Diamond

Diamond (DIE-mund) is a stone comprised of pure carbon, formed in environments with extreme heat and pressure.  The purest ones are clear and colorless, and when faceted, they have a prismatic quality; that is, they refract light, causing tiny rainbows to appear in the right lighting. They can also occur naturally in nearly any color you can think of, though certain colors are, of course, rarer than others. From least to most rare, the colors that can be found are yellow, brown, clear, blue, green, black, pink, orange, purple, and red. The brown tones receive names like “champagne” (light brown), “cognac” (medium brown), and “coffee” (dark brown), because the word “brown” is not especially appealing to most people. At this point, diamond is know as the hardest naturally-occurring substance on Earth, and is thus the basis for the Mohs hardness scale. Diamond is one of the four “precious gemstones”, the others being emerald, ruby, and sapphire.

Warriors often wore diamonds into battle because these stones are associated with victory and honor, and they believed that wearing diamonds would help them conquer their enemies.

It has a Mohs hardness of 10 and an isometric crystal structure.

Diamond is the main birthstone for April (the alternate being clear quartz).

Location: The largest producers of diamonds are Russia, Botswana, Congo, Angola, South Africa, Namibia, Guinea, Ghana, Australia and Canada, with about half of the world’s diamonds coming from countries in southern or central Africa.

Properties: Although faceted gemstone-quality diamonds are prized above all others, natural diamonds are preferable for their metaphysical properties. Being one of the hardest substances known on earth, diamonds are said to bring eternal love, as well as benefit the wearer with abundance, balance and clarity. They activate the third eye chakra and crown chakra, thus promoting truthfulness and transmission of thought and intention; this means that they have the potential to amplify telepathy and development of other psychic abilities. They have the capacity to aid in revealing whether someone is acting in line with their truth or not, and for this reason, some have used it to help them discern whether others are being deceitful. Diamonds encourage the wearer to speak in alignment with their own higher truth, and they also promote creativity and imagination. They can clear blockages to the flow of divine energy, and in this way act indirectly on the emotional body by allowing the truth and light of clean energies to act upon emotional states.

Diamonds are also thought to be effective for health problems related to the pituitary glands and the brain, and some use it to fight sleepwalking.