Labradorite is a feldspar mineral named after its location of discovery on the Isle of Paul, Labrador, Canada. It was discovered there in 1770 by missionaries.
It can be absolutely mesmerizing and there are never two stones alike. It’s no wonder that this mystical appearance has inspired legends.
Scandinavian people and Eskimos associated labradorite with the Northern Lights (Auroras Borealis), from which they would have borrowed their beautiful irisations. According to an Inuit legend, the auroras were trapped into rocks located in Labrador. A man broke these rocks with his spear and freed the Celestial Lights. They climbed into the heavens, but some remained on the ground, in the form of shimmering gems … Inuits also believed that the spirits of their dead ancestors could be seen in the Aurora Borealis.
Although Labradorite may have been ‘discovered’ by Europeans in the XVIIIth century, the natives of Labrador already knew it since a long time. They had been using a powdered form of the rock to cure their ailments, calling it “fire rock” or “fire stone”. As early as the XIth century, the Algonquin Amerindians used it to carve various objects found since in Maine.
Labradorite exhibits a schiller effect, called “labradorescence”, which is a strong play of iridescent blue, green, red, orange and/or yellow colors.
Labradorescence is a play of colors, or colored reflections, caused by internal structures that selectively reflect only certain colors. The light enters the stone, strikes a twinning surface within, and reflects from it. The color seen by the observer is the color of the light bounced back from these cleavages which gives each stone it’s unique appearance . Different twinning surfaces within the stone reflect different colors of light. Light reflecting from different twinning surfaces in various parts of the stone can give the stone a multi-colored appearance.
Labradorite is said to stimulate imagination and creativity. Because of the very nature of this stone, its holographic aspect and the many variations in colour, it could be related to almost every chakra.
A tradition even says that people particularly attracted by labradorite may have distant origins on the sunken continent of Atlantis…
Spectrolite is an intense variety displaying the entire color spectrum.
Finnish spectrolite was discovered during the Second World War, while miners were digging holes to trap enemy tanks.
Labradorite was discovered in Labrador but it can also be found in other parts of Canada as well as all over the world : The United States, Mexico, South America, Norway, Finland, Russia, Ukraine and Madagascar.
