Unnati’s love of crystals began among the vast, quiet mountains of her childhood with a simple gift of two jars of stones from her mother. At first, they were just pretty keepsakes from Himalayan treks, but over time, they became steady companions that offer a strange and beautiful peace.
Her story is a memory of belonging and learning to listen to the Earth’s quiet whispers. It is full of gentle inspiration for finding and using crystals for spiritual growth in a way that feels natural and honest, without the need for complicated rituals or rules.
This article is part of our Crystal stories – inspirational articles showing how everyday people like you use crystals in their daily life to benefit, grow, de-stress, and heal.
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Mountains, Memory, and My First Crystals for Spiritual Growth
I grew up in the Himalayas, in the lap of mountains that felt more like deities than terrain. Raised among their vast silence and slow strength, I became a full-time seeker of sunlight – in forests, in prayer, and in the make-believe worlds that words helped me shape.
Crystals found me long before I even knew what to call them, as if the Earth was handing me pieces of itself in advance. I knew gems from jewelry, and rocks as heavy things by the roadside – but crystals whispered a different language.
I was nine when I discovered my first crystal. It was a citrine, tinged with orange, resting quietly in an overlooked corner of my childhood home. It felt like a crow’s treasure, a glimmering trinket that would spend the next five years buried beneath plush toys in a basket. I didn’t know then that citrine meant prosperity, but it certainly felt like my very own treasure.
A heart cradled in crystal, citrine for the sun and quartz for the soul. The crystals collected by my mother along the Himalayan ranges.
The Jars My Mother Gave Me
When I turned fifteen, my mother handed me two old jars in response to my sudden obsession with collecting stones. These jars contained a peculiar mix of sedimentary rocks, rough shards of granite, and luminous pieces of quartz, citrine, and selenite.
She had gathered them over the years, trekking the Himalayan peaks and ranges, treating each as a physical memory of a place she had touched. At the time, I didn’t see them as spiritual tools or tokens of healing. They were simply odd, beautiful relic-like conversation pieces I would flaunt to friends, though neither they nor I could name most of what we were looking at.
Gradually, the jars outgrew their role as mere decorations. They became companions and talismans during anxious nights. I gained peace thoughtfully rearranging the stones on days that lacked color. I felt like the owner of ancient treasures that were only mine. They weren’t just rocks anymore. Without me realizing it, the stones now held many powerful and uplifting meanings to me.
“They weren’t just rocks anymore. They were symbols of something ancient – something that quietly belonged to me.”
Wire-Wrapped Light and the Art of Remembering
At some point, between late-night study marathons and the slow hum of lazy Sundays, I started wrapping the clearer stones in silver or copper wire.
Quartz was always my favorite and given the most elaborate spirals, as though I were trying to trap a flicker of mountain light inside. Citrines were transformed into clunky, uneven pendants, strung on cords beaded with pieces from broken bracelets I refused to throw away.
My makeshift jewelry was imperfect, but full of intention.
At the time, I didn’t understand the deeper meanings of crystals – the grounding force of quartz, or the energetic abundance associated with citrine. I just knew they were beautiful. When the light hit them, they appeared to hold secrets.
Wearing them or carrying them close made me feel protected and safe. Like something old and powerful was quietly watching over me, even if I couldn’t explain the sensation to anyone else.
A Gentle Shift: The Spiritual Path Finds Me
Two years later, I found myself gravitating toward a different way of life. Both of my parents were accomplished mountaineers, and I had always done well in school. But now I needed more earth and more breath, more inner presence.
I turned to yoga and spiritual practice, which changed my world with unexpected force. While the world around me seemed uncertain, even disappointed, with my new direction, I started to see clearly for the first time.
I was beginning to learn that healing doesn’t need to be a dramatic transformation. Sometimes, it may come as stillness, a quiet grace and presence.
“Healing doesn’t always roar in. Sometimes it enters like a breath – still, slow, steady.”
No Rituals, Just Presence
And that’s when I rediscovered the crystals again – this time not as decorations or keepsakes, but as reflections of something sacred.
Unlike many others, I never adopted complex rituals. No sage. No moonlit charging. My way with crystals has always been simpler, softer. Just sitting back and looking at them. Meditating on them. Meditating with them.
Some mornings, a cool citrine would rest against my skin as I move through breathwork or silent prayer. Other days, I’d place a clear quartz before me and study its sharp contrast against the deep violet of an amethyst I had purchased on a whim months earlier.
“None of these stones ever felt arbitrary. I’ve long stopped believing that anything in this universe truly is.”
Another of my mother’s travel stones from the Nepal Himalayan ranges.
A Return to Origin
I often reflect on the chance discovery of the first citrine and its unspoken grace. On my mother bringing fragments of mountains into my childhood. At the time, neither of us could have foreseen what these rocks would come to signify. But perhaps the Earth knew. Perhaps the quiet orchestration of the universe always knows.
I have come to believe that nature has a way of preparing us. Of sending us what we’ll need, long before we understand why. And there’s something deeply humbling about that.
“Nature has a way of sending us what we need long before we understand why.”
Now, when I hold a crystal, I feel the grounding force of the majestic mountains and this entire planet. I feel belonging. I feel remembered.
An altar of breath and stone. Goddess faced Mt Nanda Devi watches over as incense weaves through the crystals, salt, and silence. The mountains live with me, in me.
Crystals as Earth’s Quiet Memory
Each crystal that found its way to me feels like a deliberate message from the Earth. They feel like quiet echoes of the mountains I grew up seeing as Gods. They remind me that we are also sculpted by time, pressure, and light.
Each crystal is an elemental artifact, born from the union of earth, water, fire, air, and space. Just like us. Just like everything else. And in holding them, I feel supported. Rooted. Reminded. Not just of beauty, but of belonging to this planet and its breath.
These days, I am simply grateful. Grateful for my mother. For the stones. For the Earth that sent me everything before I even knew I needed it. Because now I understand: none of it was random. It can’t be, for what we mistake as coincidence is often the universe remembering us.
“What we mistake for coincidence is often the universe remembering us.”
Story by Unnati Bisht
www.linkedin.com/in/unnatidbisht
Feeling inspired by Unnati’s story? Would you like to bring similar crystals and stones into your own life? Here are some of the products, like the ones that are helping Unnati, which you might enjoy:
Nice to touch or keep in you pocket.
Read another inspirational story from the Crystal Stories series:
