webpage – Page 15 – Mary C Simmons … Art and Word

Quartz: the Series

The α- Alpha and the β- Beta

The Science & Art of Quartz.

Our most beloved gemstone, in its myriad forms…_.Eleven crystalline and 2 non-crystalline minerals comprise silica (SiO₂), though Quartz is the most common form. In our landscapes, in our lives…
Twelve percent of Earth’s surface is quartz, and a full 20% of the whole crust is Quartz.

Geologists have plotted the various forms of SiO₂ over the years, culminating in the diagram to the left.

My SiO₂interests these days, and most of my life actually, lie in the blue and pink areas on the diagram: α-quartz and β-quartz, respectively.

α-Alpha and β-beta quartz occur in all igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rock types. Within the alpha and beta fields lie a seemingly vast array of different rock types, all of which comprise quartz.

*Pectoral Necklace of Senworset II, Middle Kingdom, 1880 B.C.*

Beautiful enough for gemstones. Revered since antiquity. The ancient Egyptians were gifted artisans whose use of blood-red Carnelian—one of the Quartz gemstones—is iconic and legendary.

It’s ALL Quartz…

Trace elements (e.g. iron) produce the colors we see in all forms of Quartz, though it is not color but size and translucency that are the keys to the Classification of Quartz.

From Large to Small…Macro to Micro to Crypto. Size matters not only in how Quartz gemstones are classified, but how they come to display the endless and gorgeous variation in color and patterns of spheres, bands and layers–whether smooth or crenulated. And why we love these humble stones more than diamonds.

Today, it’s all about Macro. Following are a few examples of the flavors of Quartz whose crystals are large enough to see without magnification. Tomorrow, the small stuff.

Macrocrystalline: Crystals are easily identified without magnification.

These Amethyst crystals are an example of Macrocrystalline Quartz.

The crystals do not have to be whole, perfect and complete like these. Some Quartz is quite coarsely crystalline yet doesn’t display the crystal habit of the mineral.

Rose Quartz is a type of Macrocrystalline Quartz that does not form crystal faces, but is composed of many intergrown crystal ‘sub-individuals’

Citrine

Second most popular Quartz gemstone…Amethyst is first.

Ametrine

A naturally occurring variety of Macrocrystalline Quartz comprising zones of Amethyst intergrown with zones of Citrine.

Ametrine cut perpendicular to the c-axis of the crystal. Is that freaking cool or what???

Quartz crystal axes:

Macro…Micro…Crytpo…it’s ALL Quartz.
Versatile, beautiful, ornamental

Carnelian Pendant wrapped in Copper wire.
(and yes, Carnelian is one of the many lovely flavors of quartz, of the Microcrystalline Quartz variety)

Coming Soon: Microcrystalline Quartz

References:
Ametrine   https://www.mindat.org/min-7606.html
Ametrine   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ametrine
The Mineral Citrine   https://www.minerals.net/mineral/citrine.aspx
The Mineral Quartz https://www.minerals.net/mineral/quartz.aspx
The Quartz Page http://www.quartzpage.de/crs_intro.html

Rockin’ on down the road to Enlightenment..

Late last year on one of the social media sites, I was inspired by this poster—words from the great psychoanalyst Carl Jung which reads:

“I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time”

My inner situation was to start the day so splendidly. In meditation. Drawing meditation — a spiritual practice, centered within my own self, rather than the ravages of life in America in 2018 as reported incessantly by social media, news media, comedy media, bullcrap media…

The Mandala Project

I replace it all with Mandala Media—or perhaps Mary Media, though some would argue my inner being, the being whom I truly serve is probably not named Mary. Do our inner beings have names, I wonder? Names that survive our current incarnations?

No matter. Mary has worked well my entire life, in spite of the still, though thankfully occasional, references to nursery rhymes with gardens and contrariness.

Everyone knows what a mandala is, right? —from the Sanskrit, loosely translated as “circle”?

That’s the short definition, which I would come to find useful…but most of us probably think mandalas are a bit more than ‘just a circle’. We want more from a mandala than that.

Man·da·la — ˈmandələ/
noun: mandala;
-geometric figure of a circle enclosing a square, representing the universe.
-in Psychoanalysis: a symbol in a dream, representing the dreamer’s search for completeness and self-unity.

I see. The Universe and self-unity. And the dreamer is… the one who draws the mandala.

That works.

So I draw a mandala every day — with ink and colored pencil on paper. Free hand, but for the inner and outer circles, which are drawn using a template.

The rest is my hand, my focus, my intention.The images of the mandalas flow to me and through me, while I enjoy the patterns and the colors issuing forth from pen and pencils. Emerging first, hearts and stars and squares of ever-increasing symmetry organized themselves in

symmetrical patterns of triangles and stars. The endless variety of possibilities of color and structure ultimately leads to the energy flows of the universe.

Outside, the flowers bloomed and finally, finally I understood that we are, like the flowers and trees, nourished from below and above— with the gifts of the physical earth, and the invisible flows from above, through the energy of sun, wind and eternal sky. Which gave birth to the quintessential mandala…

Tree of Life

Songs from the Universe

LambornLandsEnd

For the New Year…

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every moment holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action;
and in those quiet, sometimes hardly moving times,
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
and I want my grasp of things to be
true before you.
I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that carried me
through the wildest storm of all.
— Rainer Maria Rilke