This past month I went to the
47th Annual Gemboree Rock and mineral show in Bancroft Ontario, apparently the largest gem show in Ontario. It was held, small town Ontario style, in two arenas with a mini bus shuttle between. Oh the smell of arenas and the mini school bus transported me to my youth, a truly special experience in small town living. I spent two days at the show the first day just surveying, feeling out the place, the stones the sellers and of course the prices. There was something for everyone really, jewelry sculptures, mineral specimens of all sizes, shapes and prices. It was overwhelming to say the least. I bought a couple of things but in the end decided to sleep on it to see what stones were calling out to me the loudest, what did I truly need at this time and what was lacking from my collection that my clients would benefit from.
After a fitful rest full of swirling colors, glittering gems, and an energetic smorgasbord of chemical compositions I awoke with very little clarity. All I could do was go back and trust I would find what I needed. Again I did one arena then the other then back again finally ready to buy. My lot included one large piece of carnelian, 2 smaller pieces, both palm size (one raw and one polished), a lepidiolite pendulum, some diopside and serpentine from Quebec and a bunch of smaller samples of gems I have never worked with before.
My biggest purchases and ultimate favorites are the three pieces of hemimorphite and two pieces of smithsonite I snatched up. I have yet to do full meditations with each of them but I am very excited to so soon. The research I have been doing in the meantime has led me to realize that they both are zinc-based minerals and at one time they were considered to be the same stone, which was then called calamine. But the chemical analysis is in fact different; smithsonite is a carbonate mineral ZnCO3 and hemimorphite is a silicate mineral Zn4Si2O7(OH)2·H2O. So it made so much sense that I was attracted to both of them quite strongly, seems I need some serious zinc energy! The trace mineral Zinc is a fire energy element, smithsonite is classified as a water element stone and hemimoiphite as storm energy (storm is essentially all the elemental energies at once). So this mix is an interesting one indeed!
After saying all of that there was one other stone that I was eyeing very seriously and that was zincite, again another zinc based crystal, this one has some serious fire energy, it was buzzing away when I held it, and was almost too much for me. The zincite I had seen before came in very small shards but this was a big chunky crystal. I asked the dealer about this size variation and he told me the story of where it had come from. Apparently these large zincite crystals were produced in the vents of old zinc smelting plants in Poland. The crystals were a byproduct of this antiquated technology. All the specimens were recovered in the 90’s and are now quite difficult to come by. Even though they are not “naturally” formed they are sought after in both the healing and mineral collector communities. I can really see the draw, in the few minutes of holding one my experience energetically was quite intense. Although in the end I didn’t buy one, sadly it was outside of my budget, I will be keeping my eyes open for these in the future.
Well that’s all I have to say about my serious zinc experience in Bancroft! I will do a more in depth coverage on smithsonite and hemimorphite in the coming weeks! Until then…
all images courtesy of Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com
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