Petrifed Wood, Dino Bone & "The Tree of Life" Series of DVH beads

I recently attended a Spirit Dance where for 5 days we did ceremony, prayers, and dance in a circle around a tree that represented "The Tree of Life." One of the things I took away from the dance was the notion that I need to keep dancing around that tree in my everyday life, and what better "Tree of Life" to dance around than the petrified wood here in my studio! Thus begins the "The Tree of Life" series of petrified wood beads from DVHdesigns. I also consider other petrified organic matter, such as petrified dinosaur bone, algae, coprolites, etc. to be a part of the "The Tree of Life" so I'll also share those here. While looking into and studying rocks as I cut them, I have a strong sense of "looking back in time" at a snapshot of the earths creation, from an era before and during the long evolution of life here on this planet. When working with petrified fossils of organic matter, that glimpse into "geological time" takes on all new levels of meaning and connection for me.
If you're interested in the metaphysical aspects of petrified wood, here is some info I got off the internet and from Melody's book, "Love is in the Earth"; because it is silicated, or turned to quartz, it also has the metaphysical properties of quartz and other forms of quartz such as chalcedony or agate. Petrified wood is a stone that is good for grounding and stabilizing one's emotions. It is particularly useful in calming survival-based fears. Provides support for those going through a crisis period of dis-ease, acts as a stone of transformation to help one advance in life to appropriate chosen levels. It helps one be practical. It is a stone of business success. Petrified wood is a good stone for general protection. Physically, it is beneficial physically for the bones, backaches, skin and hair. Petrified wood is also used for past life regressions because of its inherent link with the past.
Here is an example of Opalized Wood from Washington.

This wood didn't petrify into hard silicated, quartz material, like most petrified woods. Instead it turned into a form of opal (common, not fire), which is also silica, but with a different and larger molecular structure, making it more brittle and challenging to work with than regular petrified wood. I wood treat opalized wood like a big glass or porcelain bead, as opposed to a regular "rock" or "stone" bead. and this "heart of stone" is also an opalized "wooden heart"

These next two are petrified palm wood found near the border of Texas & Louisiana. This wood is a rare and very desirable material among North American lapidaries. This first little wedge bead is the more common color and patterning, which ranges from various shades of beige and tan with the spots in darker complimentary colors. The dots are the vertical cellular structure of the palm tree trunk (if cut sideways one gets wispy lines, not quite as dramatic). In this first piece there is a little cluster of cells that didn't fully agatize and one of them goes all the way through the bead. I centered that hole in the lower part when I cut it so that the hole could be used as a place to seed bead through onto either side, as a beading station, or it could be used to attach some other small embellisment by a jeweler.

This larger wedge bead is also petrified palm from the same region, but the center of the trunk of the tree was affected by some kind of sulfur compounds during it's petrification, turning it black but leaving the outer region with the tan color. One can still see the dots in the blackness. These bi-color black & tan pieces of palm are highly prized finds for a cutter. I've never seen anyone else make beads out of them. I only have one chunk of this material that I scored in Tucson last year. I try to balance the colors in one piece, creating a truly yin-yang, heaven & earth, light & dark, two spirit kind of effect. I'll have to be sure to save one of these for myself at some point as I can probably only make another half dozen "black & tans" with the material I have left...

I guess I can't get y'all excited by mentioning dino bone without showing ya some, so here's a nice petrified dinosaur bone made with a piece collected from the Colorado plateau. This has a nice earthy, brick red color and the patterns of cell structure of the marrow of the bone are noticeable. Dino bone is more highly prized when there is more contrast between the colors of the cell structure and wall, with black and brick red highly regarded. I love that if one looks close, this dino bone heart has a small healed fracture in it too. Another one for my Broken Hearts Club Band....
That's all for now folks. Thanks for letting me share. Time to get back to the grind. There's some sycamore & 260 million year old tree fern asking me to dance....