Moldavite – Worth the hype?

What is Moldavite?
Moldavite is glass, more or less. Green silica projectile glass formed by a meteorite impact that occurred about 15 million years ago. Pieces can be found in Czech Republic, Germany, and Austria. They’re rare, small, and expensive.

Why do we care?
Spiritualists, witches, and other new-agey types consider moldavite to be a powerful gemstone that cleanses, transforms, and accelerates deep, personal and lasting change. Basically it’s the benevolent chaos god of the tektite world and it’s going to fuck your shit up in the best way. According to Tiktok and the internet that is.

Here’s where I come in: Yes I’m a witch, but I’m also a sceptic. When I hang out with other pagans, I feel very very normal. Too normal to hope to fit in. They’re all like “It’s a sign!” and I’m like “No, here’s the completely mundane scientific explanation for that thing…”

If you’re thinking I’m not any fun at parties, you’re right. Lucky for you, I don’t go to parties.

Anyway, I got wind of this ugly green stuff blowing up a bit later than average Jo, because I wasn’t on Tiktok at the time. It came into the limelight mid to late 2020, I think. At first I was like “what a load of horseshit” but I was also curious. Feb 2021 I did a bunch of research to find a supplier that wasn’t dealing fakes and then I proceeded to be super embarrassed about spending that much money on something the size of my fingernail.

My piece was perfect though. Thin and kinda arrow shaped, just as I’d requested. Anyway, I followed the advice: don’t put it in your bedroom it will stop you sleeping, don’t have it on your person too much to start, a few minutes of play is enough until you adjust to the energies, blah blah. Nothing happened. I started carrying it in my bra – back when I wore bras—and I promptly lost it. It was in my bra one morning and then gone.

I know witches tend to say that you didn’t lose the crystal, it moved on. It rehomed itself. The faeries took it. It wasn’t for you. But really it was tiny and had fallen out of my bra a couple of times already and I didn’t heed the warning.

My experiment was ruined. Worse, I’d wasted all that money. Probably dropped the damned thing on my daily commute to the school. And anyhow, my life was perfect, what the fuck did I need a transformation crystal for? Heck, the tiny glass demon could probably sense my undertone of fear – fear that I would lose the perfection I’d achieved in life. Fear that by asking for more, I’d be struck down in my lack of gratitude. Probably for the best that it was gone then.

But I didn’t forget it. And I didn’t stop looking for it. Just in case I’d buried it in a pot plant with other stones to cleanse. Just in case it was in my sock drawer…

And then the proverbial shit hit the fan.

In no particular order:

A friend suddenly and brutally dropped from my friend group. Using the term friend loosely there because in actuality the trash took itself out. I didn’t realise how much time I was spending funnelling energy into her negativity until that weight was lifted away. I only wish it’d happened sooner.

I realised that I’m not a woman. I already knew there was something “other” about me. I’ve never been comfortable with being called “lady” or “ma’am” and don’t get me fucking started on “girl boss” but I didn’t have the knowledge or the vocabulary or the time to explore my gender. I came out as non-binary gradually over several months in 2021.

My bestie, who spends lots of time in my house and is noticeably affected by the energy here (we call it quicksand,) suddenly unveiled some absolutely life-changing shit that floored both of us. It was a complete unmasking that we’re still reeling from.

I learned that someone I care deeply about was being abused. Had been abused for years, and was so broken they couldn’t see how bad it had gotten. My heart was absolutely shattered. I didn’t know I could grieve so hard, panic so hard, for someone else. But they can heal now, and that gives me hope.

As each of these things unravelled and I continued to learn things about myself and the people around me, I had bouts of turning my unit upside-down in an attempt to shake out the lost moldavite. I wondered if maybe it hadn’t found a new human. Maybe it was somehow still influencing me. But no, I’d searched. I moved furniture and dug up my plants. It was gone.

There were little things too. The unresolved risk of moving out of our beloved suburb. Discoveries I made about my books and the way I write, things that while small, changed the trajectory of my career. The Job stuff for Deer Heart that I won’t talk about. Things that have slipped my mind because I procured and lost this chaos glass 16-odd-months ago.

Like woah, I even caught a new life as it entered the world!

Saturday 4/6 while vacuuming under my husband’s desk—a place I vacuum several times a week, every week—I spotted a small rough arrowhead. It was sitting next to the leg of the desk as if I’d bumped it off my own ten minutes ago. I squealed like a bunny.

So, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it works. It makes my face tingle as I hold it – just a tiny bit, enough that I question my sanity. Yes, I would have probably figured out my gender and religion shit without its influence. The seeds had long been planted. The signs were there. Would I have seen them? What of the other revelations? Who knows. Change is the only real constant.

But as I sit here, pinching it between my fingers, marvelling in its reappearance and feeling so relieved and grateful, but also secretly wondering if I should fucking sell it before it decides some totally left-field shit is in my best interest, I can’t deny that I’m a believer.

It works.

Is it an advanced stone, like they say? It doesn’t seem like it to me. But maybe I’d have had a different outcome if I hadn’t been a witch over half my life.

Does it keep you awake at night? Maybe. I think Dear Hart would have pulled those all-nighters regardless of it living under his desk though. He doesn’t need an excuse!

Miriam Cumming has been blogging off-and-on for fifteen years, and practising witchcraft for more than twenty. When ne isn’t buying over-priced super-hyped rocks (that is to say, most of the time) ne is mainlining coffee and cooking dinners that hir three children will cry about eating.
You can find Miriam’s planning and reading related content on Instagram, and hir queer related content on TikTok.