All About Rock Magic
“Sometimes since I’ve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden—in all the places.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
When I was eight years old, my grandmother gave me a gift. It was a copy of her favorite book from childhood, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and little did I know it was about to change my entire life. I fell in love with literature and magic in one fell swoop, and continued to devour book after book for years after, all while believing in magic with my whole heart. But as I got older, though my love of literature never faltered, I began to question my belief in magic. Surely rational adults don’t believe in that sort of thing…do they?
Do you seriously believe all this crazy woo-woo stuff?
Here’s the honest truth. I don’t know! Since I became an adult, my mind has often balked at the idea of “real magic.” But my heart? No matter how much sense my mind talks, it stubbornly beats out, “What if? What if? What if?”
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that listening to your heart is never dumb, so long as your mind also gets its say. You’ll never hear me claim that magic is real for sure, because I have no idea if it is. But, for me? Living as if magic is real makes good, plain, practical common sense. It’s a bit fanciful, sure, but it harms nothing and brings bucketfuls of joy to my life.
The times I’ve been able to set my rational mind aside and live as if magic was real have been by far the most amazing of my life. I married the man of my dreams (a guy so amazing my chief concern when we met was that he couldn’t possibly be real), I landed jobs I was completely unqualified for, and I ended up in dream homes that would magically appear on the market just as we started searching, at weirdly low prices that put them within our reach. Frankly, so many crazy coincidences and barely believable scenarios have happened during the times I’ve embraced magic, I’d have to be an idiot to shut it down just because it’s not scientifically sound.
Am I saying that playing with magic will land you your dream job, dream relationship, dream home, and so on? Heck no! Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. How should I know? All I know for sure is that embracing a fanciful, magical life has filled my life with fun, adventure, and all manner of good things. And if you’re anything like me, then giving magic a chance just might make all the sense in the world for you too.
What is magic anyway?
At its most basic, magic is making stuff happen. And I don’t mean by rolling up your sleeves and doing your chores. Magic is making stuff happen with your mind.
At least, that’s what doing magic is. If you ask me, magic itself is a bit different. I think of magic itself as a kind of force or energy. It’s conscious, intelligent, and aware, and it’s everywhere. It’s in the ocean, in the waves, in the sky, in the sand, and definitely in rocks. It’s in trees, flowers, animals, and all living things. It’s inside of us and outside of us, in every atom of the universe and all the spaces between.
Okay, fine, but if magic is real, how does it work?
It seems to me that magic we can partner with this magic and direct it in a way that makes stuff happen.
I suspect that many of the most powerful people in our world are using magic all the time, even if they don’t know it. You’ll recognize these people. They’re forceful and audacious, never doubting for a second that they deserve to get what they want. That might make them sound a bit insufferable, which I’m sure some of them are. But if the things they want are good for the world, they’re often the very ones we call heroes.
I believe many of the rest of us have plenty of magical potential too, it’s just that we haven’t learned how to fully tap into it yet. Luckily, learning how is fairly simple.
NOTE: If you’ve read Geo’s Fortune, you’ll recall that Liv, the character who owns the New Age shop “Incense and Sensibility,” has a different theory for how magic works. She describes it as “reality surfing,” where some of us are able to steer ourselves to different realities where the things we want have already happened. I put that in the book because when I asked her what she believed, that’s what she told me. (Yes, authors talk to their characters. At least, I do!) So who’s right, me or Liv?
The answer is: No one knows! You’re bound to come across folks who assert their theories about life and magic with such confidence and force it’ll seem like they simply must have all the right answers. They don’t! When it comes to this stuff, all any of us have are ideas, faith, or beliefs, never knowledge or facts. So my advice is to have fun playing with these theories, but keep it light. Maintain an attitude of, “Eh, who knows?” It’s more fun that way anyway!
That said, I’ve long suspected that in order for magic to work, you do need a certain amount of innate talent for it. If you were born with no talent for it at all, all the knowledge in the world isn’t going to help.
Wait…. Some people are better at magic than others?
Yes. Definitely.
I know we live in a culture where we’re supposed to say that we’re all equally gifted, and that anyone can be good at anything if only they try hard enough, but come on, that’s pretty obviously untrue. You could give everyone in the world a chunk of marble, but only Michelangelo will carve a David. (If you gave me a chunk of marble, I’d probably just stub my toe on it.) Hard work and practice counts for a lot, of course! But as with any other talent, you need at least some natural ability if you want to play with magic.
So how do you know if you’ve got any yourself?
I’ve noticed two character traits that seem to be present in magically talented folks, and I think you need at least a pinch of each to get magic to work for you. These traits are will and imagination. Those with an abundance of imagination are creative and curious, with active minds that fizz and buzz. Those with strong wills are filled with determination and an unshakeable belief that they deserve what they go after. The magically gifted amongst us will have an extra amount of at least one of these. The luckiest will have heaps of both.
What both the imaginative and willful types share is that they light up like crazy when something catches their interest. They can become quite passionate, and at times even a bit intense. Sometimes you can practically see the magic in their eyes.
They have what I call “spark.”
Most magically gifted people have interesting stories to tell. They might just call it being lucky, but things seem to fall in their laps, often in strange or unexpected ways. Weird coincidences and synchronicities happen to them all the time, or they have a history of dreaming up wild, impossible schemes, which they somehow turn into reality.
But others live totally normal lives. They might even say dull. Their magic is all curled up inside of them having a nice sleep, because nothing has woken it up yet.
So how do I know if I’ve got magical talent?
Mainly, you look for the spark.
Here’s one tell: What has your body been doing as you’ve been reading this? Did you get tingles or chills, or did your breathing quicken, or your head feel light, or your heart beat just a little bit faster? Even if your rational side is fighting all the way, saying, “Oh come on, don’t be ridiculous, you’re not really considering this, are you? So embarrassing!” your body might be speaking a deeper truth. If you’ve gotten even the smallest feeling of excitement, think of that as your magical potential saying hi.
Here’s another tell: Do you secretly wish you had magic? Have you always loved fantasy books and movies? Do you daydream about being magical, or find yourself getting pulled into “true stories” about miracles and impossible things, even if later you feel silly about it?
Here’s the final tell: Are you still here, reading this right now?
If you are, congratulations! You’ve almost certainly got untapped magical potential. Hooray!
Now, it should be said that not everyone who left this page is unmagical. In fact, folks who are already fully tapped into their magic are usually too busy accomplishing stuff to care about how it works or what to call it. They’re not here because they don’t need to be, and don’t have time for it anyway.
But if you ARE still here, reading this right now? Well then! You’ve almost certainly got magical potential you’re not fully using. You’re here for a reason! That spark of curiosity that led you here and kept you reading is magic itself. It’s waking you up, lighting you up, and tugging you forward because it wants you to see it and use it to do wonderful things. It wants to play!
So what next?
You learn how to use it, of course!
How Magic Works
The simplest, most straightforward kind of magic is called manifesting. Everything you need for manifesting is in your head right now. It’s as easy as 1-2-3:
- Know what you want to have happen.
- Vividly imagine what your life would look like if that thing did happen.
- Know you deserve it, and believe it like it already happened.
That’s it!
The first step lets magic know where you want to go. The second activates your imagination. The third taps into your will. All you have to do after that is sit back and let the magic happen.
Many people accomplish amazing things just with manifesting alone, while others enjoy tapping into magic using tools, aids, and magical systems. To be clear, you don’t need anything extra. But the extra things can help, and they can be fun too. Actually, I think they partly help because they’re fun.
Magical Tools
Some of the more obvious magical tools are things you’ve probably already heard of. These are your standard everyday wizardy things, like amulets, talismans, spells, wands, potions, and rituals.
But it goes way beyond that.
Have you ever heard of feng shui? That’s an ancient Chinese system of magic where you make stuff happen by placing your belongings in certain areas in your room or home. How about calling on angels or animal spirits, or asking a deceased loved one for a sign? That’s magic. Have you heard of the chakra system? Or homeopathy? Numerology? Astrology? Check, check, check: all magic.
Aside from helping because they are fun, these things can help folks who see them as more legitimate or credible than just winging it, because it increases their belief in it working, and belief nearly always strengthens magic. But there’s yet another reason they can be effective, and that’s because they speak magic’s favorite language: symbols.
Magic Communicates Through Symbols
Magic just loves itself a good symbolic language. When we use symbols to send messages to magic, it’s a way to clearly communicate what we want. They also help us tap into our imaginations, and if we believe they work, that activates our will and belief as well. No wonder they help so much!
Any symbols or symbolic systems can work, as long as they hold meaning for us. What’s cool is that magic can use symbols to send messages back to us as well.
One example of a simple, clear symbolic system we can all understand is color. Think of what different colors symbolize in western culture:
- Red: Fire, heat, passion, intensity, danger, “Stop!”
- Yellow: Sun, light, energy, illumination, brightness, power
- Green: Nature, life, healing, growth, new beginnings, “Go!”
- Blue: Sky, ocean, water, peace, calm, a clear mind, heaven
- Pink: Romance, femininity, softness, kindness, love
Color, being so strongly symbolic, is an excellent way to tap into magic. That’s why it’s so often incorporated into different systems of magic, like chakra magic, where the energy centers of your body are each represented by a specific color. Feng shui might recommend putting something purple in the back left corner of your home or room to attract wealth into your life. Energy healers might send green light into an injury, or calm someone down by surrounding them with calming blue energy waves.
But color is only one type of symbolic language. There are loads of others. Think about the elements, for example, and how often they are used in stories about magic. Earth, fire, water, and air are easily understood by anyone. It just makes sense: If you want to warm something up or burn it down, use the symbol of fire. If you want something to flow or be soothed, water is a good bet. Air can bring freshness, or it can blow something right out of your life. And so on.
How to Do Rock Magic
Rocks, minerals, and crystals make excellent tools for magic because, like colors or the elements, they lend themselves easily to symbolic meanings. And there are so many of them! Our Rock Deck contains 92 rocks and minerals (and counting), each with its own symbolic meaning. Ninety-two symbols form a uniquely rich, subtle, and clear symbolic language.
Perhaps the simplest way to connect to Rock Magic would be to click over to the Rock Readings page and do a Rock Reading. Rock Readings are a way to have a one-on-one conversation with magic itself. Before you begin your reading, create a clear image in your head of what you want. If you can’t think of anything specific, you can hold a general question in your mind, like, “What guidance do I need right now to live my best life?” Then see what rocks show up for you. As you read through each rock’s art, meaning, messages, and so forth, see if you feel a bit of a nudge inside, highlighting or tugging you toward one particular message. If you do, that’s the message meant especially for you. If nothing tugs at you, let things settle and see what shows up in your thoughts or dreams or life over the next few days. Answers sometimes take a little time, but in my experience they nearly always do come.
There’s more to Rock Magic than just Rock Readings, though. If you’d like to do more complicated Rock Magic to make stuff happen, there are a million fun things you can try, and you don’t even need to have the rock in hand to do it! All you need to do is connect to the rock in your mind.
Rather than try to explain how it works theoretically, let’s give some examples. Here are five ways you could do Rock Magic, just as a start.
Examples of Rock Magic
- For good luck on a test: Zircon is the stone for brilliance, so before you go into the test, imagine a shiny, sparkling, brilliant zircon gem hanging in the air right over the top of your head. Imagine the gem sending bright illumination down into your mind as you complete your test. Then picture yourself getting an A and feel the happiness and relief of doing so well.
- If you’re afraid to ask for what you want: This is a job for citrine, the rock of personal power. Picture a beautiful bright chunk of natural yellow citrine spinning like a sun right in front of the center of your chest. See it sending out rays of power in all directions, filling you up with a strong sense of your right to have your needs met. Then see yourself asking for what you need with calm assertiveness, as the light of the citrine-sun dissolves all the fear and doubt right out of you.
- If there’s a specific thing you want to attract into your life: This is a job for magnetite. Just imagine yourself holding a magnetite over your head, then picture the thing you want being irresistibly drawn toward you like a magnet. As it reaches you, switch your vision to it being in your life, exactly as it would look if that thing was yours right now. Whatever scene unfolds in your head, keep imagining it until it feels so completely real, it’s as if it already happened.
- If you’re trying to break a bad habit: Let’s say you’re trying to quit drinking soda. Picture a giant chunk of bright red cinnabar hanging in the air between you and a can of Dr. Pepper (or whatever your favorite is), blocking it completely from your view. Now imagine the cinnabar slowly moving away from you, pushing the can further and further away. Keep watching until finally the cinnabar and soda are both so tiny and far away, you can’t even see them anymore. Then let out a sigh of relief and let go completely. Then, anytime the craving comes back to you, repeat the image, and switch your thoughts over to a healthier beverage instead.
- If you want to spark up more passion for life: Let’s say you’ve been feeling bored and listless and want to get excited about life again. Picture a bold, beautiful ruby gemstone sparkling brightly over your head, shining out like a red beacon as it slowly spins. Now imagine this light growing and growing until it’s completely engulfing you in a giant pulsing orb of pure red. As you do this, try to fill yourself up with that fiery, excited feeling that comes from being super psyched. When you’re solidly in touch with that feeling, say, “I thank ruby for helping me attract a fresh surge of passion into my life, and I now draw to myself the activity or interest that is best suited for this purpose.” Bask in the feeling for a little while, then take a deep breath, exhale, and say “and so it is.” Now you can get back to your normal life trusting your new passion will come to you when the timing is right.
Anytime you do magic like this, the days and weeks that follow are as important as the initial act. You’ll want to stay alert for signs, messages, coincidences, synchronicities—basically see whatever shows up and be ready to take action. So, for example, if you use rhodonite to attract love to your life, and three days later your friend says, “My cousin’s coming to town in a few days. Do you want to hang out?” Go meet that cousin! He or she might not even be the one you’re destined for—it might be the cousin’s best friend’s sister’s teammate—but if you trust enough in the magic to follow the trail, you’ll give yourself a chance to be amazed at the wild (and sometimes hilarious) ways your dreams can come true.
You’re probably figuring out that there are as many ways to do Rock Magic as there are rocks in the world. The above are just a few random ideas; if you’re a creative person (which we know you are!) you’ll come up with tons of your own ideas tailored just for you. Trust yourself and know that whatever you come up with will work.
Of course, rock magic always works best when the rock you’re calling on means something to you. If someone hands you a random rock and says, “Here, this will help you attract money into your life,” but they can’t explain why, and they know nothing about the actual rock itself? Or if you pick some random pebble off the ground with no sense of what it even is, or why it might be the right rock for the job? That’s not likely to be a good tool for magic. It’ll be a dud.
The best way to work Rock Magic is to get to know the rocks yourself. That’s why we created both a science deck and a magic deck filled with photos, art, and fun facts for 92 different rocks and minerals. Browse through them in our Science Gallery or Magic Gallery and notice if a rock “calls” to you. If it does, read about the science and magic of that rock, and pay attention to any ideas that pop into your head (as you read, or shortly afterwards). Those ideas may well be messages meant just for you. Especially notice if you get any “echoes” of a message in the days following, because that’s a sure sign magic is trying to get your attention.
You can also go straight to our Rock Helpers page to see if there’s a rock specifically suited to the task. But before you do, I hope you’ll finish reading the rest of this page for tips to make your magic both stronger and safer.
It’s important to note that if you already have a connection to a rock or mineral that’s different from the one you read on this website, your personal connection always overrides the one found here. A perfect example would be a diamond engagement ring. Diamond, with its cutting hardness and legacy of harm, represents cruelty in the Rock Deck. Does that mean all diamond engagement rings are cursed, or your relationship will end poorly because you sealed it with a diamond ring? Of course not! I treasure my own engagement ring and have no qualms about it at all. If that diamond represented deep, everlasting love to you when you accepted it and put it on, then it always will, and nothing you read here could ever change that.
How to Make Your Magic Stronger
No matter what kind of magic you’re working, there are things you can do to make it stronger. What all these tips add up to is a pretty basic golden rule: Magic loves to play, so if you want to attract magic, be fun to play with!
- Treat magic like a friend. Magic is not some ethereal vending machine, existing to drop material goods into your hands. It’s conscious, alive, and intelligent, so treat it that way. Talk to it. Open your heart to it. Explain what you want and why, and see if it says anything back. Send it clear pictures in your mind of how happy and sparkly you’d feel if you had that thing. Don’t ask for anything greedy or unreasonable, and for goodness sake, never ask magic to do anything harmful, bad, or dark.
- Feel deserving of what you want. If you don’t feel deserving of what you’re asking for, it’ll never work, and that won’t be fun for magic OR you. It’s an unappealing way to ask for something anyway. Think of someone asking you out by saying, “I know I’m boring and dumb and ugly and there’s no way you’d ever want to be seen with a loser like me, but do you want to hang out anyway?” Blech.
- Don’t tell magic how to get you what you want. Magic is creative, it has a sense of humor, and it loves to delight, so don’t tell it how the thing you’re wishing for should happen. It might find a surprising, funny, or just plain silly way to bring you the thing you want that you never would have dreamt up. Just let it know what you want, then let it go and keep alert for signs. Don’t be bossy. Be open to miracles!
- Convince magic how delighted you’ll be if that thing happens. Again—and you’ll notice a trend here—magic loves to have fun. Think of magic as your own personal fairy godmother who will delight in making your wishes come true. Keep your wishes light, positive, and happy, asking only for things that will fill you with joy. Definitely don’t only ask for serious or important things. Magic loves silly and ridiculous. Be a goof!
- Be grateful! This is so important. What if magic sends you something wonderful, but you just greedily gobble it up and ask for more, more, more? Would you want to keep playing with that person? When a wish comes true, savor it! Say thank you! Even better, throw a whole thank you party and graciously invite magic to revel with you in your joy.
I’ve got one other tip for working with magic, and this one’s so important, I’m giving it its own whole section.
Accept That Magic Doesn’t Always Work
Magic can be amazing! But it can also be totally frustrating and dance just out of reach right when you need it most. It fails all the time, and who knows why? When that happens, and it will, don’t be rotten about it. It’s perfectly okay to feel sad or disappointed—you can hardly help your natural feelings—just don’t go into a whole angry, bitter “I knew magic wasn’t real,” routine. That’s tedious and rude.
When magic fails you, see if you can be as light about that as you are about the magic itself. Shrug and say “Oh well!” and move on. After all, maybe you didn’t get that thing you wanted because it wasn’t in your highest and best good. In that case, magic was doing you a favor by not delivering, and what it really deserves is a big thank you.
What Magic Can’t Do
There’s another reason magic doesn’t always work, and that’s because it can’t change a core, fundamental reality about life itself:
Life is hard.
It’s hard for all of us. Even the luckiest, happiest, most powerfully magical people in the world face tough times and have random bad stuff happen to them. They have accidents. They feel pain. The person they like doesn’t like them back, they step in poop, they lose the ice cream off their cone, they go to an interview with spinach in their teeth. They get colds or Covid or cancer. Their loved ones die, and it hurts. sometimes terribly, sometimes for a long time.
That’s life. Magic can’t get you out of this, so don’t expect it to. Sometimes you’ve just got to face facts, even when those facts are hard to face.
What magic CAN do, thank goodness, is help make the fun bits even more fun, the light bits lighter, the happy bits happier. It might even help you steer around any unnecessarily painful parts, keeping the bumps and bruises to a minimum so you only hit the hard stuff that’s truly unavoidable.
Magic can bring sparkle, hope, whimsy, and joy, even in the toughest times. It can make life, well, magical!
A Final Note About Safety
Last but not least: If you get into learning about magic, you’re going to pretty quickly find yourself coming across scary tales of dark forces, spirit attachments, demons, and all sorts of nightmare fodder. Should you be scared of any of these things? Don’t ask me! I have no idea. I mean, I certainly hope not!
What I will say is to never do anything that feels wrong. If it’s giving you dark, scary, creepy vibes, or even just seems a little bit off, don’t do it. Like I’ve said a million times already, magic should be fun. It should feel good. And if the whole idea of magic goes against your spiritual or religious beliefs, obviously you should stay away from it. In that case, let prayer be your magic instead.
But even if magic feels like rainbow sparkle cupcakes, most folks who believe in this stuff recommend protecting yourself before doing anything magical in nature. Here are some protection methods I’ve come across through the years. I figure they’re easy enough and certainly won’t cause any harm, so why not try them out and see what suits you best?
Shield of Light
This is easy-peasy. Just visualize a bright shield of light around you, with the intention that it will keep out anything dark or malign. That’s it! I’ve heard lots of versions of this type of shielding, so follow your fancy. Some people use white light, others prefer specific colors, and I’ve even heard of someone who imagines themselves wearing a cloak of light instead, with a hood and everything, which is pretty cool in a Dungeons and Dragons kind of way, if you ask me. Someone even once told me they surround themselves in a mirrored “egg” anytime they want to walk around unnoticed. I’ve never tried this myself, but the idea is certainly intriguing.
Prayer to Archangel Michael
If you believe in god or are into angels, this’ll be the one for you. Archangel Michael is considered to be the go-to angel of protection, so any prayer to him should do the trick. And, since seraphinite is the rock that connects us to angels, you can even picture yourself holding a pretty piece of seraphinite as you ask for help. You can word your prayer however you like, but if you need a template, try this one out, as it covers all the bases.
Archangel Michael, please surround me in a beautiful bright shield of light. Keep me safe and protected from harm, safe and protected from lower and negative energy, safe and protected from interference, distortion, distraction, and deception, and safe and protected from anything not in my highest and best good. Please let me attract and absorb only the most beautiful and beneficial energy, vibrations, people, and situations of love, peace, joy, god, and truth. Let everything that happens to me be for my highest and best good, the highest and best good of all, and god’s will for me be done. Thank you!
Get Rocky With It
Since we’re all about Rock Magic here, it would be remiss to not include some rock-inspired shields as well.
Black tourmaline, or schorl, is considered the main protection stone, so picture a nice hefty schorl tower hovering in front of and behind you, or even a whole schorl fortress surrounding you on all sides. Imagine its black inky color absorbing anything dark or negative before it can reach you. (As a bonus, it’s a common mineral and cheap to buy, which makes it a perfect pocket rock. You don’t have to have the rock for the shield to work, but some people enjoy it, and carrying it around can also be a useful way to help you remember to keep the shield “activated.”)
Halite, otherwise known as salt, is another time-honored protection tool. Many believe it can clear anything harmful out of your energy field, and it’s long been used to keep magical spaces free of anything unwanted. Anytime you feel it might be needed, picture yourself floating on a salty ocean, relaxing in a warm bath of salty water, or lying on a block of white or pink halite. Use your imagination to picture any “ick” being neutralized and washed or pulled right out of you. (If you have a tub, you can even try an actual salt bath. They’re tremendously soothing and relaxing, no matter what you believe about magic.)
Slate is useful if you feel like you’re being attacked in an open and direct way. There’s a reason why people built their roofs from slate. It’s strong enough to withstand baseball-sized chunks of hail, so if you feel feel like you’re being pummeled by slings and arrows (metaphorically speaking), picture a sturdy, well-built roof of slate between you and the attacks, one that starts above your head and goes all the way to the ground. Imagine them all bouncing harmlessly off the slate while you sit safe, cozy, and peaceful inside its protective walls.
There are lots of other ways to use rocks in protection magic. If something pops into your head, try it! Some people, for example, like to place a chunk of schorl on their windowsill or beside their bed. Others sprinkle salt in corners to keep their homes free of icky energy. Just don’t sprinkle it outside where it could hurt slugs and snails. (Unless those slugs and snails are eating your prize tomatoes, in which case, do what you must.)
Finally, when using any shielding or clearing methods, most people recommend repeating them often. It’s kind of like recharging a battery. Daily is plenty, or you could just do it anytime you plan to “tune in” to the world of spirit and magic.
That’s it!
I hope you take what you’ve learned and go out and have some magical fun! If you try any of these methods and meet with success, I’d love to know. Send The Rock Readers your story, and you could even be featured (anonymously if you wish) on this website or in an upcoming book!