Desert Jasper was uncovered in 2006 by prospectors combing Madagascar's remote northwestern coastline for new deposits of Ocean Jasper. What they found instead was a true jasper banded in the colors of the surrounding desert: rust red, dusty blue-grey, and sun-bleached tan. It is still mined artisanally today, hand-dug from shallow pits near the surface of an arid, difficult landscape, which keeps the supply limited and every piece a little different from the last.

Desert Jasper is a microcrystalline variety of quartz in the chalcedony family, composed of silicon dioxide. Iron oxide inclusions produce its reddish-orange tones, while additional trace minerals create its blue-grey and tan bands. It forms through volcanic activity followed by the slow hydrothermal deposition of silica-rich fluids, crystallizing in the trigonal system as a dense, opaque stone.

Ancient Egyptians carved jasper into protective amulets, believing the stone shielded both the living and the dead in this world and the next., Several Native American traditions called on jasper as a rain bringer, using it in ceremonies meant to draw water to parched land., and Jasper is named among the twelve stones of the Hebrew High Priest's breastplate and later appears in the Book of Revelation as the first foundation stone of the New Jerusalem.

I carry the steadiness of sun-worn earth within me. Like this stone's bands of color, I hold contrast without conflict, warmth and calm together, and I trust my footing even when the ground around me shifts.