It's best to get to know stones before using them in magic. Becoming familiar with them allows you to work with their powers. After attuning with, say, an amethyst, you'll develop a 'magical knowledge' concerning that stone. This is a true tool and is one of the three necessities of magic.
Meditate on ten or so stones to begin with, and add more later as they come into your life, as sugilite recently entered mine. When a situation requiring a magical rite occurs, you'll know the stone to use.
Work with the stones individually. If you study citrine, say, in the morning and switch to aventurine in the afternoon, your associations with these stones won't be as clear as if you'd split your session over two days, allowing for more in-depth study of each.
Try to repeat sessions on each stone at least two or three times in the same day, for full immersion. If nothing else, after your main attunement, simply look at the stone a few times throughout the day, or hold it for a moment.
To 'hear' the stories within stones, you might try a method like the following. It is designed, in the best shamanistic sense, to allow the stone to teach you. The universe is constantly speaking to us, to all of us. Remember to listen!
Cleanse the stone if necessary. Then set aside a time, say a half-hour to an hour, depending on your desire to work with stones.
Find a quiet spot. It may be in your garden, the living room when the rest of the household is asleep, or a quiet valley in a nearby forest. Even a city park or a rooftop will do. Ideally, any outdoor location is preferable to in-home working but, again, do what you can.
This is a two-section stone exercise. The first one utilizes the psychic, subconscious, deep conscious mind. At least a part of this has lately been dubbed the "right brain." The second utilizes the intellectual, conscious, societally controlled mind, now known by some as the "left brain."
Settle down comfortably before the stone on the ground, floor, or in a chair at a table. The stone should be within arm's reach. Close your eyes and listen to your own mantra, your breath. Still your conscious mind. Breathe deeply, rhythmically.
With your eyes still closed, hold out your receptive hand (the left hand for righties, the right for left-handers). Keeping it a few inches from the floor, move it back and forth gently. Pinpoint your concentration or your awareness on the palm of this hand. you are searching for the stone. Don't try to feel the stone's energies; simply allow yourself to do so.
Say I was doing this with a small quartz crystal. As my hand passes over it, I might feel a strong emanation rising from the stone, perhaps manifesting as a warm, throbbing spot on my palm.
When I move my hand away from the crystal, the feeling stops. Passing over it once again, the energy stream moves through my palm. This may seem strange or supernatural but it's a perfectly natural use of our senses, and it is vital in magic.
When you have located the stone, pick it up, again using your senses to determine the exact location of the stone. Your fingers should close around it perfectly. If not, work on it again.
Your eyes are still shut. you are utilizing the psychic mind. Hold the stone in your receptive hand for a while. The energies will be easier to detect now that you are closer to their source. How do they feel?
Do they affect your mood? Are you happier? Calmer? Energized? Aroused?
With your eyes still closed, move the stone slowly up and down a few inches from your body from your belly to the top of your head. Do you feel anything different?
Do you feel the energy of the stone within you, almost like a warm ray of sunshine? Or a cool ray of moonlight?
Next, transfer the stone to your projective hand. Feel the stone. Is it smooth, glossy, rough, or striated (rippled or grooved)? Does it crumble? Is it cold to the touch? Warm?
Once you've surveyed it with your fingers, sense the stone's weight. Is it light? Heavy?
Remember all this--all impressions, sensations, and emotional effects, if any.
Open your eyes and look at the stone. With all the information you've just received in mind, study it with your eyes. You've certainly looked at the stone before, but never with all these sensations.
Gaze at it for a while, perhaps, simply seeing it--for the first time. See it with a shaman's eyes. Penetrate it with your vision, analyze it, flex your conscious mind.
What shape is it? If it hasn't been worked by a lapidary, is it a smooth, natural crystal, a rough chunk of mineral or a water-buffed stone? If it is crystalline, how many sides does it contain? Are they regular or unevenly shaped? Smooth or deeply grooved?
Now focus on the stone's color, letting it fill your consciousness. Is the shade intense or pale? Bright or dark? Pleasing or discomforting? Does it affect your mood? What are your associations, magical or otherwise, with the color?
Is the stone solidly opaque, translucent, or transparent?
Let the stone answer these questions. Study the stone as a doctor would a patient. The stone has been speaking to you, revealing its magical nature and uses.
When you feel your concentration wavering, or when you are simply bored (a good sign that the 'conversation' is over), and especially if you're interrupted, hold the stone with both hands, move it up to the sky, move it down to the ground, and then press it against your belly. This is a simple ritual defining the end of the session, utilizing a symbolic presentation of the stone to all the energies above and below.
Now look up magical information relating to the stone in this or other books. See if it agrees with what you've discovered.
If you're the type that likes to record things, write a summary of the session. Note the stone, its energies, your feelings.
If you wish, carry or wear the stone for a few hours during the day or night after your attunement. Sense any changes within yourself while wearing the stone.
Otherwise, put the stone in a safe place, perhaps on your altar or, if you have one, in your power bag.
Your stone meditation is finished.
Again, do this as many times a day as you feel necessary. It might take only one session for you to process all this information, but it may take several. You might try doing the 'conscious' half of this exercise during the day and the 'subconscious' half at night. Sunset or sunrise are ideal times to perform this, for they symbolize the shift from the psychic mind (night) to the analytical mind (day).
If you have friends who use stones in magic, ask them about their impressions of the stones. Share information, if you wish, for no one has a monopoly on such matters. Remember that others' impressions may be far different from yours.
Sure, this may seem complicated. After all, won't the stone do its magical work without such a ritual? Perhaps it would. Certainly it does, sometimes. But in stone magic, the powers we sense in the raw materials are only part of the energies we use. Stones are often used as focal points for personal power, which we rouse within our bodies.
Through ritual we release this personal power into the stones, which act like lenses that focus and concentrate the energy while adding their own to the 'transmission'. The energy is then sent out toward the magical goal.
Our intimate knowledge of stones, of their form, color, and powers, gives us a firmer connection with them, allowing a surer, stronger projection of energy into them. Perhaps stone magic will work without the magician's familiarity with the tools. But just as practice and desire can turn a whittler into an accomplished wood-carver, so too can sessions such as these determine the effectiveness of the practitioner's magic. To skip them is to miss half the magic.
