Working with Crystals - How to clean them

Different ways to clean your rocks….

There are many different metaphysical ways to cleanse your crystals and rocks. Things to take in consideration though is when you are physically cleaning your crystals or rocks is that not all of them tolerate water very well. It all depends on how porous they are and what kind of mineral base they have. Let’s take a look at when you are cleaning your crystals physically which ones should avoid the water and salt purification baths (that I am oh so fond of!)

Crystals/rocks that are not suited for water are the following: Selenite, Celestite (I have learnt this the hard way as it tends to wear the crystal done and causes it to crumble), Halite, Malachite, Flourite, Gypsum, Turquoise, Pyrite, Lepidolite, Apophylite, Azurite, Opal, Apapite, Ulexite, Tangerine Quartz, Labradorite (I’ve actually seen it peel if its been in the water too long). Apparentely Hematite is another one according to other bloggers and sites that I’ve stumbled across, however I’ve never have found that with the piece that I’ve had for many moons. I have immersed it in water many times and it has always been just fine, but you can always be safer than sorry.

Always make sure to do your research when you do get yourself a new crystal and not just about the metaphysical properties of that crystal but about proper physical cleaning as well.

So those crystal/rocks above are known for being rather porous. They are rather very thin skinned. So using a slightly damp cloth would be okay to clean it physically, just make sure that your cloth is in fact damp and NOT WET! It’s just so you can take the dust away. If you can get the dust with say a feather duster even better.

The Spirit way of cleaning them stones so you can rock all night long!

There are many different techniques of spiritually cleaning your rocks. The first one that I’ve already mentioned is a saltwater bath. (Once again do your research to make sure that it is safe for your crystals to be in water) It doesn’t have to be a special type of salt it can be normal table salt. Salt is known as purifier or a natural cleanser. Hence why it is utilized a lot in many different white magicks. You can just use water too as a spiritual cleaner as well with the intent of it cleansing your stones. I usually leave them in there for about 30 minutes and then let them dry in the sunlight for an extra kick. There are debates though that water is unsafe to use on crystals as it destroys the polish on them and can just eat the crystal in general. If you want to learn more about that here’s an interesting read here that I found: https://www.ethanlazzerini.com/why-i-never-cleanse-crystals-in-water/ Personally I haven’t had bad experiences with water or salt baths. I haven’t seen it destroy the luster of my rocks…but at the same time I don’t let them be submersed in the water either, just enough so they can be comfortable. Smaller stones well there is no choice but for them to be submersed unfortunately, but once again I haven’t found anything bad with using water for my stones personally. But if you want to be on the side of caution then don’t use it. <3

Another method of cleansing your stones is leaving them out in the sun to cleanse and purify them. Some sites suggest leaving crystals out for about four hours in the sunlight to let them recharge. Another method is using moonlight…ehhh you could, but remember moonlight is trickster light because it glows only because of the sun radiating from behind. To be honest if I were to use any moonlight to clean my crystals I would use the energy of the New Moon as the Full Moon energy seems to be a bit more “wonky” most times whenever it comes around when I sense it. Once again some sites will say leave it out for a least four hours in the moonlight.

Burrying your rocks in the ground to and returning them to harness the Earth’s vibration for the day. I would highly recommend taking coloured popsicle sticks so you know where you put! (Especially with my memory problem :P Moooooom brain) If you have an old blush brush or big make up brush you don’t use it maybe a good idea to use this in order to dust off the dirt on the stones that you’ve buried, especially if those stones are the porous ones we’ve talked about. I’ve stumbled on sites that say leave them in the ground for 24 hours and some say up to as far as three days! Ehhh I would say that perhaps even a few hours would be ample enough to complete this cleanse. (That is if you cleanse your stones on regular basis already)

Using Sage to smudge your stones. You use it on your house and yourself, so why not your precious crystals? Light up your sage bundle and pass it around the crystal your are cleansing with the same intent in mind of just that “cleansing”. For the bigger ones simply circling around them should be just fine.

There is breath work. I’m very accustomed to breath work myself. I use it while I facilitate healing for others and yes you can use it on your rocks and even tarot cards. So what you do is your channeling the energy through your body and when you blow out your breath your intent for that energy and breath is cleansing or healing for your crystal. It should only take a few breaths in order to get the negativity off.

Cleansing through meditation. So focusing healing and cleansing energy through meditation. Bringing it from the divine and letting it go through your hands and directing it around your crystal. This is also a good way to connect with your crystal too and get to know it better if you haven’t had the chance to.

Some believe using brown rice especially for the more porous stones can cleanse them. So burying the stones in brown rice and leaving them up to 24 hours to cleanse and recharge. After you need to dispose of the rice…because hey…why would want to eat negative rice? Might make your guts miserable.

The last method I’m going to cover is a singing bowl. So the Tibetan singing bowls is what I’m talking about. The smaller ones have a higher pitch sound, while the larger ones have a deeper resonance. The difference? The higher pitch is better for the smaller stones, while the deeper resonance is better for the bigger stones is what some believe. I would almost think though that you would have to consider your stones before you do this. Like which stones do you using for healing work? Take those ones and use the higher pitch on them as generally they have a higher frequency. The stones that have more of grounding effect or those that push away negativity I would use the deeper resonance because that’s the type of frequency or vibration they hold at least to me. I would just personally go with what your stones frequency feels like to you if you can feel it.

Now when should you cleanse your crystals?

Anytime you buy a new crystal!!! Because it gets passed through so many hands that you want it to be cleansed before you start working with and before you program it. Yes I said program…we’ll get there hold on.

I personally clean my crystals every season. IF I feel my rocks need extra attention I will give them extra attention and give them the energy they need and if they need healing or cleansing. You need to remember they are your tools and partners and if they don’t get recharged they shut down and become neutralized.

Now you can recharge a stone even if it has lost its juice, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy and babying. So take it from me…take the time to cleanse your rocks or program them to self cleanse so that way they can recharge themselves.

Program? What the heck is programming?

Programming is just that. Just like what you think…programming a computer, but with your crystal. Once you know what your rock does and you build a bit of connection then you can program it. So you take your rock and you “speak” to it through your mind and you ask it do such a task or tasks. It Is better to ask one task at a time. So leave a small time in between asking tasks and don’t make it too complicated. Think of it as like asking a friend for a favour. Your not going to keep piling favours on your friend and make those favours super complicated that they can’t handle it. Right? So why would you do that to your crystal?

You can program MOST crystals to self-clean which is great for those porous ones and it makes it so you don’t have to clean them every month (unless you are really really really working with that particular crystal).

Placement

From my experience placement is important too. What I mean by that is not like directional, but more so when you are placing rocks together in a group. You need to be mindful of their vibrations.

I have had the experience that placing two different vibrations will literally start a territorial war between the two. The dominant one will force the other one out or cause damage. This quartz crystal can attest to this as it ended up with a crack when I placed it beside one of my bigger pieces (can’t remember which one, but it was a very different vibration then the quartz).

So pay attention and listen to your intuition or your gut feeling to see if your rocks can “get alone” because sometimes they can’t. They are very similar to people that way. Not everyone will get along and same can be said about rocks apparently. Ha!

References:

https://www.shantibowl.com/blogs/blog/the-complete-guide-to-cleansing-crystals-and-stones

https://goop.com/wellness/spirituality/the-8-essential-crystals/

https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-cleanse-crystals#water

https://amarisland.myshopify.com/blogs/news/water-safe-crystals-which-ones-are-and-which-are-not

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