As Peridot was one and only gem for nature,
there were too many crests for it, so I brought some changes around it as I had
intended. I don’t think it became meaningless as I branched some other gems out
of it, because I have one very clear emotional response that I am calling
Peridot. There’s not much else to be said about it, so off to them already.
Lately I’ve been in a need to define seasons
more precisely, so there I have it, I’m calling it the Season Beryls. I noticed
there was something similar to Chrysoberyl, but I guess seasons needed a gem of
their own. So here it goes, the Summer Beryl I am feeling now (but I like it as
a more serene temperature). There is autumn for this quite poetic, melancholic
and sober tone of fall, with spices of a cold breeze. There is winter and its
desolation and enhanced coldness, the night fog and skin-afflicting wind (if I
knew snow decently it would pretty much be in here too). Spring comes with the
increasing greenification, and the air and nature become lovely.
For the next gem I’m choosing Malachite. It
represents the rural and the feeling of the simpler world of the countryside.
It’s also that feeling of being far from the comfort of modern society. In the
most typical example of Malachite scenario, there’s no light or fridge,
television. No internet! Folks at night hold actual conversations at dinner.
It’s a strange sensation of being forsaken, which, one day I noticed, in a
lonely night it strangely made me feel slightly more religious. Also, it feels
to me like it could be a stair, from Peridot, going to Malachite and then
Zircon.
Cobalt is similar to copper, but something
about the ages. It’s how I can feel the 90s, the 80s or even decades I’ve never
lived through, but I can taste their spirit, which lasts until today, be it as
a surviving layer of time or pieces of fiction like movies and songs. Indiana
Jones has a 30s cobalt to it, and the original Star Trilogy, despite being set
in another universe, has cobalts of its own production: 70s hairstyle,
clothing, the face-of-the-age sort of thing, so it’s an indirect cobalt. Back
to the future, is riddled with 80s and 50s cobalt. The 2015 Hill Valley Hill Valley
Another gem I’m calling is Aventurine. I
giggled at it for its clear invitingness, but later it actually became useful.
I was just walking in the market and I saw this oil lamp, and suddenly I felt
this feeling of adventure and daring exploration. It was a feeling like seeing
this pretty, hot girl getting through my amethyst or pearl, but instead it was
an oil lamp getting to my aventurine. It’s a gem that is a dissidence from Zhu
Rong’s quintessence, as it’s the feeling of blood pumping in my veins. It’s
related to Obsidian and Moonstone for camping out there in the wild, and also
something about steel as I learn to work with gears, oils and stuff. There
should have been mosquitoes in aventurine, but somehow gems have always been
mostly about positive things.
Olivine is the gem for plants and herbs,
flowers and leaves. Also food through the use of spices, vegetables and fruits
(so it neighbors the comfort of Amber). Actual olive reminds me of pizza, which
reminds me of restaurants, which reminds me of sapphire, ruby and amethysts. Some
places and people I involuntarily connect with some scents. Back to my old
neighborhood I recall the scent of pepper plant, which reminds me of my grandma
and childhood memories (just like this sour scent of cedar and pine tree leaves
and branches with that sticky sap). Though there’s also the scent of flowers
(like this amazing smell of jasmine in summer time), I’m not including perfumes
in here. After all, they make me think more of Amethyst and Ruby than Peridot.
And then there’s one that I’ve given some good
thought to before actually considering, and is a gem I’m calling Howlite. It
represents the effects of music. It’s how it feels good listening to some good
instruments, and the forgotten feeling I had when first playing my guitar and
that felt so magical despite the terrible struggle. It’s that sweet sound of
guitar and the bass, and there’s something about some special genres, including
those I can always relate to zircon, like grunge, thrash and progressive metal.
Some of this feels related to the Lazulite gem, for some reason. When I am
searching for new music I can find these other gems in them, like copper,
garnet, opal and amethysts, but there are moments when I like music for itself,
and then it’s Howlite I’m looking for. Now, the special part about it, and
which contributed to the choice of the name, is because this has to do with the
musical quintessences. Since I thought this feeling could be a gem, it started,
as most ideas just-named (it’s common effect that should be named) being more
frequent as I knew where to look for it. These songs I see are in my mind like
distant howls, and I think it’s pretty close to what I once called the wail of
a distant musical quintessence. I last experienced it in a Zircon and
Cloudstone combination which makes me extremely sensitive (meeting dioramas is
like having literal gates to a spiritual world). Two albums that seem to define
this crest for me is Pain of Salvation’s BE and Ayreon’s The Human Equation.
They were the quartz of my musical life, as they really made me see music with
different eyes.
I started this with ten gems, and now it’s
thirty-four already. If in the first version it felt so flawed, I think at least
now it’s starting to feel a little more global, though still not something symmetrical. There are undefined crests
around, and it seems that I only have gems for what I’ve charted about life,
but the but it’s the very fact that the remaining are getting so deeply
thalassic that it’s been increasingly more rare the occasional visit of a
sylvan crest.
As a side note from last encounter (which is
the addition of Obsidian), I’ve decided not to change the roles of Opal and
Obsidian. Although visually Opal makes me think of nebula clouds, I am not
using images here, and Obsidian still gives me that feeling of otherworldliness.
