CHAPTER 6
BRAZILIAN TWINS
Picture #41
Hematite Coating in a Four-inch-tall Brazilian Quartz
Here is a classic “Brazil twin” crystal.
This kind of twinned crystal was first discovered in Brazil.
They have since been found all over the world.
A Brazil twin crystal looks like a single quartz crystal with six sides but typically has extra facets or diamond-shaped “windows” near the tip.
Sometimes there are as many as eight extra windows at the tip, making a total of 14 facets!
Structurally, the Brazil twin has two interpenetrating crystals at the molecular level, occupying interlaced spaces.
They are built out of molecules that spiral in opposite directions, i.e., clockwise and counter-clockwise.
The Brazil twin crystal has perfectly balanced energy, because it has opposing spins.
It is often used for healing work and accessing ancient wisdom.
The First People tribes call these “grandmother-grandfather” crystals.
I often abbreviate the name to “GM-GF” to make it fit on a little white label attached to my crystals.
Picture #42
4-inch-tall Brazilian Twinned Crystal with Extra Facets
An “extra facet” crystal has more than the usual six facets, ranging anywhere from one to eight extra facets on the tip of the crystal.
Extra facets can be used as “doorways” into the energy of the stone.
Some extra facets look like diamond shapes.
Many mystics consider these as windows for access to the Angelic Kingdom.
Other facets can appear as parallelograms, triangles or long skinny dashes.
The facets often have patterns or striations on them, like the one above.
Picture #43
One-inch-long Arkansas Twin, “Castled” with 12 Points
This group of crystals is a parallel twin formation.
It is only about 1.3 inches tall but has a powerful presence due to its castle-like shape.
I would like to tell you the origin story for this special stone.
When I was first starting out in the crystal business, I went to the crystal mines of Arkansas to stock up on some stones to sell in Dallas, Texas, my home at the time.
One of my first purchases came from David Lebow, a friendly crystal miner from Mount Ida, Arkansas.
David dug at several crystal mines that produced small clear crystals called jewelry points.
He would wash the mud off his crystals while the stones were supported on a table made out of quarter-inch chicken wire mesh.
Any crystals smaller than 1/4-inch diameter would fall through the mesh table and land in a layer of soft clay on the ground.
Because the crystals were small and lightweight, they tended not to chip or break when they hit the mud.
David ended up selling me 600 pounds of these skinny one-inch-long crystals.
I bought over 60,000 small crystals, all of which I cleaned by removing the clay and rust.
I hand dried each stone and looked at it to see the minuscule perfection.
Picture #44
Castled Arkansas Twin
Almost every single one of these crystals had 12 perfect sides- 6 in a column and six angled at the tip.
The particular one in this photo was the only crystal in the whole batch that had a “parallel twin” formation.
It displayed 12 complete crystals positioned side-by-side in parallel.
In effect, the rarity of this type of stone was one out of 60,000 pieces.
Due to the sentimental value of the stone and the amount of time that two photographers spent working on it, I would have to say that this is a private collection piece that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
Lapidarist Gary Fleck cut the bottom flat and polished the base.
I call this one “my little jumping crystal.”
Each time photographer Bill Disney and I set this crystal up for photography, it jumped off the table when we jostled the photographic set-up.
Over the course of several years, this crystal went flying through the air three times.
It always did a somersault in midair.
It bounced off the concrete floor and ended up standing perfectly straight and tall on its cut and polished base each time.
It was not even chipped from hitting the concrete floor!
I was delighted that the shape and weight balance of the little jumping crystal allowed it to stand up every time.
It was simply amazing.
Finally, the third time it jumped, it got a tiny chip on the point.
One of my talented friends re-polished my little jumper and fixed the one-millimeter crack on the tip.
Yes, I am a perfectionist wannabe.
Picture #45
Royal Circle Of Trees
Many years ago, there was an astronomical event called the Harmonic Convergence.
This celebrated day was based on our sun and five major planets all lining up in the heavens.
It was a great day for intentional meditation and peaceful thoughts.
A couple of years later, there was a similar event in the heavens consisting of our planet and sun lining up with the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
This was called the Galactic Convergence.
When I heard about it, I was told to put my crystals outside at noon to gather galactic sunlight energy during this special time.
I was living in Arkansas and had lots of land to spread out my crystals.
I chose the jumping crystal to represent the energy of this Galactic day.
I laid the quartz flat on the ground in the center of a circle of magical trees.
Then I had to go out and run some errands, so I just left it outside in nature.
The day was cloudy, mostly overcast and with little chance of sunlight.
I heard later that the sun came out exactly at noon— to illuminate the crystals, I suppose.
When I got back to my house, I checked the little jumping crystal and found that it had somehow stood up all by itself!
It was pointing straight to the center of the galaxy.
Way to go, Little Guy.
Picture #46
Jessieville, Arkansas Pure Quartz Crystal
I can often tell exactly where crystals come from because of the size, shape, colors, striations or inclusions in a particular stone.
In fact, after living so many years in Arkansas, I can still look at a crystal and generally tell you which mine it came from.
If a crystal’s sides are polished flat, it is much more difficult to pinpoint its origin mine, as many identifying characteristics have been cut away.
Picture #47
Crystals Within Crystals
This unusual Arkansas formation shows a combination of a crystal cluster INSIDE a crystal single point.
The tiny inclusionary towers are only 1/2-inch tall.
They grew first, and were then surrounded by a larger, faster growing crystal.
The larger stone preserves the delicate features inside for eternity.
An iris rainbow curves off the tip of the “penetration crystal.”
Picture #48
8-inch Arkansas Quartz Cluster with Rust Inclusions
In the picture above, you can see an Arkansas cluster that has a star-like shape.
The whole piece is about eight inches long with exceptionally precise edges and points.
There are vivid iron deposits found as rust in between the various crystals.
The color reflects down the length of the crystal and appears as reflections in the tips.
Clusters are groups of naturally joined crystals.
This particular cluster is characterized by crystals growing at many angles, in contrast to a “crystal castle” where all the single points are formed parallel with each other.
Crystal clusters energetically represent communities of individuals evolving as a coordinated group with shared focus.
As I mentioned previously, please think of each crystal as giving off a tone, or frequency unique to itself.
This inaudible tone is the “energy note” of the quartz.
This cluster emits a symphony of vibrations.
These crystals can be placed in areas where you want to create a stronger healing vibration or to psychically cleanse the atmosphere.
Since quartz is an electro-static stone, it will also pull dust out of the air and literally clean the room.
Rinse your crystals with cool water occasionally to remove the precipitated dirt.
If the crystal feels greasy, spray it with some Windex, scrub gently with a toothbrush and rinse with clean water.
Picture #49
6-inch-tall Twinned Arkansas Quartz on Sandstone Matrix
This special Arkansas crystal on sandstone matrix has quite a story behind it.
The whole piece weighed about 10 pounds.
I wanted to photograph it for a book cover.
(Douglas Bullis, CRYSTALS)
I got my pictures after much exploratory work with the crystal set up on an angled Plexiglass table.
I had glued the stone into place but apparently did not do a very good job with the adhesive.
During the photo session the crystal jumped off the table onto concrete.
When it hit the concrete floor, shards of quartz and sandstone shot out for 20 feet in every direction.
It was like a shrapnel bomb.
By the time it was done self-destructing, there was nothing left bigger than one inch.
Even though this crystal no longer exists, it has been memorialized on the cover of Douglas Bullis’ book.
Unlike my other happy crystal stories, this one did not end well.
The worst part about the situation was that the crystal did not even belong to me.
I had borrowed it from my friend Gary Fleck.
Because we both liked it so much, we absolutely needed a great picture of it.
Now I had to go back to Gary and tell him that I broke it so badly there was nothing left to show him.
He was very gracious about it and allowed me to pay for the stone.