====== Copper ======
<div #singlebox>
---- dataentry metal----
latin_names: 
folk_names: 
energy_tags: Receptive
gender_tags: 
planet_tags: Venus
element_tags: Water
deity_tags: Aphrodite, Astarte, Ishtar
effect_tags: Energy direction, healing, luck, love, protection, money
----
</div>
<ifauth @user>
===== Magical Uses =====
Copper is well-known as a conductor of electricity. One modern use of this metal is to fashion wands of copper tubes. These are topped with quartz crystals and sometimes wrapped with leather or another shielding substance. Such wands are used in magical ritual to direct energy. This metal is also worn during ritual for the same purpose-to heighten the magician's ability to direct energy to the magical goal.

Copper has long been used to stimulate healing. This seems to be because of copper's ability to balance the body's polarity, or the flow of the projective and receptive energies. Blockages in this energy pattern, according to shamans and healers alike, lead to imbalances and thus disease.

Copper's healing applications are boundless. In Mexico, a copper penny is placed on the navel before a trip to prevent motion sickness. Copper is worn for relief of rheumatism, arthritis, and any painful condition. Copper wire is loosely fastened around legs and arms to relieve cramps.

Pure copper in any form is often worn for general healing and to prevent sickness. To be most effective in health-related applications, copper is usually worn on the left side of the body by those who are right-handed, the reverse by left-handers.

Copper is a lucky metal, perhaps because of its past solar attributions, and so can be used in combination with any luck-bringing gemstones.

A metal of Venus, copper is worn to attract love. Emeralds, if you can afford them, can be set in copper and worn for this purpose.

Anciently, seeds of the mimosa *(Acacia dealbata)* were set into copper rings and worn, especially during confrontations, for protection against all manlier of ills and negativity.

And finally, copper is used to draw money. Though the pennies of the United States are no longer made of copper, older pennies, especially those minted in leap years, have long been placed in the kitchen to attract money to the household.
===== Ritual Lore =====
Copper, a reddish orange metal, has long been linked with the divine. During ancient Mesopo-tamian times, it was attributed to the Queen of Heaven as well as to goddesses associated with the planet Venus. These include Ishtar, Astarte, and perhaps Inanna, the Sumerian predecessor to the first two deities mentioned above.

It has also been sacred to the Sun in Babylon as well as to the early inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest (U.S.).</ifauth>
===== Notes =====
==== Related Herbs ====
* [[herb:mimosa]]
==== Related Stones ====
* [[herb:crystal_quartz]]
* [[gem:emerald]]