[Sleeping Beauty, Royston, Kingman, Bisbee, and Manassa turquoises.]
[Glitz Rings :: Colorado turquoise & sterling silver]
One of my favorite things about wandering around in the desert, or anywhere for that matter, is finding all the wonderful things that are waiting to be found. Bits of natural history and human history, tucked in the nooks and crannies of the wild: quail feathers, cholla bones, rusted out truck grills, abandoned chrysocolla and turquoise mines…
Do you remember that the turquoise, and all gem stones, for that matter, in your rings, necklaces and earrings were originally born from the earth? Dug up. Exposed. Extracted. Cut, carved, polished and eventually set in the precious metal that wraps evenly around your finger or lays against the warmth of your sternum? Now, that’s some serious magic — wearing a piece of the earth, I mean! What a way to keep our planet near and dear.
Our Earth, all of creation, is so beautiful and so worth cherishing and loving, noticing and tending. What better way to be cognizant of that fact, than to wear a gorgeous piece of it close to our pulses?
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My friends and I discovered abandoned turquoise mines while hiking about in the Arizona Mountains, alongside the Colorado River last weekend. I could barely contain myself, as usual, and ran around scooping up every beautiful piece of turquoise tailing that beckoned to me from rust red earth beneath azure Arizona skies. It was delightful, as the desert always is, in the glorious month of February.
I can’t wait to tell you all about my trip. It was wonderful and I have the photographs to prove it. But first, I have house guests of my own that need tending.
More soon!
Ooh Plumey, I missed you! I literally gasped when I saw that beautiful vein of turquoise in that rock face. How absolutely amazing! How easy to forget that beneath our feet, the shifting, bubbling, pressing earth stuff is making magic. All those elements reorganizing themselves into incredible crystal structures. Really, this world is ridiculously gobsmacking.
I totally agree. Know what place REALLY reminds me that our planet is alive and shifting and wild, beneath the surface I mean? YELLOWSTONE!!! Oh, and Volcano National Park on the Big Island…
The earth there is boiling, roiling, burping and tooting like a wild thing! It’s as though a person can WATCH the genesis of our planet and feel it rumbling and bumbling beneath each footstep. Incredible.
Thanks for saying you missed me. I missed being here, too. X
wow! yes, just breathtaking seeing it there in the rock.
that spooky sign makes it seem like a serious adventure.
i could see the danger of entering a mine shaft,
but is it really dangerous when it’s exposed like you found? i’m intrigued…
Oh no. It’s not dangerous to find it on the ground. We didn’t go in the mine shafts. A person would have to be CRAZY to! And it’s rather illegal. Besides, they’re closed off, or fenced off, for the most part. Some go straight down into the ground and have branches of sub-shafts shooting off of them. Beneath the turquoise vein in the photograph above, there was a huge, deep mine shaft that had seven sub-shafts running off of it. Very unstable looking…and crumbly.
The turquoise I found was littering the mountainside. I just strolled around and gathered it, piece by piece, like I was picking cherries.
ah! we were just in arizona last month. it was cold. but even with the cold, sunshiney beautiful. I love it there and am so grateful that our friends moved there. a place to stay and a reason to go every year 🙂
gorgeous turquoise, btw. you are one talented lady.
January and February are the very best times to go. Trust me. 🙂 RW and I used to live in the Mojave and it was FAR far far to warm for this Northerner. Glad you had a good (but chilly) trip!
That pile of turquoise… what beauty.
Can’t wait to see more photos from your trip. But just these… turquoise is my favorite stone. I feel like it’s the most beautiful stone, and so fragile, so easily damaged or destroyed. To see such a gorgeous pile of ’em… just absolutely beauty.
My Zen place.
I’m working through the rest of the images right now and, naturally, working on the writing to go with! I love unfolding after a trip, savoring the memories and writing them down.
Turquoise is fragile and beautiful. It’s so soft. I love blue. All shades of it. So peaceful.
Hey lady, I missed you, and thought of you often. I hope you had a most wonderful time; with friends, with yourself, with the land.
We need bigger pockets, you and I.
Missed you back, lady love!
We do need bigger pockets. Actually, never mind pockets, I just take a backpack everywhere I go…but even it seems too small sometimes.
Cholla bones!!!!!!!
And quail feathers!! Ocotillo against that turquoise sky.
Those pictures are magnificent! You know I’m CRYING right now, don’t you?
Enjoy your peeps but hurry with a story, cuz I missed you so bad. xo
CHOLLA BONES indeed! I found one as tall as myself! I’m going to use it for a mobile…
I thought of you a LOT whilst away! 🙂
Girl, you’re making me homesick! I used to live in Arizona, and I loved how the trading posts would arrange the turquoise by mine/location. And the guys behind the counters could tell you which mine the piece on your hand or wrist had come from.
Sigh.
I make MYSELF homesick!!!
We lived in the Mojave Desert along the Colorado River for almost 4 years, back when RW was a fish biologist for the feds. It’s such a beautiful place…though I suffer an intolerance for the really hot months. It was a relief to move North. That said, I miss it there, a lot, in the magical winter months. And I miss our friends there…quite terribly.
It’s the land of turquoise! I do my buying in person there. I have my secret haunts…
Oh BEAUTIFUL turquoise earth and sky!!
Totally.
Sky stone.
Stone sky.
How utterly fantastic! I think we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that we tend to forget where magnificent things originate. I try often to stop and breath in Mother Nature’s gift. “…lays against the warmth of your sternum…” Those words make me want a necklace made of natural stone. 🙂 Thanks for making my break worth while…now off to cleaning the house. I think I’d much rather be picking up turquoise in the mountain desert! 🙂
I’d rather be doing ANYTHING but housework! 🙂
That is so stinking awesome! Every time I venture out into the wilderness I end up coming home with pockets full of stones, moss, and the occasional jar of tadpoles that I couldn’t help but collect. I can’t imagine finding anything as beautiful as that turquoise!
I love collecting tadpoles. I spent a lot of my childhood doing just such a thing…I used to hatch frog eggs as well. So fun.
All those stories captured in the veins…
I’ve developed such a crush on Royston, lately. Yours have exquisite matrices. (And your Glitz rings…I’ve a real crush on those, too.)
xxx
Royston is incredible. Thanks for liking what I chose!
X
Show me more,I could cry seeing the beauty you bring. The Colorado River and the Grand Canyon have been a part of my entire life and have loved the Turquoise on my body for the last 40 years. Thank you Plume, for this and all your spiritual inspiring work.
THANK YOU for being here! The Colorado is a special, special river. We lived on it/near it for almost 4 years and I was amazed at how sentimental I was about it on this trip. 🙂
WOW-WEE-WAWA!!
Stunning-ancient-powerful-stardust-energy.
Me bones are achin’ for the desert(sea)…
LOVE!
HA HA!!! Head over to J. Tree…before it gets hot. 🙂
That vein!!! And turquoise on the ground to gather up like acorns!! How magical!
There’s so much beautiful junk to be found in the desert. I love exploring while I’m there.
What an amazingly wonderful thing, to see from whence the turquoise came! How magical!!!!! It’s so cool to think of where these beauties of earth come from, and the people and process that turns them from raw earth beauty to shining lovely bits of color we adorn ourselves with. I remember way before I ever started making things in metal, when I was in Israel we hiked deep in to the desert and our guide pointed out the remains of a copper mine from thousands of years ago. There were tiny bits of green mineral in the surrounding rock and little “pebbles” around the area…I’ll always remember thinking how RAD it was, and daydreaming about the people so long ago that had to dig up the deposits and turned it into objects and adornments. Seeing that vein of blue in the earth brought back the memories of that day in the desert. I’m plotting a west coast and southwest trip for the summer, and now I’ve got a new destination to add to my list, FIND THE SOURCE! Thanks for the beauty and the inspiration~
Hey there, ocean baby! Let me know if you want to know about any other secret desert spots…though…you’re going to find it miserably hot in the summer months… 🙂
X
I knew you were somewhere near! yay. can’t wait to hear about the adventures and where you were.
xoxo K.
Wish I could have had an extra week for traveling and poking about…I’d have wanted to meet you for tea in Prescott. XXX
how gorgeous! sounds like a wild adventure was had. i especially love the stones with the turquoise streaks through – amazing.
…I love those cabs as well. It’s amazing what the earth presses into being…
That, you, divine creatrix find these gems and turn them in to magic is the wonder of it all too!! I adore turquoise and these pictures of the desert- oh, my, gorgeousness.
Thanks, little beauty! X
Oh, and I forgot to mention…I bought some of the Violet Mallow bath salts and they are divine…just transporting. I love the sample of perfume, Moonlight on the Grove, I’m buying some of that too.. Delectable treats for the soul- thanks for sharing them with us in your birthday post!!
I find that the Violet Mallow is ESPECIALLY glorious. I’m glad you like Solstice Scents. She makes special stuff. 🙂
Holy Guacamole! That is so close to Bullhead City!! I’ve never heard of the abandon mines before! Beautiful rings and pics!
QUITE close to Bullhead. I really love the drive down the California side of the river, to Parker. You should do it someday, if you haven’t yet. There are some beautiful cacti forests and a wonderful roly poly highway.
I just want to say
i love you
let have tea sometime ; )
love and light
Ok!
XX
mmmm
that should say
lets have tea sometimes…..
muh!
holy coyote….those colours.
i missed you. but there you were in the land of turquoise….
x
Oh man.
Every time you type HOLY COYOTE…I have a little laugh. 🙂
Love that…
I’m going to Arizona in the summer and Oooo I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled for some turquoise! Absolutely beautiful stones you found!!!!
Just wander around as much as you can, out in the desert. You’ll find all kinds of things. 🙂
I lllllove travelling with you!
Love those gray with turquoise stripe stones!
I love bringing you with me. 🙂
My boyfriend is presently on an indian reservation in Arizona working as an emergency room nurse. If his contract gets renewed, I wanted to go and visit him in the winter months. I’m not more inspired than ever to do so. I look forward to following your future blog posts.
such beautiful colors in that turquoise vein!!! Im traveling to las vegas with my girlfriend in a couple weeks and doing that hike would be an awesome day trip. where are these trails if you don’t mind me asking?
This old turquoise mine is located further South, in Arizona, on a ridge line above the Colorado River. There is no trail leading to it and for you to find it, I would probably have to supply you with GPS coordinates…which I do not have. In my experience, if you just walk out into the desert, sooner or later you will find an abandoned mine. It just takes a little exploring.
I hope you have a lovely trip to Las Vegas! Check out Red Rocks…when you need to get away from the neon lights.
wondering about this turquoise ridge line..is it in the estrella mountains by chance?
or further south of phoenix? i ask because i found a small nodule pile out in the estrellas but
it was not much. then my old timer friend was telling me about a place where you can see the vein
run along the ridgeline but its in the desert a bit south of phoenix towards the river, but im not sure if he meant colorado river or gila river? any other info on this turquoise spot you found?? also would love to share my turquoise map of the estrellas as well as my cave creek find if your interested 🙂
This vein is in the mountains above Parker Arizona, above the Colorado River. There’s no trail leading to it, I would need to give you GPS coordinates to get there.
WOW, just amazing! The images are just awesome! Especially the header. Turquoise is my favourite color although the stone is the third or fourth (favourite, after ametyst and…) but seeing the place must be amazing, really!
Hi I live in Arizona and have been looking for turquoise all over. Where oh where did you find this gem of a place? Thanks a bunch for any info you can give and also great pictures. You look like you had a great time.
Josie
Make sure to supply coordinates if you get them! I’m starting a jewelry buisness and love natural stones wayyyy more than acrylic, etc. I really would love to take my girls and go look. Do you have basic directions to go in? Also will a 4×4 Jeep be able to get to it? I have chronic pain in my foot and can’t walk too far.