The month of January is all about new beginnings. New year, new you, right? Well, it’s also a month in which emotional healing features as a prominent theme. The Full Moon for January 2023, called the Wolf Moon, will rise in the sign of Cancer. Together, the Cancerian and lunar energies fuse to get us deep into our feelings–not only to acknowledge and hold space for them, but to heal and process our emotions in a healthy way–and there is no better stone to aid that journey than Rhodochrosite.
Rhodochrosite (known affectionately by some of our customers as “the Bacon Stone” due to its unique red, pink, and purple colors and patterns that can often bear resemblance to meat) gets its name from the Greek prefix “Rhodo,” which means “Rose.”
The most significant known deposit of Rhodochrosite is located in Argentina, where the beautiful stone formed in abandoned Incan silver mines. Rhodochrosite grows in a number of different formations–including stalactite, nodular, botryoidal, and granular forms. It is recognizable by its white swirls of manganese carbonate and distinguished from Rhodonite in that it is softer (with a hardness of only 3.5-4) and typically more pink than red in color. In addition to Argentina, Rhodochrosite is found in South Africa, Peru, Montana, Colorado, Russia, Romania, Mexico, and Japan.
Rhodochrosite is a powerful stone for linking and balancing the solar plexus (3rd) and heart (4th) chakras. Metaphysically, it is associated with releasing the energy of emotional wounds and processing and healing from childhood trauma. It also helps one learn better coping mechanisms than the ones we “learned” in times when we were just trying to survive. Those methods may or may not be the healthiest for our adult selves. Rhodochrosite helps us to do the sometimes uncomfortable shadow work of integrating our past and present selves and healing and releasing memories and energies that no longer best serve us, but it does so in a gentle and compassionate, rather than abrupt manner.
The inner child-healing energy of Rhodochrosite feels like hope, magic, optimism, and a promise of safety—like being able to escape into the fantasy lands we dreamed of as children, where everything really -is- beautiful and nothing hurts. Rhodochrosite is ideal for therapists, counselors, teachers, and anyone in trauma recovery or trying to imbue their new year with a little more self-love and hope for a better future.
To quote our beloved late friend and coworker Alta, “Let the healers be healed.”