicate), along with the Oligoclase and Labradorite varieties.

Deposits

There are two moonstones. Adularia moonstone is an almost transparent pale gray or silvery white or blue shimmer. It is mainly found in Sri Lanka, Burma, India and Madagascar. Albite moonstone is in the feldspar group. It is semitransparent with a pale, shimmering reflection. It may be a little dull. It comes mainly from Canada.

Moonstone is found in Brazil, European Alps, India, Madagascar, Mexico, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and USA (Pennsylvania and Virginia). Sri Lanka has the highest quality moonstones.