Sorcerer’s Stone Kyanite Necklaces

He Swore Me to Secrecy

I was 20, going to college. One of my best friends from my high school years and a fellow rock and mineral enthusiast had an entire basement with plywood tables supported by saw horses. His collection covered years and 1000s of specimens with a white painted splotch and a black number painted on each. He knew when and where everything he had was found. He was organized like a museum.

My collection was of fine choice specimens that fit into half of a shoebox comprised of quartz crystals and fluorite crystals in purple and green. I also had choice arrowheads. I knew where nothing was found. My collection was beautiful. I collected for beauty. My friend, with his parent’s assistance, traveled to mines and chipped rocks from cliffs. He knew everything about his sources.

One day in my 20s, my friend said he’d like to take me to a choice collecting location. “You will have to swear to absolute secrecy and never say where it is,” he said. The secrecy part was a big deal. It took several days of me promising never to reveal the location. This was all before he even told me the name of the gems we would find. I finally swore with enough sincerity that he revealed the gems’ names – kyanite and staurolite.

We set a date on a Saturday in the fall. He and I drove to a location, parked beside railroad tracks, and started hiking along the tracks. We hiked a couple of miles in, then left the tracks to the right and went out across a farmer’s field, which had been hayed. I remember because the field was easy walking. We probably hiked a half mile when we arrived at a stone wall separating two fields. He said this is it, and he pulled two small sledgehammers out of his backpack and went to work opening rock.

Above: Kyanite specimen

Kyanite is an aluminum-based crystal with long pastel blue blades set in a gray-brown rock. It is beautiful. I call the stone an “Angel Wing Crystal.” It has an otherworldly beauty, and it seems impossible that something so beautiful could exist in a gray-brown sandstone.

Above: Staurolite specimen

The other crystal we hunted for was staurolite. It had two intersecting crystals at 90 or 45-degree angles, forming a Maltese-like cross. They were referred to as fairy crosses and were scattered within the same mother rocks as the robin egg blue kyanite crystals. As a rock and mineral collector, I found these two curious gems to be beautiful, and because they looked so different from one another, it seemed impossible for nature to have formed them together in the same rock mass.

We gathered and collected these gems. My friend had his backpack, and I had mine. It’s now over 50 years later, and I still have all the crystals I collected that day in a box in a trunk in my attic.

Fast forward 25 years, I was studying a course on obscure minerals of the world when I came across a paragraph about choice locations where kyanite was found. Spain was one location mentioned, and Windham, Maine, was another. I went downstairs and told my wife that I’d been holding sacred a secret that I’d sworn never to divulge. I was appalled to find it spelled out in an international course on rare and obscure minerals revealing this secret I had held for so long.

Would I, could I, reveal the location of the stone wall in Windham? I don’t even remember how to get there. The secret, as promised, is safe. I’ve honored my side of the bargain.

Fast forward another 15 years, and my son and I were at an international gem show. I saw tables of robin egg blue kyanite stones. I bought some. My son asked me why, and I recounted mining kyanite in Windham, Maine with a friend. I thought it had a beautiful pastel angle wing blue color.

The Sorcerer’s Stone

When I returned to Maine, I googled kyanite and found someone selling crystals found in Windham, Maine. I was surprised. His ad said he was liquidating his collection. I thought, what luck! He showed pictures, gave measurements, and listed the prices—no telephone number. I bought $50 worth. When they arrived, I was surprised at how small the blue blades of kyanite were. A note in the box thanked me for the order and said to call if I would like more. There was a telephone number, and it was signed, “Clay.”

A shudder of surprise traveled up my spine. My friend’s name, the one I went kyanite hunting with, was Clayton. Clayton was how I addressed him back in the 60s and 70s. Some called him Clay. I called this guy right up; I instantly recognized his voice. “You know the stuff you bought?” He said. “Some of that probably came from the day you and I went to the farmer’s stone wall.”

I mentioned I still had what I found that day. He said, “Now you’ve got it all.”

I asked about being sworn to secrecy. He said, “Yeah. I don’t know why I did that. Everyone knows kyanite is found in Windham.”

Our Collection Today

A few years ago, a guy I know in Arizona who does silver wire wrapping offered us pastel blue kyanite crystals in simple sterling silver hand-wrapped frames. It shows the crystal to its best advantage.

My son found 34 of them in our archive vault and suggested a surprise Saturday send. I asked what he thought about them. He said, “I see this as a sorcerer’s or philosopher’s stone. It’s big. It’s bold. It just echoes magic.” I agreed.

Why I Love These Pieces

I’ve been to one of the world sources for kyanite. I’ve seen the two curious gems that are found together, kyanite and staurolite. The blue is heavenly. It’s big. It’s bold. It makes a statement. And I have found it to be hauntingly mysterious. Acquire one of these, and you will hold some of the magic this crystal and the color it possesses.

No, these kyanite crystals are not from Maine. We have three sizes and only these 34 pieces. I believe kyanite possesses a particular kind of sorcerer’s magic. If you seek extra powers to divine the future, consider one of these powerful necklaces.