Morrisonite cut by Gary WilsonMorrisonite Pendant Necklace
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Morrisonite, beloved, legendary Morrisonite! Gibbs calls it the "King of Jaspers." Its availability is quite limited, some cutters complain about how expensive the rough is and won't cut it because many people don't recognize how precious it really is. Our example displays its finest aspects, though is missing orbs. While I find orbs fascinating and lovely, the intimate portrait of a wild garden in this stone is more to my liking. It didn't want much, just a big etched agate for company along with bits of green Chinese turquoise and some silver botanicals.
Zenz (below) didn't include Morrisonite in his first volume of Agates and tried mightily to stick to agates alone. By Agates II he was weakening and included a small section on Jasper in which he shows one photo of a green Morrisonite cab. By Agates III a magnificent Morrisonite graced the cover! Similarly, in his first book on the Picture Jaspers of the Northwest, Hans Gemma only included a couple of pages of Morrisonite since it doesn't tend to have the expansive landscapes seen in most Picture Jaspers from the Owyhee region. By his second volume (below) he and his coauthor Lauritz A. Jensen also put Morrisonite on their cover and mention that "special emphasis is given to the astonishing designs and architecture of the Morrisonite Jasper." They include 32 pages of spectacular Morrisonite. It appears there's something about Morrisonite that wears down the artificial boundaries erected to keep it out. We can't check with the metaphysical experts on this point since our regular go-to guides don't mention Morrisonite (it's quite rare after all). Simmons and Ahsian do mention "Picture Jasper" showing images of two traditional landscape jaspers like those in Gemma's first book. However to me, what is known as Owyhee Picture Jasper with its glorious blue sky and rugged sandstone cliffs has a totally different feel from Morrisonite even though the two deposits are relatively close together in Oregon. Nonetheless Ahsian's point about Picture Jasper being used as a portal might well apply to our stone-- it seems fairly easy to step through and stand in its weedy garden. Our stone is more clearly earth-centered than the piece Philip Ball writes about in Within the Stone which begins, "I wouldn't go to Mars if you paid me..." -- a sentiment I share BTW. (While I'd love to hike the Martian deserts, I would definitely want to come back home to my Mother Earth in short order.) With little help from these experts, it will be up to you to listen to this stone to discover what it is telling us.
This lovely stone awaits you, won't you order it today or perhaps put it on your list for Santa?
