IMPORTANT: This jewel is very limited and we are unsure if they'll be available again in the future. We recommend Express Shipping with signature required upon delivery to best ensure it arrives safely in your hands. 

PLEASE NOTE : This necklace will be created with an 18" bar link chain. If you desire a different chain length, it's important that you email us immediately after placing your order for a custom quote on the additional length.

A manipulated antique keyhole, molded from Blood Milk's earliest days, is set behind a large pear shaped ghostly rose quartz, revealing the keyhole through the stone. Beneath, our smallest key yet, dangles like a tear, forever tethered to its keyhole.

In European folklore, keyholes were considered to be vulnerable points in the home where witches, spirits, supernatural entities and other inhabitants of the unseen realms could slip in. Therefore protections, such as the VV markings representing 'Virgin of Virgins' for the Mother Mary or a key slid in and turned sideways were placed around or within keyholes. This also extended to other areas of the home that were considered vulnerable to unwanted entry, such as hearths, floorboards and windows.

This lore has associated the keyhole with folk practices of protection, imbuing the keyhole with similar qualities to that of the hagstone, a rock with a naturally occurring hole in it from water and time. These stones were used as protection as well as viewfinders; people would press their eye to the stone to be able to 'see' into the spirit or fairy realms. In this way, the keyhole can be similarly used, either as a means of protection, as the keyhole is the more stationary component in the 'locking' of doors or objects, or as a divination object for seeking omens, signs and auguries. This onyx piece occludes this use and is meant as more of a protection amulet/talisman, especially in combination with Onyx, as a means of 'stuffing' the keyhole or the body's heart while wearing. This is similar to the Ancient Egyptian notion of the Scarab protecting the heart during the 'weighing of the heart' process in the Afterlife.

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.  

*Details* :

- 56 mm from top to bottom key

- 28 mm wide

- Solid Sterling Silver  

- Both pendant and chain are hand oxidized to achieve our favorite shade of stormy gray and then highlighted to reveal the bright luminous silver beneath

- Set with one 18 x 30 mm pear cut rose quartz gemstone

- Seen on Miguel at 20 inches. 

Rose Quartz:

Rose Quartz is known the world over for its beautiful pink coloring, is at least 35 million years old, with records dating back to 600 B.C.. During that time, it was given amongst lovers, family and friends as love tokens. It was also used in beauty rituals as far back as Ancient Egypt where evidence of it as facial masks has been found in tombs amongst grave goods. Metaphysically, it is best known as the master 'love stone', used in love spells, helpful in matters of self-confidence, anger, disappointment, and seemingly always mentioned in tandem with "healing" - a word so dense with promise it makes me both hopeful and strangely put off. I feel a bit lonely in my discomfort; I've never been one to only seek beauty in its traditional forms and it seems like Rose Quartz is the fairest of them all -the glittering prom queen who about to have a bucket of blood poured on her.

My favorite lore around this stone concerns the Goddesses Isis and Aphrodite / Venus, which are all connected by similar attributes and were conjoined when the Romans annexed Egypt. The Egyptian Goddess Isis, one of the most revered deities over time, is believed to have used Rose Quartz "maintain her eternal youth and divine beauty" and therefore influenced the beauty culture ( see above ) in ancient times. Aphrodite is the Greek iteration of Venus, with whom she is often syncretized - sharing many overlapping traits: such as her beauty, passion and pleasure, love, and fertility. Each Goddess was considered to be a standard of ideal beauty and representative of love, yet also each was associated with the enemy of love - death. Isis, in a gruesome yet romantic gesture, collected the disembodied pieces of her murdered brother/husband Osiris, and resurrected him - becoming impregnated with Horus simultaneously. This myth was revered in Ancient Egypt, fertility rituals around Osiris' resurrection abounded

For the Greeks, one of the most popular myths centering Aphrodite is also a genesis tale for Rose Quartz in and of itself : Aphrodite fell in love with the beautiful mortal Adonis who was killed by a wild boar ( perhaps a jealous Ares in disguise, or sent by Artemis as punishment ). As he lay dying in the forest, Aphrodite came to his side, herself also bleeding after becoming tangled and wounded in a bramble bush. Their co-mingled blood is thought to have fallen on Quartz, ever after giving Rose Quartz is pink hue. Adonis, like Osiris, was also resurrected in some tellings and his tale was also associated with grieving rituals in connection to the natural cycles of life.

Personally, I've struggled both with writing about Rose Quartz as well as pairing it with my jewelry. It's a stone that has long been deeply connected with the romantic aspects of love, healing, forgiveness, beauty and well-being - but for me, I've shied away or have had discomfort with each of these notions and descriptors. Each of them has also been, for me, tangled up with grief and death - shadow feelings. However, while I think Rose Quartz often lacks its shadow in popular descriptions of it - I think it's powerful for these exact reasons. As much as it is beautiful, it is often turned to as a balm during our worst moments - the ugly and horrific times of heart brokenness; representing our hearts in all their nuance - capable of the beauty of love but also the madness of loss. In this way, it illustrates the tensions between beauty and horror I unconsciously & consciously seek in everything. It is a phoenix, burning down like the Tower into ashes but also comforts us while we rise from the rubble. It is a fierce shield that guards us, but it is also has a soothing gentleness. In this way each Rose Quartz jewel carries a dual aspect of 'psychic armor' both the energies and medicines of the snakes and bats that form the gloomy silver settings of the jewels, and Rose Quartz, a beautiful balm that assists us during our darkness moments, a reminder of the sweet-bitterness of being alive on this timeline.’

This jewel is hand cut and therefore may have small signs of the carver's hands along the edges. It has not been fabricated by a machine rather it hand cut and therefore might not be uniformly perfect. The photographs accurately portray the quality of the stone and the cut. 

***IMPORTANT***  

This jewel is handmade to order, just for you, with care and focus. Please allow approximately 6 - 8 weeks for creation before shipping.  

Visit the Policy Page to make an educated and informed purchase HERE.

If you have further questions, we are always here to serve you in a kind and timely manner: via info@bloodmilkjewels.com