IMPORTANT: This listing is for a One of a Kind jewel that cannot be replaced. We recommend Express Shipping with signature required upon delivery to make sure it arrives safely into your hands.

This necklace is Ready To Ship and will leave the studio in 3 - 5 business days.

PLEASE NOTE: This necklace will be created with an 18" bar link chain. If you desire a different chain length you must reach out to us immediately after placing your order.

A round 'dark moon' Black Star Diopside cabochon is set within the buds of a life cast Rowan twig in the shape of a skeleton key, from a tree I harvested in WA this past August.

Rowan trees are one of the most historically magical trees of Europe, known in those days for its fierce protection from fire and evil, when house fires were more ubiquitous and fears of witches and evil spirits were more common. Used in easily made folk charms such as an equal armed cross tied with red thread made from its wood, or necklaces strung from its striking red berries, these charms would be hung within barns to protect livestock, within the home, or even sewn or kept within clothing to protect travelers. Planted near the home, these magical trees promised both protection and abundant berries in the Summer/early fall months that could be used for food and alcohol additives once processed to cut their bitter flavor and mild toxicity.

This key represents protection while traveling, even if that means simply stepping outside of the home, or further travel such as in trance or dream states. Paired with a stunning black star (please note the photo does not due this stone justice! It is an inky black with an asterism that appears when light hits it), which is also known for its protective qualities as well as for recall in dreams and creative flow. Its personally my favorite gemstone, and I like to think of its star as my 'north star', always returning me to center when I may find myself a bit wayward.

Keys:

Skeleton keys have long been an obsession of mine. My godmother is an auctioneer and took me along to auctions and estate sales. Treasure for me were always the wooden boxes filled with greasy and dirt caked keys, beautiful with their time earned patina, with their memories and silent stories. As a kid, I imagined every beautiful key I came across no matter how small or large, belonged to a haunted house. Even the tiny keys that came with my school fair diary were special to me. Keys have that sort of resiliency that many other sorts of old objects don’t, they survive the wear and tear of misuse, they surface like relics from the muck of time.

Keys are an ancient tool, created first by the Ancient Egyptians in wood and modified by the Romans in metal and made small enough to be kept on a person, coined as the first ‘skeleton keys’. These were used, as now, to lock doors and boxes or 'safes', to protect precious objects and people. Thusly one of the mundane and ubiquitous tool has also come to garner potent symbolism over time and has been woven into a current everyday object that even digital technology can’t seem to make obsolete. At the time of my writing this, I still use metal keys to gain entrance to my apartment and studio; I moved out of a house in Philadelphia in 2020 in one of the oldest parts of the city that still employed the use of skeleton keys. Perhaps the key is an object where the old world and the new continually shoulder up against each other, no matter how much modern technology tries to replace them.

As a talismanic jewel the key is a liminal object representing a potent tension and duality as it can both lock and unlock, making the person who holds the key, one on a threshold.

*For locking: Being able to lock something behind you will always give the power and feeling of protection, therefore keys will always have the symbolism of protection embedded in them. The first key I can remember owning was a tiny key that fit to a tiny lock that latched onto a diary I owned in elementary school where I kept all of my secrets. This consisted of all of the titles of the books I’d write, but they sounded like spells, things I desperately wanted to change about myself; revenge I’d like to take on bullies. These days, protecting my loved ones, my heart, and extending protection to those I can feels most important to me. Feeling safe and helping others feel safe in my presence is something I'm always thinking about, and the presence of a key against my body helps remind me of these tenants and makes me feel safe.

*For unlocking: Keys as objects that can 'unlock' show up as symbols across cultures. It’s a symbol of gaining access: for some it's about knowledge and wisdom or about gaining access to higher or unearthly realms: Saint Peter was known to hold the keys to heaven while Hecate is known to hold the keys to the unseen world/ the gates of death. As an initiatory symbol, it suggests garnering levels of knowledge that lead upwards on your path, or crossing thresholds of the unconscious. It also suggests the ability of survival, of being able to find 'a way out', of reaching a place where you are able to unlock or solve an obstacle that was complex or troubling, such as a Sphinx's riddle.