When you think something is just way over your head, LOOK UP, and just as spring follows winter clarity follows curiousity.
Why was this stone once referred to as electric calamine?
For a person who may desire to downsize the ego or decrease a tendency toward self centeredness, the Self work many be enhanced or facilitated with intentional and knowledgeable use of this stone. The main work with this stone is external. Quartz and tourmaline have similar properties but these will not be covered here.
Polarization is a key feature of the stone's crystal formation, so it will also be a key insight. Utilizing hemimorphite with this knowledge may assist in working with hostility or anger, and other unbalanced emotions that can arise in the fields of polarization.
Electricity is a potential force within this polarized stone. When the stone becomes heated or is placed under pressure the force becomes active.
Calamine lotion is a common remedy for soothing the irritations that can get under our skin. The stings, the bites, the oozing seeping flow from sores festering that then spread the irritation if untreated or scratched unconsciously.
Before this mineral was given the name hemimorphite is was called calamine.
Hemimorphite is a non sulfide zinc mineral, specifically Zn4Si2O7(OH)2*H2O.
According to Melody
" It is an excellent stone to assist one in growing toward an egoless self-confidence and self-respect." " It helps one to..... reach ones highest human potential; it also emits an energy to encourage one to develop inner strengths and resources, to live a joyous and creative life, and to contribute to the well-being of the social structure of all humanity." -Love Is In the Earth
The crystal formation of the mineral is prismatic, and usually flat. Sometimes you may find a specimen of beautiful color, but most hemimorphite is of a white or gray coloration.
The nonsymmetrical morph, or the half morph, is what gave this mineral the name hemi-(half) morph. It is the different shapes at each end of its axis, or the nonsymmetrical terminations, which qualify the hemi-morph terminology. One end may be pointed while the opposite is blunt.
If the crystal is heated, - applied thermal stress - it becomes pyroelectric. And if a pressure is applied, if the stone is subjected to compression or torsion or traction it becomes piezoelectric.
First it is important to understand hemimorphite is a ferroelectric substance, meaning it contains or exhibits permanent polarization. Electrical polarity and relationship polarity are phenomenon in different realms of interaction.- see the SIDE NOTE for more on this. [read the article on polarization]
To explain without going too deep into the electricity, here is brief snippet from Encyclopedia Britannica discussing ferroelectricity:
a "separation of the centre of positive and negative electric charge, making one side of the crystal positive and the opposite side negative"
Ferroelectricity is maintained below certain temperatures. When heat is applied things start moving- pyroelectricity. If the pointed end was positive (+) and the blunt end was negative (-) under an unchanging temperature, they will then change under a change in temperature. They will remain consistent, at state of rest, under unchanging temperature.
To reference Britannica again-
pyroelectricity is exhibited only in crystallized nonconducting substances having at least one axis of symmetry that is polar (that is, having no centre of symmetry, the different crystal faces occurring on opposite ends).
And Britannica again...
piezoelectricity, appearance of positive electric charge on one side of certain nonconducting crystals and negative charge on the opposite side when the crystals are subjected to mechanical pressure.
In the book Stone Medicine Leslie Franks tells us the key characteristics of hemimorphite :
"Grounds Yang Qi and nourishes Yin. Helps a person relax about the world and put attention to changing the self."
And of course this is right in line with what we read from Melody regarding the self work.
Leslie recommends
" Place a [hemimorphite] specimen at the west corner of the house to support opportunity and creativity." Do not use this stone " during pregnancy because of its strong descending Nature."
It seems the more one learns about this mineral and the uses and benefits if offers humanity, the more clearly the connection between the formation of the crystal and the forces available for application become.
