Many Moons Necklace

This necklace is made from fair trade U.S. mined and cut, whole natural Sleeping Beauty turquoise and moonstone buttons.  Hand wire-wrapped with fine sterling-silver wire, it is light as a feather and very comfortable to wear.  The design came to me first in a dream, but it took me awhile to find the little moons to space between the smaller clusters of turquoise and the focal clusters of longer dentate turquoise.   

It is fairly uncommon to see moonstone and turquoise used together in jewelry.  With this combination I attempted to capture the wonder I first experienced as a child upon noticing a white moon in the blue daytime sky.   I could not keep my eyes off such a wonder and in my dream I affixed tiny moons between bright turquoise, just as I have in this necklace.

Turquoise is a stone attributed with properties of protection and strength, while moonstones are supposed to have feminine properties of intuitive power, enhancing cycles and rhythms. In India the moonstone is sacred for lovers. Seafarers were known to carry moonstones as talismans, but to what end I do not know.  Perhaps sailors carried moonstones to protect them from the whims of the tides, so dependent the moon's gravity. 

Enhancing this respect for gravity, is the grounding property of turquoise, which the First Peoples of this hemisphere prize so highly, expertly incorporating turquoise into beautiful amulets and jewelry.  

It has come to my attention recently that many of the Third World sources of turquoise mine and cut this semi-precious stone in conditions that are dangerous and unhealthy for the workers.  For this reason I have undertaken a search for American turquoise, such as that used in this piece.  No matter what wonderful folklore may be attributed to a stone, it is important to know it's origin as well.