FJ: Let's start with your experience studying the impact of diamond mining in Canada. What exactly was the scope of your work around the diamond mines and who employed you?
KP: I have been involved in environmental monitoring and assessment of diamond mines in the NWT for about 5 years, designing, assessing and reviewing wildlife programs.
I have come at this from the perspective of an...
As an activist and manufacturer in the jewelry sector, I am often asked about gemstone sourcing. Currently there's a working committee on colored stones that has been formed from the cross sector Madison Dialog meeting which took place in Washington DC in Oct, 2007.
The issues are complex and difficult to sort out. But it is my hope, and the hope of many others, that some day there...
When we constructed our facility in Santa Fe, we heavily invested in ventilation systems. Over the years, we have also researched solders and fluxes which were as safe as possible. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our work environment.
We brought this practical experience with us when we toured two large jewelry factories in Bali. My company wants to do business only...
If you are haunted by vague terrors in the night, those meandering demons, night hags and phantoms that wander bedside, between the arsenic hours of two and four when sleep is as illusive as hems from the moon's yellow skirt, peridot might be just the gem for you.
The sixteenth century writer, Marbod, suggests you string it on a piece of hair from an ass (a donkey's, not your lover's) and...
Long, long ago, when the Earth was young and Elements were Divine, the Storm God lolled about, playing amidst the wind and clouds in his luminous sphere. The rain came down in sheets, whipped through the sky, pelting the earth.
Amid the lightning strikes, with black clouds riding the mountains and plains like emboldened dragons, the sunlight broke through the darkness. A rainbow appeared....
Try using the mystical power of aquamarine to summon the dead, or for protection against demonic spirits, suggest Albertus Magnus (1193-1280). (Kunth p. 24). But take heed that you engrave your talisman with the image of an eagle first, which can be easily done by your local practitioner of alchemy, who may also known as the village fool.
Aquamarine's lore stretches back to the breast...
The diamond - a pure, essential form of carbon set in a ring, held by a man on his knees - represents commitment, fidelity and the beauty of matrimony. But the diamond has other traditions and uses as well, long forgotten.
According to Talmudic texts and a medieval Europe juror, a diamond's sparking brilliance increases with innocence and dims with guilt. After the honeymoon, you may ask...
An old Vedic story describes the demon god, Vela, ripped apart by demigods. Vela's body tumbled down to the earth. When he hit his skin shattered into yellow sapphires that scattered like mystic seeds throughout the Himalayas.
Vela's eyes became shards of divine energy, the seeds of blue sapphires. These tumbled to Sri Lanka and other areas of Southeast Asia - areas even today where...
Offer a large ruby to the Hindu deity, Krisna, the eternal child, and you will be reincarnated as an emperor. Offer a smaller ruby and in the next life, you'll be merely a king. If you believe that existence is not cyclical and have figured out who you were before you were born, the thirteenth century physician Naharari of Kashmire has more practical advice: rubies are a cure for flatulence....
In the ancient world, lapis was considered as valuable as gold. Egyptians sent out legions of soldiers with traders for years to collect lapis for amulets, scarabs and for their high priests, who wore images of Mat, the goddess of truth around their necks.
The word, lapis-lazuli, comes from Latin. Lapis means stone; lazuli translates to blue. The Arabic word, L'azulaus means blue,...
