Shannon Marie, 2021
Let’s be honest – many of us who own crystals may not remember what each crystal actually is. I’ve tried to address this by taking photos of my crystals and labelling them, but it’s a cumbersome process.
I doubt that Shannon Marie wrote The Crystal Wisdom of Colors* to free her readers from the pressure to know their crystals’ provenance, but I appreciate that her excellent book boosts this crystal novice’s confidence and decreases my feelings of inadequacy.
The book is organized into three parts: Part One: Setting the Foundation, Part Two: Building Your Crystal Practice, and Part Three: The Wisdom of the Color Families. A reader may be tempted, as I was, to move past the first two parts of the book and jump right into Part Three. Try to resist this; with the exception of Chapter 2, which is the author’s mostly irrelevant description of her favorite colors at different stages of her life, these sections offer enlightening insights into color and chakra theory. Ms. Marie uses the analogy of the clear space in the eye of a hurricane to describe the opening of a chakra, which supplied the missing piece in my own chakra concept. The explanation of color energy being absorbed into our bodies through our eyes and skin is also eye-opening (no pun indended).
In Part Three, thirteen crystal color families are discussed in detail, addressing the following for each color:
· This color’s properties and connotations
· Discerning one’s need for this color’s presence in their life
· A list of this color’s crystals and their characteristics
· A color-specific 20-step (!) crystal meditation
The book concludes with an excellent bibliography and a somewhat redundant glossary.
In summary: This is a relevant, relatable tool for crystal use; Shannon Marie gives readers permission to confidently trust their intuition. The book is a solid four stars. Without Chapter 2, and with more concise meditation guides, it would be an easy five stars.
*This book is listed as a companion to Shannon’s book Crystal Wisdom, and some information appears in both books. Reviewer has not read Crystal Wisdom.
Thank you to the author and to Reedsy Discovery for an Advance Readers Copy of this book, which I received in return for my honest review.