Step One – Amethyst – Sobriety. Promotes calmness, serenity, and spirituality. Helps with addiction and stress.
Step Two – Jade – Faith. Wisdom, mercy, humility, generosity, peace, and harmony. Protective and lucky when worn as jewelry.
Step Three – Smokey Quartz – Surrender. A grounding stone which helps reduce depression and negative emotions.
Step Four – Turquoise – Truth. Healing stone. Attracts friendships, luck, and happiness. Releases shame and guilt.
Step Five – Sodalite – Courage. Purifies your aura and protects you from negative energy from people around you.
Step Six – Rhodenite – Willingness. Self-affirmation and self-love. Fosters ability to remain calm in arguments and resolve disagreements in a loving way.
Step Seven – Jasper – Humility. Calms a troubled mind. Helps with digestive problems and other ills.
Step Eight – Agate – Forgiveness. General protection and healing, increases courage, self-confidence, and energy and promotes longevity.
Step Nine – Rose Quartz – Freedom. Great for attracting love. Promotes self-loving and heals emotional wounds as well as promoting peace, forgiveness, and nurturing.
Step Ten – Onyx – Perseverance. Good protective stone. Also releases old relationships and keeps away general negativity.
Step Eleven – Kyanite – Patience. If you have difficulty in sitting still, your mind drifting to your current worries, or being distracted while meditating, Kyanite is one of the best stones to use. Its ability to calm and quiet the chattering, busy mind is unequaled.
Step Twelve – Amazonite – Love. Inspires truth, sincerity, honor and self-love. Enhances integrity and trust. Helps you trust your intuitions instead of rationalizing everything away. Manifests and retains the pure energy of Universal Love.
In the Prayer Beads, the three stones in the circle represent the first three steps: Sobriety (Amethyst), Faith (Jade), and Surrender (Smokey Quartz).
The Parable of the Starfish
One morning an elderly man was walking on a nearly deserted beach. He came upon a boy surrounded by thousands and thousands of starfish. As eagerly as he could, the youngster was picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean.
Puzzled, the older man looked at the young boy and asked, "Little boy, what are you doing?"
The youth responded without looking up, "I'm trying to save these starfish, sir."
The old man chuckled aloud, and queried, "Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?"
Holding a starfish in his hand, the boy turned to the man and, gently tossing the starfish into the water, said, "It will make a difference to that one!"
