Published September 2016 • Updated February 2024 • Read Time: 5 minutes
Chinese Writing Stone is a rare igneous rock found in China, Australia, and the USA. It is composed of black Basalt with white Feldspar inclusions. The mineral composition is common, but the patterns that are created are quite unique! Some of the patterns look like lines or flowers, but seem to almost form words in hanzi, a script used in China and in other east Asia countries. Chinese Writing Stone is a wonderful crystal for communication, writing and foreign language learning. Its also good if we’ve suffered a setback and need to regain our grounding and balance. Its has a graceful stoicism that helps us to handle the worst and plan for the best.
Chinese Writing Stone Meaning
Spiritual Healing Properties
Chinese Writing Stone is an exquisite tool for anyone studying sacred texts. It gives us a much deeper understanding of the profound spiritual truths found within them. It helps us find the right words to articulate those sacred truths and the right actions to directly apply them to our own life. Chinese Writing Stone gives us clarity and aids in accurate interpretation, especially in regards to ancient texts which speak to a world very different than our modern one. Chinese Writing Stone is particularly recommended for anyone studying Buddhism, Confucianism or Taoism. It can also be used to improve the accuracy of dream-interpretation and as an aid for lucid dreaming. It is a powerful talisman for immigrants who find themselves on strange shores and who need to create a new life for themselves.
| Metaphysical Properties | Stone |
|---|---|
| Chakra | Root and Throat |
| Element | Wind |
| Numerology | 3 |
| Zodiac | Pisces |
Emotional Healing Properties
Chinese Writing Stone helps us to find our footing again when we’ve fallen out of balance. It is a stone for re-affirming our priorities and re-committing to our goals. It helps us to get back up and try again and reminds us that perfection is an unreasonable goal, particularly on the first try. Instead, we can learn to enjoy the process and be determined to learn and grow. It gives us self-confidence and helps us to self-validate ourselves. It is a wonderful ally for anyone taking on new responsibilities or adjusting to the lack thereof. It helps us to respond to change gracefully, even when the change is undesirable. Chinese Writing Stone’s energy offers a graceful stoicism allowing us to face unpleasantness without complaining or giving into depression. Instead, it helps us to accept each season of life as it comes to us, and to conduct ourselves with dignity and elegance.
Mental Healing Properties
Chinese Writing Stone teaches us how to create an attractive balance between practicality and artistry. It shows us how we can blissfully unite the best of the old ways with the best of the new ways. It is an excellent choice for anyone who is setting goals and making plans for the future. Chinese Writing Stone is an excellent ally for writers and artists. It is particularly good for fiction writers who need to reach outside of their own experience in order to tell a story or develop a character. It also helps us to write more beautifully, both in terms of our physical handwriting, as well as the flow of words and sentences.
Physical Healing Properties
Chinese Writing Stone is used by metaphysical healers to treat the hands and eyes. It is said to be good for carpal tunnel and for soothing sore muscles in the arms, hands and fingers. It is believed to help us utilize our physical energy efficiently and gracefully. It is recommended for dancers and physical story-tellers who want to add more emotional depth to their movements. It encourages us to create and maintain beautiful physical surrounding for ourselves, such as a charming home, peaceful work-space, or a pleasing garden.
Explore crystals with similar energies
These crystals have an energy similar to Chinese Writing Stone
Chinese Writing Stone Mineralogy
Where does Chinese Writing Stone come from?
Chinese Writing Stone is mined in a few diverse locations. It is found in the Yangtze River Valley, Hunan, China, the Sierra Mountains of the USA, and in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia.
Mining and Treatments
In California, the primary deposit for Chinese Writing Stone was found while digging for a highway near the city of Auburn, California. Little information is available about the Chinese deposit, but presumably it comes from the lower river basin, since there is Basalt field there.
This stone is completely natural, enhanced only by cutting and polishing.
Chinese Writing Stone
Mineral Family
Chinese Writing Stone is not a single mineral, but rather a rock. As an easy way to understand the difference, think of rocks as being like cookies and minerals as being the ingredients which make up those cookies. Many different minerals are used to create a rock! Chinese Writing Stone is an igneous rock composed of black Basalt and white Feldspar. Despite their similar appearance and names, it is not related to Chrysanthemum Stone.
Chinese Writing Stone’s energy works well with its family – other igneous minerals. Try it in combination with Garnierite, Indigo Gabbro, Moonstone Tourmaline, Larvikite, Obsidian, Preseli Bluestone, and Unakite
Chinese Writing Stone Formation and Crystal Associates
Chinese Writing Stone is a porphyric rock. Porphyry is a textural term for when coarse-grained crystals (such as white Feldspar) are dispersed in a fine-grained matrix (like black Basalt.) Most igneous rocks have some degree of porphyry, which is why igneous rocks have spots. All igneous rocks are formed by the partial or complete melting of minerals. Some minerals will begin recrystallizing more quickly, while temperatures are still very hot. These early phenocrysts, the small coarse-grained crystals, have plenty of room around them to grow and so they form well-shaped crystals. Eventually, the minerals around them solidify encasing the phenocrystals completely. If the matrix rock cools very quickly, it often has a glassy or fine-grained appearance, as is the case with Chinese Writing Stone.
Chinese Writing Stone’s energy works well with its “friends” – crystal associates formed in the same geological environment. Try it in combination with Dendritic Agate
| Mineralogy | Chinese Writing Stone |
|---|---|
| Rock Type | Igneous |
| Major Minerals | Black Basalt with Feldspar inclusions |
| Minor Minerals | Apatite, Bioltite, Clear Quartz, Hornblend, Olivine, Titanium |
| Color | Black with white or pale green “writing” |
| Texture | Fine-grained |
| Transparency | Opaque |
| Special Features |
History of Chinese Writing Stone
Chinese Writing Stone was only recently discovered by metaphysical healers and has mainly been studied in the 21st century. There are deposits in both China and the western United States. It’s name is due to the white patterns of crystals which resemble Chinese script.
Writing developed independently in five locations around the world, but in only one place has the original language and script been maintained. Ancient Chinese script dates back to the late Shang Dynasty (1200-1050 BCE) and modern scripts of hanzi (Chinese), kanji (Japanese) and hanja (South Korea) are a direct evolution. These scripts are pictographic or logosyllabic, rather than a phonetic script like English. With phonetic scripts, each sound has a letter and the alphabet is only a handful of symbols, i.e.: A, B, C. Pictographs and logograms, by contrast, have thousands of different symbols each representing a word. In the earliest form, the symbol was a simple drawing that represented the word. Overtime, the symbols became increasingly abstract. For example, here we can see the evolution of the words for “mountain,” “fire,” and “tree.”
More complex words are logosllabic, in which several simple words are put together to form a more complicated idea. For example, the word “sacrifice” combines several different symbols. This idea of sacrifice is based on the idea that gods and spirits can be placated with gifts of ritually killing animals or other offerings. Christianity took this concept a step further, by having the Divine literally sacrifice Himself.
For most of the world, phonetic scripts have dominated, but pictograph scrips are having a comeback in the 21st century. The emojis used on phones and computers are simple pictographs. For example, this emoji ♥ means that you are loved.
Additional References:
- “Art as Language: How natura and life helped form the Chinese Language,” Gafencu https://www.igafencu.com/r/art-as-language-chinese-writing/
