Green Amethyst
By Nicole Rubio
I always thought amethysts were purple.
In my early days of perusing Gabrielle Sanchez’s website for flyer earrings, I came across weird words I had never heard before, far away lands, and color variations to a minute degree of undertone. Strange and beautiful thoughts began to cross my imagination. When I landed on her green amethyst flyers and it said they were a must for people with hazel eyes, I wanted them. I was about to get rid of my glasses and I wanted to celebrate the small amount of green in my eyes that would now be visible.
I’m not a believer in the healing properties of stones, but in the story below, a world I made up, I am.
The comic book fantasy of Green Lantern was made up by a man. The energy of the hero’s green ring was created by the will of all living beings. Because the story was written by a man, what was done with this energy is where male and female differ. To men, power is the ability to build and direct the outside world. To women, power is the ability to articulate and protect the emotional world. A sign of health is the ability to connect with people. In my female fantasy world, there are no people, but creatures like people. I shall call them beings.
The ground in Green Amethyst is made of a white mineral-like salt, which looks startling against bruised daytime skies that darken to indigo violet at night. The stars are huge, tarnished discs like mirror chips or fragments of pewter.
The wind is sharp, oxygenated and smells like clean line-dried laundry, or what the wrapping releases when one opens a present.
The flower creatures are giant black orchids and petite violets. The black orchids sprout from mourning and the violet grows when the being is ready to make a cautious offering of trying again. The leafy green vegetable creatures resemble arugula and chard, a bit bitter.
The creature animals are black and white and look like skunks, zebras, and black swans. During wind storms, the zebras find recreation in running in the direction of the wind in huge herds. Sometimes you see dark and light violet-gray striped bustle skirts billowing from their rumps. They are worn by women artists as they ride the undomesticated, original zebras. This is the only kind of rider the zebra will allow. The female beings have black pixie haircuts with points and very white smooth skin. They wear dark burgundy lipstick. They love fine line pen illustration and everyone owns a complete collection of Edward Gorey books.
It is an introspective culture. It specializes in transitions. Their minds are open, flexible, work with speed. Self-examination has encouraged them to dislodge their entitled-ness and rigid interpretation of situations and accept new ways to adapt. Their conversations are full of innuendo and word plays. Their speech is understated, spare but accurate. The beings are witty and ironically edgy, like the French. When they are sad it is poignant, piercing pain.
The beings that pass through here are emotionally wounded and just beginning to recover from a loss such as a ruptured relationship or lifestyle that no longer fits. Some are here because no one paid attention to their artwork. Wounds like feeling invisible or flawed are usually discounted as minor and subjective, but they shouldn’t be. They stop new growth and should be treated.
When the beings from Green Amethyst get sick, it’s not with the flu. It doesn’t show up on lab tests but they can become incapacitated with weakness and hopelessness. It’s subtle and very elusive to cure.
So, they devised this treatment: the hopelessness is collected by expressing it into a dark violet fluted glass containing an element that retains sound. Then the contents of the dark violet fluted glass is slowly poured into vials made of thick greenish Portuguese bubbly glass. A Listener Being stands by and regards with full attention and compassion as the pain transitions into its new container.
The words of hopelessness crystallize and are covered with spring leaves from the Aurora amethyst tree. The leaves start out pale purple and are carefully harvested when they are only one week old. They need to feel safe and sheltered. The bubbly glass curves over them but they can still feel open air. Chamber music for flute and oboe by Poulenc and Faure is played to soothe them. Without the energy and movement of speaking out and air, beings can’t change.
Green Amethyst is produced from new growth. Like green tea, it has discipline and clarity. Because the pale green substance is so tender and fragile, it is very susceptible to all waves and bumps from its environment. Too much negativity will make it cloudy. (If you own a pair of Gabrielle’s green amethyst flyers, rinse the stones carefully in cool to tepid water every other day to remove any metaphysical dirt and dry them with a white Egyptian cotton cloth of at least 400-thread count.)
The dense grapey heaviness of the sky transforms into a pale green watercolor wash as the beings heal, with gradually increasing patches of transparency.