Hematite
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What does it mean?

Its name comes from the Greek haemateios, meaning bloody. Hematite's literal meaning is bloody stone. Predominantly masculine in energy, it symbolizes strength and inflexibility .

What are its lithotherapy benefits?

If you're feeling tired and discouraged, the company of Hematite can give you a new boost, thanks to its revitalizing properties and its energy, which is conducive to dynamism and the realization of concrete tasks. Its virtues will encourage you to take action and persevere along your path to success by stimulating your willpower, your anchoring, your resources, your self-confidence and your strengths.
Whether it's to improve your quality of life, your well-being or the success of a project, Hematite is the ideal stone for identifying and improving what needs to be rectified. By connecting you to your basic needs (or those of your project), it gives you the energy you need to correct what needs to be corrected, or to change course and start afresh.
Hematite is one of the few Yang-energy red stones that helps calm choleric, authoritarian and hypertensive people. It improves feelings of security, listening to others and patience.
In the event of difficulty falling asleep, if brain activity struggles to calm down, Hematite encourages the circulation of energies downwards in the body. It can be combined with Rose Quartz or another soft and soothing stone and placed under the pillow.
A stone with a mirror effect, Hematite can be used to protect against undesirable energies.

What are the physical benefits of Hematite?

Hematite is used in lithotherapy to promote red blood cell formation, iron assimilation, detoxification and blood oxygenation. It can help with anemia, poor circulation, chronic fatigue and wound healing.

It is the stone to have in support after childbirth (from the end of the trenches), or in case of convalescence.

Although often recommended for heavy periods, its use during menstruation can be questionable, as hematite can amplify the inflammation produced by the natural secretion of prostaglandins in the uterus and thus increase pain. Hematite should never be used in case of inflammation!

Caution: never use in case of kidney infection, as it may aggravate it!

What stone should Hematite be associated with?

• To help anchoring, willpower, vitality and blood circulation, it can be combined with Red Jasper or Heliotrope. As Ancestralite is a combination of Hematite and Red Jasper, you can explore our selection of natural Ancestralite rolled stones.
• To prevent bleeding, it is perfect with pyrope or almandine garnet.
• In cases of anger and frustration, try combining it with Carnelian.

Hematite in mineralogy: composition, formation and particularities

Hematite can be magmatic, metamorphic or sedimentary in origin. It is an iron oxide with manganese and titanium and traces of aluminum, chromium, silica, thorium and hydrogen.

It's the iron oxide that gives it its apparently gray color, but red when ground to powder and mixed with liquid.

Be careful not to confuse it with Magnetite, which is found in the same deposits. Once polished, they have the same appearance. Only the color of their trace on a white plate can tell the difference (red for Hematite, black for Magnetite).

Did you know?

Hematin is the term used to describe "hematites" made from iron oxide powder. A common practice in jewelry, but rarely indicated.

In 2004, NASA teams discovered millions of Hematite spherules on Mars.

The history of Hematite

Throughout history, hematite has been used in medicine, spirituality, painting and make-up.
As early as 40,000 years ago, it was used as a red pigment for cave paintings, and even today, in Ethiopia, for war paint. The different shades of red depend on the origin of the Hematite, which enabled Renaissance painters to use its pigments for a whole range of shades of red and brown.

It was known to the Egyptians for its virtues on the blood system and widely used in antiquity, the Middle Ages and in modern lithotherapy for various blood disorders, such as stopping haemorrhage and promoting wound healing. Ancient beliefs regarded Hematite as solidified blood.

Among Amerindians, it is reputed to give strength and power to shamans.