Picture Jasper Meaning

Picture Jasper provides us with a strong connection to Mother Earth and Earth Goddess energies. It can be used for past-life work and to help us understand previous times and experiences. Picture Jasper evokes harmony and balance, making it a wonderful stone for group work.

Jaspers typically form in the cavities of igneous rocks, but it can also be found in metamorphic and sedimentary rocks.  Most Picture Jaspers are found igneous rocks.  Following volcanic activity, magma and lava are slowly transformed into igneous rocks broken up with cracks, fissures, other hollows.  Jasper is formed long afterwards, when silica-bearing water permeates the rocks and begins to fill these crevices.  As the water flows, it picks up an assortment of other trace minerals which give Jasper its coloring and patterns.  If the trace minerals are microscopic, the Jasper can have a single uniform color, as is the case with Red Jasper, or have multicolored layers, such as Desert Jasper.  If the trace minerals are larger, able to be viewed with the naked eye, the Jasper will be spotted like Bloodstone, or have plant-like inclusions like Picture Jasper.

Picture Jasper’s energy works well with its “friends” – crystal associates formed in the same geological environment.  Try it in combination with Brandberg Amethyst and Opal

The name “Jasper” is a generic name given to any spotted or multicolored stone.  It comes from the French word jaspre, which literally means “spotted or speckled stone”   Some Jaspers are “true Jaspers,” meaning they are an opaque variety of spotted Chalcedony, like Brecciated Jasper.  However, monochromatic chalcedony is often sold using the name Jasper, such Yellow Jasper, as is multicolored chalcedony without spots, like Mookaite Jasper.  The name Jasper is also given to a variety of spotted rocks, most often a form of Rhyolite, for example, Ocean Jasper.  Because so many different types of stones may be referred to as a Jasper, it is difficult to know exactly which stone is being referenced in ancient and medieval writings.

Picture Jasper is a marketing name give to any true jasper with splotches of brown and tan, and sometimes black dendritic inclusions.  These patterns can resemble an old fashioned sepia landscape photograph, hence the name “picture.”  Some particularly notable varieties of Picture Jasper are found in the Pacific Northwestern, United States.  Each deposit has its own name, Biggs Jasper (tri-corner border of Idaho, Oregon, Washington), Deschutes Jasper (Oregon), and Owyhee Jasper (border of Idaho and Oregon).  Deschutes has the classic pattern of browns and tans, while Biggs can be brown but also may display more reddish tones.

Owyhee is the most colorful variety, sometimes exhibiting reddish-oranges and greyish-blues similar to Desert Jasper in Madagascar.  The name Owyhee is actually an older spelling of the word Hawai’i.  Between 1810-1813, parts of the Pacific Northwest were mapped by John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company.  The expeditions included Native Hawaiians.  This was because the Pacific Fur Company sent out two expeditions, one that traveled across the land and the other that traveled by sea.  Due to prevailing winds, ships that sailed around Cape Horn, the tip of South America, would land in Hawaii to take on fresh food and water, before re-crossing the Pacific back to North America.  When the Pacific Fur Company ship landed in Hawaii, they were given permission by King Kamehameha (c.1758-1819) to take forty Hawaiians with them.  The Hawaiian king had only very recently united the Hawaiian islands under his rule, and he was curious about the wider world.  As a result, more than a thousand Native Hawaiians visited or immigrated to the Pacific Northwest during the 19th century and they gave their name to the Owyhee Mountains, Owyhee Desert, Lake Owyhee and the Owyhee River.

Owyhee Jasper, Malheur County, Oregon, USA