Greetings! My name is Susan Landa and I’ve owned and run the Fossil Cartel since 1989. I adore stones and fossils and consider it an honor to be able to bring these treasures to thousands of people. Whenever I am in the store, I bask in the stones’ glory, being surrounded by so many! For 19 years people have been coming and seeking stones with specific healing, protecting and abundance properties. While I am not an expert in the particular energies of each stone, I am privileged to have staff members such as Joan, the manager, who is well versed in such matters and can help people find exactly what they are looking for. I am so gratified to see people seeking and using alternative methods of healing and manifesting.

I recently came across another method of healing and manifesting, as a result of a gift that was given to me. I would like to share this gift with you.

“I am healthy, I am vibrant, I am full of energy” - that has been a part of my ongoing affirmation exercises for the past couple of years. I was relatively healthy, but - like so many of us - addicted to caffeine. I was up to three Turbo Truffles (caffeinated chocolates - I never did like the taste of coffee) and one diet Pepsi a day because I thought I needed it to keep up my energy. This routine lasted many years but I never felt any adverse effects until it hit me last year. It was painful, but I will spare you the details. It didn’t help that I had just turned 47 and I was starting to feel the effects of aging, too.

I kept doing my affirmations and lo and behold, a woman came to my last creative visualization class and gifted me with a phenomenal wellness drink that tasted fantastic. In a relatively short time, I got off caffeine, I have way more energy and mental clarity, less stress and no pain-filled episodes. I have met many others who have experienced miraculous healings from a variety of ailments through this company’s products. As if that weren’t enough, the gift came with a fantastic opportunity for another stream of income - residual income at that!

The product is called Ageless Xtra and the company is Univera – which means one truth. They have a whole line of products that are 100% plant-based, backed up with hard science, and 30 years and tens of millions of dollars in research. The company has 50 full time PhD scientists working around the clock in their pharmaceutical laboratories in Lacey, Washington and South Korea. They have the largest functional medicinal plant library in the world. I could go on and on, but take a look yourself with this website link

http://www.netimpact.us/company.cfm

Use this ID#1333186 if you’d like to explore the site further.

You can also check out http://www.univera.com

There is a rare financial opportunity here with two beautiful features. First, virtually anyone can do it. It requires a relatively minute investment, so the potential to make a great deal of residual income is available to everyone. Second, the business model is one of gifting. How simple is that? Who in their life has never given a gift? The most beautiful thing is that you get to help people, often making a significant positive impact in their lives. This adds tremendously gratifying “psychic income.”

I’d like to share the gift that was given to me and pay it forward.

Please contact me if you are interested in trying this product to improve your overall health, give you more energy (clean and sustainable energy with no stimulants), mental clarity, joint comfort, and stress relief. If you are interested in creating a gratifying, joyful, parallel, lucrative income through Univera, please email me, and I will personally help you achieve your goals.

L’Chiam! (To life!)

Susan

susan@fossilcartel.com

Whether you are a Leo or Virgo, if your birthday is in August, your birthstone is peridot. This semi-precious gem-grade crystal of the mineral Olivine gets its light apple green color from iron and is found in both volcanic rock and meteorites. It is a 6.5 on the Mohs Hardness Scale and with its vitreous to greasy luster, it is usually faceted to bring out the beauty of the stone. Ninety percent of the peridot on the market comes from the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Gila County, Arizona. It is found in basalt in clusters of smaller grains and larger stones are very rare. Peridot is also found in China, Myanmar, Pakistan, Egypt, New Mexico and Hawaii.

Peridot combines the energies from the third or solar plexus chakra (yellow) and the fourth or heart chakra (green). The third chakra represents our relationship to the world, our self esteem and will. The fourth chakra represents the love we give outside of ourselves. This stone is all about well-being, joy and balancing moods. Its bright and springlike color assists in alleviating depression and working through grief, sorrow and loss (especially in letting go of childhood trauma or abuse). It is also the stone of prosperity and new beginnings. According to Naisha Ahsian, peridot “teaches us to receive with grace and gratitude.”

Happy Birthday to all of you with August birthdays!! I hope you will stop in the shop or click on our website fossilcartel.com to experience the beautiful and friendly peridot in rock and jewelry.

See you in the shop or website!

-Joan

P.S. Get in touch with your inner peace and intuition with blue sapphire and lapis for September.

Geologic time can be a hard concept to grasp. We say that dinosaurs roamed the earth millions of years ago, but do we really even understand just how long is a million years?

The currently accepted age of the earth is 4.6 billion years. That is 4 billion, 6 hundred million. That is a 4,  then a 6, followed by 8 zeros - a ten digit number. When it’s all written out, it looks like this: 4,600,000,000.  Yet, no matter how many different ways I try to convey the grandness of the age of the Earth verbally, it still just sounds like a really big number to me. Because I am a visual person, I actually created a time line on a rope cut to exactly 460 feet. Each foot of the rope represents ten million years.

We sell a number of fossils at The Fossil Cartel from all over the world spanning many different time periods, and all kinds of varieties of species. We like to provide our customers with information about the specimens they purchase, and in the case of fossils that includes their age. I chose just a couple of our most popular fossils to place on the time line, in order to get an idea of where they fall in geologic time.

The Green River Formation in Wyoming yields many many fish fossils. These fish became fossils approximately 40 million years ago. On the time line rope, that is a mere four feet from present day. If you were to walk 460 feet from Pioneer Place, where The Fossil Cartel is located, that would be about 2 blocks along SW Morrison, from SW 5th to SW 3rd.  You could hardly take two steps to cover the time since the fish fossils were alive!

Trilobites flourished during the Devonian period. But early species of trilobites lived starting 500 million years ago. On the rope, that would still be only 50 feet away from present day, or less than 1/9 of the way in geologic time!

People come into the store sometimes and ask, “What’s your favorite?” gesturing to include everything in the store. I always have such a hard time answering that question quickly because I love all this stuff. I love the fossils, the minerals, the jewelry, the gems, the awesome books. All of it.

But the answer is simple, really, after a second or two. It’s the agates. I have to say I love the agates most of all. I love the Brazilian agate slices, dyed or natural color, and the cool wind chimes made from them. I love the Botswana agates, Montana agates, moss agates, blue lace agates, crazy lace agates, polka dot agates, Laguna agates, purple lace agates, holley blue agates and the Oregon beach agates. I pretty much love them all.

I have a particular affinity for agates. I find them wherever I go. I can be walking on a downtown sidewalk, feel an impulse to look down, do so and see right below me an agate between my feet in mid-stride. Then I understand why I felt the need to look down. And I’ll sometimes have a will to “free” the agate from it’s “imprisonment” in the concrete, maybe let it ride around in my pocket for awhile, then liberate it to the agate party going on 24/7 in the big pile in the corner of my front yard. The metaphor I’ve come to employ is that they call to me, or that I hear their song. This is even how I find them when I’m on an agate hunt. It’s not so much by sight as by some silent sound. My head moves around, up, down, back and forth, much as it would were I trying to locate a flying insect by sound in a quiet room. And only after this operation is carried out, typically, do I “sight” the agate.

While I enjoy this talent, what can one do with it, other than have hours of fun at the river or on the beach? Well, I suppose in Ancient Mesopotamia such ability might have been a marketable skill. Sumerian cylinder seals, the photo ID of that era, were made predominantly of carnelian. Carnelian is a form of agate. I find carnelian all the time. There’s a piece embedded in the concrete of the street in front of my home that I see every time I get into or out of the car. 4000 years ago, the ability to find carnelian without trying might have been a moneymaker. But now, in the modern era? Not much more than a hobby. Fun for me but, so what?

Unless you work at a rock shop, the rock shop in the town where you live, which I do. That’s why I’m here: because I love the agates. They’re my favorite stones of all. And I’ve no doubt they love me, too. There are sure a lot of them that want to come home with me.

Dear Friends-

This is Joan Ruby Lawhead again, writing about one of my favorite stones…Ruby…wonder why? In addition to it being my name and I believe the main reason why I was hired at The Fossil Cartel, it is the birthstone for July.

It is the red stone of the Corundum family (all other Corundum colors are considered Sapphire) and a nine on the Mohs hardness scale of 1-10 (ten being the hardest-the Diamond). Since it is hard and durable, it can be enjoyed and worn in jewelry everyday. The most valued and desired Ruby is a translucent Pigeon’s Blood red (due to chromium) and is usually found in expensive, high grade and faceted jewelry. There are other Ruby crystals that have a purplish red color and sometimes an asterism or a six point star. Very rare and amazingly beautiful, Star Rubies are prized around the world. Rubies are found in India, Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

Ruby is also one of my favorite healing stones. It is all about energy, strength and endurance due to its aluminum oxide make-up and is related to the Root/Base Chakra (#1). In the First Chakra, we deal with our physicality-stamina, vigor, vitality, survival issues and our primal emotions-passion, anger and fear. Rubies’ high vibrations boost physical energy and increase courage to embrace and experience our passion, anger and fear. It is also known as the Warrior’s stone. It is good for heart health and the circulatory system. Rubies help to focus one’s raw emotions into the ability to love.

Ruby is one of four gemstones considered to be precious. Because of its beauty and energy, I believe it is a stone worth exploring. Please come into the shop/website and check out our selection of Ruby crystals and jewelry. We would like to know what you think.

Thank you and see you in the shop or website-Joan

Next month: Balanced emotions, Love and Prosperity with Peridot-the birthstone for August.

In The Fossil Cartel we have two books that I think are not only some of the most beautiful books on geology and rocks, but also among the most informative. Smithsonian Earth and Smithsonian Rock & Gem are developed for almost any age or education level, with something new on every page!

Smithsonian Earth truly does cover the earth. It begins by explaining the origin and development of the planet itself. This leads into in-depth information that explains every thing you could ever need to know about the water systems, the atmosphere, land systems, ecosystems, and more. Major land masses, bodies of water, and even cities worldwide are given attention in simple language with stunning pictures.

Smithsonian Rock & Gem takes the world of rocks and treats it just as thoroughly. Scientific information for each rock is there, of course, but so is the history of use, information on where it’s found and its impact on cultures. Have no doubt the pictures are amazing. Each rock or gem gets a half a page to a page, making it the perfect amount of information to share with your children and a good quick chance to simply open the book to any page and learn something new.

If you are looking for books that your school age children can grow into and yet never outgrow, these are two you can count on. As an adult who began to love geology later in life, I can attest to the fact that these books are a delight to read and packed with information that is relevant. They have a logical breakdown of introducing the material and extremely helpful indexes, and don’t forget the glossaries so you don’t have struggle with new words. Enjoy learning!

Nan

Anybody who knows me realizes I have an “unbridled enthusiasm” for rocks. Some people are interested in what I have to say about stones, while others are charmed by my exuberance. Sometimes, a person will just stare, baffled at how anyone could possibly feel so passionate about a rock. One experience, in particular, truly exemplifies how much I enjoy rocks and the unexpected places I express that appreciation.

I spent the summer of 2002 in Colorado Springs studying regional Geology. I enjoyed the class, and I made some good friends during the labs. One weekend, I convinced them to come skydiving with me. There was a drop zone no less than an hour away from the Colorado Campus, so three of us drove out there one sunny saturday morning. The plane was small, and could only take one person at a time, so I volunteered to be the first to make the jump.

There I was, 13,000 feet above the ground, ready to go. I held my breath and jumped. I remember how my heart skipped a beat when I opened my eyes, not because of the free fall, but because of the incredible view of the rocks below. The twisted and lifted sedimentary layers of Colorado cover the entire color spectrum of colors. The Lyons sandstone has a distinctive red, and looked like an enormous snake slithering over the landscape. The pastel purples and greens of the Morrison formation stood out in contrast to other layers around them. It just astounded me that I was able to see from the sky the remnants of microorganisms that lived at the bottom of the ocean over 200 million years ago. The rocks below me formed what was truly a work of art. When my friends asked about the free fall, they were certainly not expecting me to say, “You guys have got to check out the rocks from up there.”

I’ve been working at the Fossil Cartel now for several months. I wake up every morning excited to go to work where I’m surrounded by beautiful crystals and learn more about them every day. And that’s not even my favorite aspect of the store. For the first time in my life I am surrounded by individuals who share that same passion for stones. So not only do people listen to what I have to say about rocks and minerals, they actually understand and sympathize.

In honor of the 4th, I would like to pay tribute to the wonderful array of stones and fossils that come from the good ol’ USA.  We are proud to feature these in our store:

Quartz crystals - Arkansas      Herkimer diamonds - New York   Fluorite, pyrite suns & blastoids - Illinois

Fish fossils - Wyoming              Rose Quartz - South Dakota              Copper & specular hematite - Michigan

Ulexite (tv rock) - California        Garnets - Alaska                              Turquoise - Nevada

Peridot & apache tears - Arizona      Fulgerites, fossilized river coral &  shark teeth - Florida

Dino bone, wonder stone, coprolite, trilobites, fossilized turtles & septarian calcite - Utah

Leaf fossils - Montana

And our favorite state - Oregon: petrified wood, carnelian, holly blue agate, polka dot agate, picture jasper, Oregon opal, sunstone & Gary Green bog

Of course there is much more that comes from the US than I have listed.  I just wanted to give you a little idea of what our country has to offer.  Let’s all be grateful that we live in such a wonderful place and don’t have to go far to find gorgeous gem stones and interesting fossils!

Have a safe & Happy 4th of July everyone!

Susan

In the world of gems and minerals, most people would equate the word natural with a stone that was recovered from the earth and not treated or enhanced in any way. This is mainly true with mineral specimens, although some crystals may require an acid bath to remove iron staining or other mineral residue. It is a routine procedure that illustrates how a little help from humans can make a nature-made gem even more beautiful. After all, wouldn’t most people prefer a clear, bright, shiny crystal to a dirty brown one? Another common way to alter rough material is with a rock tumbler. Polishing most stones brings out their colors and patterns, accenting the beauty that’s already there. Because it has been shaped and polished, does that mean a tumbled stone is unnatural?

When it comes to gems and jewelry the issue gets more complicated. Not only have the stones been faceted (few people would have a rough sapphire set in a ring), but the vast majority of them have undergone some sort of treatment to improve their color or stability. Heating is by far the most common treatment and is almost always done to change, deepen, or lighten the color of a stone. Other enhancements include irradiation, fracture filling, and bleaching. Treatments not only make gems more attractive, they make them more available. Both Citrine and Tanzanite are rare in nature and would be very expensive if heat treatment did not exist. Also, it’s not as if humans are adding color (with the exception of dyeing of course) or taking it away. It is the gem reacting to the forces it might naturally encounter in the earth’s crust. So is a treated gem unnatural?

Ultimately everyone has their own idea of what “natural” means to them. When it comes to buying stones, do a little research and ask questions. Most importantly realize that treatments or enhancements are not meant to deceive, they are simply a way of taking something from the ground and turning it into something to be treasured!

If you pull a carrot out of the earth, you will at least wash it off before you eat it. You may decide to cut it up. You might possibly cook it. However, I don’t recommend irradiating it. =)

Hi friends of The Fossil Cartel!! I am Joan Lawhead, the Manager and a resident believer in the healing power of stones. While my co-workers Kelley and Lars are experts in rockhounding locally, far and wide, I have been studying the metaphysical and healing aspects of Mother Nature’s colorful mineral creations for the last nine years.

Many customers come into the shop and ask for stones with specific healing abilities. In other words, they want magic. While I believe stones are certainly magical (because of their beauty and healing vibrations), the magic is within each of us. We were born with everything we need to live our lives. For whatever reason, we lose touch with our innate abilities. Stones can help us focus and access the magic already within ourselves.

After studying all the books I can find on the healing qualities of stones, I have come to trust more in my own intuitive experience with the stones. There are many books that are helpful and can be used as guides but I recommend that each of you honor your experience with the stones. I also have learned about the seven chakras or energy centers of the body and how stones and their healing relate to each chakra.

Friday, June 20th is Summer Solstice. To celebrate the change of season, we have citrine, the golden yellow member of the quartz family. It relates to the solar plexus chakra which represents our relationship to the world. The solar plexus chakra is all about self-esteem and citrine is all about positive energy. Citrine is believed to be the prosperity or grow-money stone. According to feng shui principles, it can be placed in the back left corner (the wealth corner) to attract wealth to your home or office. Citrine is also a stone of balance. Happy Summer Solstice and enjoy your citrine, everyone!!

Before I sign off, I want to mention my co-worker, Mary who is celebrating her birthday on Monday, June 23rd and The Fossil Cartel owner Susan’s birthday is July 10th. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARY AND SUSAN!!

Bye and I hope all of you will reach out and touch a stone…