Jade is said to bless whatever it touches, serving mankind across the globe for nearly 6,000 years. For primitive peoples in the British Isles, its toughness, and ability to polish and sharpen made it a favored stone for axe heads, knives and weapons. Indigenous tribes of Mexico, Central and South America, and New Zealand carved it into deity masks and ritual artifacts, even cast it into wells as an offering to the water spirits for fresh and plentiful water. Jade has been the most highly esteemed stone in China throughout recorded history, and was valued for its beauty and powers of healing and protection. An endless variety of gems, vessels, incense burners, beads, burial items and statues have been wondrously carved from Jade, as well as musical instruments and pendants inscribed with poetry.
Jade is most valued for its metaphysical properties. It is the ultimate "Dream Stone," revered in ancient cultures, as well as today, to access the spiritual world, gain insight into ritualistic knowledge, encourage creativity, and dream-solve. It is cherished as a protective talisman, assuring long life and a peaceful death, and is considered a powerful healing stone. An amulet of good luck and friendship, Jade signifies wisdom gathered in tranquility, dispelling the negative and encouraging one to see oneself as they really are.
In scientific terms, Jade is the name shared by two distinctly different minerals - Nephrite, a calcium magnesium silicate, and Jadeite, a sodium aluminum silicate. Though they have different compositions, hardnesses, densities and crystal structures, both are exceptionally tough stones, similar in appearance, and equally valuable in metaphysical properties. Both occur in the beautiful olive shades we've come to recognize as jade green, but have some distinctions.
Nephrite generally occurs in creamy white, mid- to deep olive green, brown and black. It has a smooth surface polish with a waxy sheen and is more commonly found. Jadeite may be a white-gray green, leafy green, blue or blue-green, emerald green, lavender, pink, red, orange, greenish-black or black. It is hard and lustrous, rarer than Nephrite, and usually more expensive. Translucent, emerald green Jadeite, colored by traces of chromium, is called Imperial Jade and is the rarest and most valuable.
The name and character of Jade is associated with many cultures, all referring to its reputed medicinal property of curing calculus stones and disorders of the kidneys or bladder. Yu-Stone to the ancient Chinese, it was called "spleen-stone" by the Mesoamericans. Nephrite is from the Greek word nephros, the kidney. The Spanish named it Piedra de hijada when they conquered the New World (lapis nephrictus in Latin), meaning "Stone of the loin," or "Stone of the flank." In a later French translation, the term was misprinted and became "pierre le jade."
Uses and Purposes - Overview
Jade is the stone of calm in the midst of storm. Its action balances nerves and soothes cardiac rhythm. A piece of Jade kept in a pocket or on a pendant to stroke from time to time recharges energy, and traditionally guards against illness. Jade may also be used to temper the shock or fear of the very young or very old being cared for in the hospital or away from home and family.
Jade is excellent for healing feelings of guilt, and for extreme cases of defeatism. It also treats "pathological normality," an excessive desire to adapt oneself to a group, even if it is sect-like, exaggerated militarism, a follow-the-leader attitude, or the compulsive desire to give in to general opinion to belong no matter the cost.
As a travel stone, Green Jade prevents illness while on holiday, is beneficial for those traveling alone, and protects children and pets from straying or being hurt while on a journey. Green Jade also fosters chi, or Life Force energies, and is excellent for hiking, gardening or relaxing out of doors.
Green Jade is a crystal of love. It is supportive of new love, and increases trustworthiness and fidelity. It also inspires love later in life.
As a professional support stone, Jade aids doctors, nurses, veterinarians, and all healers in making practical diagnosis and in their applications. It is a support stone for educators, and Jade, carved in the form of a faith symbol, is uplifting to military personnel.
Jade pendants and necklaces protect against deception and authoritative abuse for financial or sexual gain. Jade signifies peace through strength, and is also helpful in homes or occupations that encounter bullying or intimidation from violent children or teens.
Physical Healing Energy
Jade is a powerful cleansing stone, enhancing the body's filtration and elimination organs. It is excellent for treating the kidneys, spleen and supra-adrenal glands, removing toxins and balancing the fluids and water-salt/acid-alkaline ratios in the body.
It is helpful to the bones and joints, especially the hips, and for treating bacterial and viral infections, cystitis and genito-urinary infections, and bedwetting.
Jade has a restorative property, allowing for both the cellular and skeletal systems to re-bind themselves, and assists in the removal of pain associated with the body's healing of itself. Jade also helps stitches to bind and heal properly, and has been used to diminish cramps and "Charlie horses." Imperial Jade is particularly useful in healing after plastic surgery or reconstructive surgery caused by a disfiguring illness or injury.
Jade is thought to treat reproductive disorders, especially male, and assist during childbirth. Jade may also be used to help teenage girls with anorexia, and for mothers who are afraid of not knowing how to parent their children.
Emotional Healing Energy
Jade is a "dream stone," releasing negative thoughts and irritability and soothing the mind. It stabilizes the personality, integrating mind with body, to stimulate ideas and make tasks less complex and easier to act upon. Placed on the forehead, it brings insightful dreams. Jade improves one's remembering of dreams and releases suppressed emotions via the dream process.
Jade relinquishes self-imposed limitations and assists in cherishing one's ideals and desires, facilitating the ambition and building of those thoughts into physical reality. Jade provides confidence and self-assuredness, self-reliance and self-sufficiency.
Imperial Jade improves dysfunctional relationships. It helps restore dignity to anyone who has been mocked for looking different, and gives very overweight people stuck in self-loathing the courage to seek help and persevere with treatment.
Chakra Healing and Balancing Energy
Green Jade balances and harmonizes the Heart Chakra, aiding in both emotional and physical well-being.
The Heart Chakra is located near the center of the breastbone. It regulates our interaction with the external world and controls what we embrace and what we resist. It gives us the balancing ability to be ourselves within the environment. When the heart chakra is out of balance you may feel either controlling or controlled in a relationship, and become critical of the little foibles of others. You may well find yourself having inappropriately strong emotional responses to everyday external stimuli. Green crystal energy is used to resolve blockages and to re-balance the heart chakra, helping us understand our own needs and emotions clearly. We can deal with the ebbs and flows of emotional relationships, understand their cyclic nature, and accept the changes.
Spiritual Energy
Jade in all forms has always represented nobility, not only of rank, but of ideals. The wearing of Jade assists in creating magic for the highest good and in protection from harmful or deceitful entities during spirit work.
Green Jade is an abundance stone, representing the flow of Divine energy into the reality of one's life. It brings harmony and happiness in business and family relationships, as well material abundance. It is a reminder to smell the flowers, touch the ones you love, and share your heart with others in affirmation of plenty
Chinese Jade - The Elixir Of Life - The Stone Of Immortality
For thousands of years, the Chinese so venerated this historic stone that they called it the 'stone of China', believing that it brought serenity, peace of mind and protected infants. They maintained that certain jade designs had the power to ward off evil and, in accidents, absorb all bodily harm and injuries of the wearer. Confucius saw in jade the symbols of harmony, humanity, intelligence and justice, and he is said to have waxed lyrical over its many qualities.
To the people of China, jade is the most precious of stones, occupying the same position as diamonds are held in the West. To them, it is the symbol of virtue and beauty, terming it 'the concentrated essence of love'.
From jade, they hand-carved cups, figurines, sceptres, vases, all types of jewellery and chimes - regarding jade as a musical gem par excellence. Its mysterious qualities and physical appearance have, for centuries, been associated by the Chinese with the human attributes of wisdom, moral courage and power. Calling it the 'Stone of Heaven', they credited this ancient gem with spiritual significance, believing that it possessed the virtues of holiness and purity.
Many writers regarded it as a potent medicine and attributed to it incorruptibility, invincibility and even immortality. Emperors used to drink a mixture of pounded jade and herbs in an attempt to become immortal. It is said that the mythical Queen Hsi Wang Mu who prepared for herself this elixir of life concoction, lived to be several thousand years old. The Han ruler Liu Sheng and his consort, whose tomb was discovered in 1968, were so obsessed with the notion of jade being conducive to longevity that they arranged to be buried in suits formed from thousands of pieces of jade held together with gold wire.
Believing that jade preserved the body of the dead from decay, important figures in Chinese history sought immortality after death by having jade amulets buried with them. Others had jade, in various shapes and motifs, stuffed into all the orifices of their corpses.
World-wide, there are two species of jade: nephrite and jadeite, found in pebbles and boulders of various sizes. They have virtually no relation with each other except in appearance. Both types, because of their tough composition, are actually never carved in the usual meaning of the word. Large pieces are cut with wire saws and abrasive paste. The pieces are then ground with abrasive powder, and diamond drills are used to hollow out the details before polishing.
Nephrite, also known as 'greenstone', is used chiefly for carvings and is the oldest, softest and most common type of jade. Also, known as 'kidney stone', from which it derives its Greek name, it has a reputation as a healer of kidney diseases.
A magnesium/iron silicate mineral consisting of an interlocking mass of fibrous crystals - 6.5 on the Mohs' scale - it is found in a rainbow of colours. Besides green, it comes in white, brown, grey and yellow. The stone is mined primarily in Central Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Alaska, California and Wyoming in the U.S.A., and British Colombia in Canada.
Most Chinese jade artifacts before the 18th century were manufactured from nephrite. Known in China as chen yu (true jade), it is not found in that country but, for centuries, has been imported in a raw form from Central Asia. Yet, in that ancient land, the art of sculpturing jade has been well-developed for over 4,000 years. Nephrite carvings of great antiquity have been discovered throughout the country.
The second type, called jadeite, is a sodium aluminum silicate mineral, denser than nephrite. It consists of compressed fibrous-translucent granular crystals matted together, making it a tough stone - 7 on the Mohs' scale. The gem does not splinter easily and, hence, is excellent for the manufacture of jewellery.
Jadeite is found chiefly in an extensive range of green shades - lighter than those found in nephrite - and in black, blue, lilac, pink, purple, red, violet and white. It has a much narrower geographical distribution than nephrite, being found mostly in the stream beds and hillsides of the Mogaung district of Upper Burma, and in small amounts in California and Japan.
Pure white nephrite and jadeite jade bring top values. No less cherished is 'Grave jade', taken from the graves and mausoleums of the wealthy, much of it by grave-robbers. Saturated with myth and housewives' tales, it is valued for its potent and magical properties - prized as a shield against harm.
However, the most sought after jade is a deep emerald green variety of jadeite of great translucency, known as 'Imperial Jade' and to the Chinese as 'Old Mine Jade'. It is so rare and exquisite that it costs as much as the highest grade emeralds. The most highly prized of the jadeite, it is a very transparent gem and so clear that it is possible to read print through most specimens. Once owned solely by Chinese emperors, it has been for hundreds of years prized in China above all other gemstones.
Roaming the countries of Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand, I found that, as in the past, jade continues to hold many of the inhabitants and a good number of tourists spellbound. However, above all, to the Chinese, jade still rules supreme as an oriental touchstone by which other gems are judged. To them, it remains, as it has always, the beloved ancestor of all gems.
