Love To Colour? Colouring with Cats #127 ~ Getting Your OM’s on with Mandalas on Mondays ~ Crystal of the Week PLUS **Your Crystal Questions Answered** What is Agate Good For?

Happy Monday greetings gorgeous furiends

Today we're sharing the last in our crystal journey of the current season, and this week, we've got a lovely stone to finish up with as Dede asked us; what is agate good for? 

Crystal of The Week

&

What is Agate good for?

Agate is a lovely stone and is usually banded, which creates all kinds of lovely patterns. Although they also come in solid colours too.

They can be milky or translucent in appearance, and their natural colours are; grey, blue, pink, green, white or brown. Although many that are available to buy today are artificially dyed to enhance the aesthetics of the stone, like below.  And while they may look nice, over time they do fade; we have some hot pink banded spheres at BBHQ, and one of those has faded tremendously in the last 14 years. And agate isn't the only crystal that is enhanced, howlite is another stone that gets dyed, there are others too, and we would suggest that mew keep them out of direct sunlight as this fades them quicker.

We have lots of agate at BBHQ. It is one of the most readily available crystals and is usually one of the furst ones a new collector buys, especially the enhanced ones as they're really colourful and bright, plus most new collectors don't realise they are dyed. The P.A., way back in the day didn't know this either and it was only after a bit of research that she found out, and that wasn't for an agate, it was a lovely turquoise coloured chrysocolla, which aftur a few months the colour had really faded, and it wasn't even in any direct light source, anyhoo it had been colour enhanced, and that's how she found out about the agates too.

Mew can get agate tumble stones, slices which make fabulous coasters, small caves as in the bottom left pic above and these can come in all sizes so some could be used as bookends, also the spheres, pyramids, wands, obelisks, jewellery, beads, etc... in fact, agate is readily available in oodles of styles to suit your needs.

Fudge is here with one of our banded agate spheres; this is a lovely ocean blue - dyed/enhanced - but is still exactly the same colour as when the P.A. furst received from Brazil in 2007. We have some smaller brown spheres, pink we already mentioned, and I think there's a yellow one too; these are about the size of a golf ball, and the blue one with Fudge is the size of a tennis ball.

Let's jump right in and tell mew a little about the gem lore and reputed benefits surrounding these colourful crystals. Though, unlike a natural coloured crystal, the dyed colours of agate don't enhance or add additional properties of the stone, only the natural different coloured agates have supplementary benefits.

So agate is purportedly excellent for grounding and assisting with bringing balance and emotional stability. It is a calming stone that soothes and harmonizes. 

It is a stone that is said to enhance cognitive function and aid concentration and focus. It is reported to be a strength/endurance builder, though it takes time, so much like when mew start at the gym! MOL 

Agate can supposedly assist in overcoming negative feelings or bitterness. And it can also help to raise your consciousness in meditation, and assists in accessing the collective or conscious stream/flow, so it's a good stone to wurk with if mew looking for something to aid with spiritual connections.

So depending on the natural colour of your stone, use on the corresponding chakra point for maximum benefit.  Mew can also get oodles of agate jewellery; bracelets, beads, pendants earrings, whatever takes your fancy, so if mew feel really drawn to this crystal mew could buy a nice piece of jewellery to wear. The blue lace agate is absolutely gorgeous. Its natural colour and formation are bands of pale blue, and it makes the most beautiful jewellery.

Blue lace agate is reputedly a wunderpurr healer, with a cool gentle energy that instils calmness, serenity and is really great for the throat chakra. This variety of agate is purportedly excellent for; nurturing, releasing repression, soothing frazzled nerves, allaying anger, self-expression, speaking one's truth, releasing outmoded patterns, outdated behaviours, encouraging new thoughts and ways of being, acceptance, fear releasing, bringing deep peace are just a few that we've read about, although there are buckets loads more, as with all crystals. However, we don't have the space here to share!

  If mew're looking for a great all-rounder crystal, then we think agate has got mew covered, and if mew drawn to the dyed ones, that's ok but purrlease keep them out of the sun so they keep their zingy colour longer.

Many thanks for emailing us Dede, and we hope that answered your question.

 If mew have any crystal questions; email us, DM us or ask us in the comments below, and we'll answer them when the new season begins later in the year.

To check out our last Crystal of the Week, click the link: Salt Crystal Lamps.

(disclaimer; we are not health or medical practitioners, all crystal info is purely for entertainment purposes only.) 

Anyhoo, we do hope mew've all have a totally pawesome weekend, and that mew're ready fur the week ahead, so let's jump right in and start as always with our little breathing exercise, which we're sure mew all have down paw by now...  but if mew've furgotten, stop what mew're doing fur a moment and take deep fulfilling breaths; counting to five on the inhale and five on the exhale:

Breathe in

Breathe out

Breathe in

Breathe out

Breathe in

Breathe out

Smooch is here again to offur mew assistance in getting your OM's on and Zen Harmonies happening, so just press play, close your eyes and follow his instructions.



Don't mew feel better already?  I know we do!

All the mandala's featured are created & designed by us, aka The B Team.

Here's this weeks mandala.

Right-click the image to save and/or print the mandala.

And here's our finished version, in a supurr cool palette of pinks and icy blues.

Coloured on the iPad and then transformed in Prisma, this time we chose the effect - Sakura.

Don't furget mew can download** our free Colouring with Cats here:- Books One, Two, Three and Four.

Colouring with Cats Book One

Colouring With Cats Book Two ~ Easy Mandala's 

Colouring With Cats Book III

Colouring With Cats Book IV

[**see our download policy here]

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Thanks for joining us for the last CWC of the season, and we do hope mew've enjoyed all the mandalas we've shared and learning about the different crystals we have at BBHQ. Colouring with Cats will be back in the Autumn/Fall again, ready to entertain mew throughout the winter months.

Though if mew do need any extra colouring pages over the summer, we did update all the mandalas in Book One recently - link above - so mew've got 16 new mandalas to occupy yourselves there. For those who will miss Smooch's breathing exercises, just bookmark this page or any of the Colouring with Cats pages and visit as often as mew like. 

Do join us tomorrow if mew get chance, for my 19th Birthday Celebrations and giveaway.

In the meantime...

Keep Calm and Colour OM!

Supurr chilled purrs

Wing Commander Basil & The B Team xox

Free Lockdown Activities

And don't furget while we're all on lockdown, we The B Team have got your six and can entertain mew fur weeks; there are oodles of colouring pages to download and not furgetting the colouring books too.  There's a page full of crafting projects to keep your mittens making stuff, and if books are your thing, check our Amber's Book Reviews fur your next pawesome read! 

There are some epically exciting adventure stories too, so read our thrilling tales episode by epic episode.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Capt'n Basil & His Motley Crew 

Fast, Furry and Dangerous

The Clockwurk Labyrinth 

We've also added some new Brain Training posts, just to keep your little grey cells in tip-top condition. And we’ll be adding extra jigsaw puzzles to the puzzle page.

If mew want to see more of what's been happening at BBHQ, check out our Instagram feed where mew can see exclusive pics and videos that we don't put here on the blog.

Don't furget to subscribe and never miss another mandala! 

Graphics created with paid licence www.canva.com