Healing Properties of Serpentine
Serpentine is associated with the energy of the serpent, or snake. It’s an earth oriented crystal that connects with the resonance and vibration of the natural world, helping you embody your true nature.
The serpent’s energy is one of transformation and rebirth, as it releases its old skin and embodies a new version of itself again and again. Serpentine crystals resonate with the timeless rhythm of cyclical change found in nature, helping you accept and embrace the changes and growth happening in your own life.
Serpentine one of the best stones to work with if you want to awaken your powerful kundalini energy. Meditate with the stone to start the process, paying attention to sensations at the base of the spine in your root chakra, where your kundalini lies. An awakening may feel like a surge of energy that starts at the base of your spine and rises all the way up and out through the crown chakra at the top of your head. A kundalini opening can be incredibly powerful and even life-altering, awakening your psychic and metaphysical senses. Serpentine can assist this in happening in a safe and balanced way.
Serpentine is associated with the heart center and has very regenerative energy to help increase your life-force on all levels. It helps protect your heart and emotions, aligning you with the resilience and flexibility of serpent energy. It feels vibrant and joyful, like new plant shoots rising from the Earth in the spring.
Serpentine is a very protective stone overall that can help you clear negative and blocked energy, especially when used on the meridian points or chakras. It’s considered a guardian crystal that can help guard your inner spirit from your ego, protect your dreams from your doubt, and help you hold true to your beliefs. Feeling safe and protected gives you the freedom to transform and evolve as nature intended.
Serpentine encourages you to act towards the virtue of the highest good for all, including the Earth itself. Vibrating with the steady, inevitable drumming of time, it connects us with our history, both personally and as a species.
The serpent’s stone is a wonderful aid in your personal transformation, as you move beyond patterns and blocks that aren’t aligned with your highest consciousness.
Serpentine as a Gemstone
Serpentine technically refers to a group of related minerals that often occur together in the same rock. Rocks composed of one or more types of serpentine are called serpentinite. However for gemstone purposes this distinction is generally ignored and rocks containing serpentine are just called serpentine regardless of their composition.
One member of the serpentine group, chrysotile, forms into asbestos, a fibrous formation that can occur in several different minerals. Asbestos has many industrial applications but is also carcinogenic. However, it is only dangerous in microscopic powder form when that powder becomes airborne and is inhaled. As long as it is safely sealed inside a rock, is poses no danger. (It should also be noted that silica, which is present in many gemstones, causes silicosis when inhaled in dust form–if you are grinding or drilling gemstones, be sure to understand the safety concerns).
Serpentine ranges in color from pale yellowish green through various shades of green to almost black, often with a mottled or scaly appearance. It is soft in terms of gemstones, around 2.5-4 on the Mohs scale. It It is usually opaque although it can sometimes be translucent.
Serpentine is found in many places around the world. It is sometimes passed for jade and has been called “false jade”.
