Rocks Rock

I’ve been thinking about rocks a lot lately, collecting different specimens of minerals and gems, arranging them in groups. I have favorites: lapis lazuli, moss agate, amethyst, bloodstone, and aquamarine to name a few. Like most English majors, I took the least mathy lab science sequence available to me—geology.

My physical geology professor was fairly dry and dull, but my historical geology professor was fucking brilliant and engaging, told stories of his expeditions, commented on the stones in the jewelry his students wore to class. We all loved him.

Over the past year or so, I’ve been building my rock collection, arranging them around my bathtub and on windowsills, letting the sun and moon charge them. Before you dismiss this idea of charging the rocks, think about what your science classes taught you about matter and energy: all matter contains energy.

Different rocks have different properties and energies, and if you’re sensitive to these matters, you can feel the different energies in different rocks. I choose rocks based on feeling more than physical appearance: How does it feel in general? How does it fit in my hand? How do I feel when I’m holding it? Simple questions with simple answers.

I acquired a piece of tektite recently. Tektite, if you don’t know, is created from meteoric events, but they are terrestrial. It’s not strictly igneous, nor metamorphic, formed by “shock metamorphism” when a blazing hot meteorite hits the earth, melting natural glass into something new. Tektite also has extremely low water content, especially in comparison to obsidian or other volcanic rocks.

This got me thinking about metamorphic rocks and sedimentary rocks in conjunction with extraterrestrial objects (like meteorites) that hit the earth and become part of the earth’s geology through sedimentary and metamorphic rock formation.

My conclusion? There’s no such thing as purity in an organic state; everything is constantly changing, just like the tide, even the earth itself. New rocks are forming as we speak.