Science has revealed that matter is energy. Other definitions define consciousness as energy, though there are multiple definitions of consciousness. I believe that whatever has consciousness follows a particular pattern or structure. This is enough to convince me that stones, although inanimate, hold consciousness. It's a different form of consciousness, that's all.

In the early 1990s, I was introduced to meditation and began reading books on the energy of stones. I soon made the connection that not only did the stones mentioned in the books have energy, but that the stones in my garden had energy too. I began the practice of meditating with closed eyes and visualizing a stone while holding it in my hands. What began to happen has taken me on new directions that I never would have dreamed possible.

As I started feeling the energy of each stone I held in meditation, I would ask things like, "What part of my body does this stone affect?" I would then begin to feel specific areas inside my body being affected. I began to realize that energy is not limited to physical substance. Light is energy; sound is energy; shape is energy too.

I began visualizing the stones I was meditating with in specific shapes. As I did this, I would often feel their energy increase. I began to ask more questions, such as, "What shape would be best to enhance this stone's energy?" A shape would come to mind, and that is what I would visualize. Sometimes I would get more than one shape for a specific stone. This is when I realized that stones are multidimensional, just like people. I also discovered that some stones work well in multiple shapes, some only in a few shapes, and some are better left in their natural form.

In my meditations, stones have taken me to other planes of existence. I have stepped into past lives using fossils while meditating. I have healed myself of chronic disease and physical injuries using stones shaped as pyramids, eggs and other shapes that we have no names for.

As a lapidary artist, it was the shaping of stones that first interested me. I didn't want to be constricted to the pre-determined shapes found in rock shops. My early shapes were crude and unpolished. I figured that if you were using a stone for a tool, it didn't need to look aesthetically pleasing to work. Needless to say, I didn't sell many. As a personal joke, I sometimes wonder that if archaeologists dig up one of my older stone pyramids in North Dakota a thousand years from now and compare it to one of my newer ones in Alaska, they'll note the technological differences between these two areas and remark how one civilization was surely more advanced than the other.

I have learned that by polishing stones there is a beauty revealed that you often cannot see when the stone is unpolished. Usually, it is only after polishing and bringing out the inner beauty of stones that most people become attracted to them.

I have also learned that some stones do not look the same on the inside as they do on the outside. On a trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota, I found a stone that looked like yellow jasper. It was almost naturally a perfect cube. I sat down to meditate with it, to see where its energy went in my body. I expected to feel it in my second chakra, as yellows and browns are generally associated with the second chakra. I was extremely surprised to feel it in the base (root) chakra. I second guessed my intuition and determined that I was wrong. When I cut the stone open, I was surprised to find that within a half inch of all sides of the stone, it was a blood red jasper that could not be seen from the outside of the stone. This color is connected to the base chakra.

In the last ten years, I have had many interesting experiences with stone energy. Most importantly, I have learned to trust what the stones say to me.

Nicholas Weaver is a lapidary artist. He and John Troutman own and operate Nature's Jewels Rock Shop at 1921 West Dimond Blvd., Suite 4, in Anchorage. Call 349-7863.