Ruby(top) & thulite cabochon (bottom)

Recently I did a layout of healing stones that to my surprise included thulite and ruby. A combination that hasn’t come up  for me before.

Thulite is a stone I recently acquired and I haven’t grokked it yet. In The Book of Stones Robert Simmons says, “Thulite promotes the emotion of joy and the enjoyment of life.” A nice heart stone then.

Ruby is a long time companion since my days at the Crystal Academy. It can be thought of as a heart stone but in my experience it doesn’t have the sweetness of a rose quartz but is more like a powerful heartbeat. It reminds me of the rune Hagalaz – “disruptive natural forces”, according to Ralph Blum. It can shake one’s mental & emotional “structures” in a way that makes obvious what is weak or what is stuck.

So why was I called to put these two stones together in a layout for healing? I tuned in and asked them.  I was shown true joy can arise from disruption. Huh?? How so?  Certainly disruption brings chaos and we can react with fear as the familiar breaks apart. The stones showed me that fear is only one of the possibilities.  We can also react with joy.  They said that joy – not just pleasure but bubbling joy – is strongest when unexpected.  When the limitations of the expected fall apart, then delightful new energy can come in.  There are times when fear is a helpful reaction, pointing out if caution is warranted. But if it becomes a habitual reaction, it isn’t helpful.

Joy is something I all too easily forget.  When I first started a spiritual practice that had me look at my attitudes, I found myself going into crisis, realizing the comforting lies I had been telling myself for years.  I ran away – to Disney World of all places! It turned out that was exactly the right thing to do. There I realized that I had forgotten joy.  Wow!

When New Mexico went into lockdown during the initial co-vid phase, we were in a totally new situation.  Nobody knew for sure what the virus would do or whether our economy would survive.  Many reacted with fear.  But unexpectedly I loved it! Admittedly I’m comfortably retired though active. The quiet, the much slower pace of life, fewer things I felt I “ought” to do – what an unexpected joy out of this chaos!