The Systems of the Body in Gemstone Therapy
Exploring how the body’s systems function throughout our physical and subtle bodies—and the therapeutic gemstone formulas that support them.
By Isabelle Morton
The Body's Systems Are More Than Physical
When we think about the body’s systems, we usually think about their physical functions. Muscles move the body. The respiratory system supports breathing. The eliminatory system helps the body release what it no longer needs.
In Gemstone Therapy, we take a broader view.
We understand these systems to function not only in the physical body, but also in the emotional, causal, and mental bodies.
This opens an intriguing way of understanding both the human energy system and the therapeutic actions of gemstones.
EXPLORE THE SYSTEMS
RESPIRATORY SYSTEM Frosted Quartz & Clear Quartz (formula name “Harmony”) · Fundamental Activity: Exchange
Fundamental Activity: Exchange
Vitalizing Formula: Frosted Quartz & Clear Quartz (formula name “Harmony”)
Clear Quartz and Frosted Quartz nourish and balance the Respiratory System. They appear to support our ability to exchange with our environment without losing our own center.
Physical Body
The physical Respiratory System exchanges gases between the body and its environment. It brings oxygen into the body and releases carbon dioxide, helping support cellular metabolism and maintain physiological balance.
Supraphysical Body
The supraphysical Respiratory System closely supports physical respiration. Its breathing follows the rhythm of physical breathing. I have also observed that it transforms the energetic spectrum of the oxygen we inhale, making it more harmonious and useful to the human body.
Emotional Body
The emotional Respiratory System exchanges information about emotions with our environment. It helps us perceive what others are feeling without necessarily taking their emotions on as our own. It also communicates information about our own emotional state to others.
Causal Body
The causal Respiratory System exchanges information that can help us recognize significant connections with people and places. These connections may point to something from the past that requires resolution, while other systems appear to be responsible for the resolution itself.
Mental Body
The mental Respiratory System exchanges thoughts with the larger mental environment. When we genuinely seek something beyond what we already know, it allows us to reach beyond our familiar repertoire of thoughts and become receptive to new possibilities.
Intuitive Body
The intuitive Respiratory System appears to exchange with the field of knowingness available to us. This exchange may help us move beyond an existing level of knowing or self-awareness into something entirely new. Unlike physical respiration, intuitive exchange may occur only rarely, when we are ready and capable of moving into greater knowingness.
SKELETAL SYSTEM Apatite, Indigo, Freshwater Pearl & White Coral · Fundamental Activity: Structure
Fundamental Activity: Structure
Vitalizing Formula: Apatite, Indigo, Freshwater Pearl & White Coral
The Skeletal System provides the structure that supports other functions. As vibration rises through the subtle bodies, that structure becomes progressively less anatomically differentiated, while the functions of the systems remain distinguishable.
Physical Body
The physical Skeletal System provides the body’s structural framework, supporting other systems while protecting organs, anchoring muscles, storing minerals, and producing blood cells in bone marrow.
Supraphysical Body
The supraphysical Skeletal System closely mirrors the physical skeleton but exists just beyond our physical senses. Changes moving toward physical manifestation may appear here before they appear in the physical skeleton.
Emotional Body
The emotional Skeletal System provides the underlying structure that supports and contains emotional activity.
Causal Body
My current thinking is that the causal Skeletal System provides the underlying structure that supports memory and other causal activity.
Mental Body
The mental Skeletal System provides the structure that supports the formation, organization, and focus of thought.
Intuitive Body
The intuitive Skeletal System is remarkably different. I perceive the intuitive body itself as its structure—a vast, highly organized matrix through which the functions of the other systems operate.
The Gemstones
Apatite is the primary gemstone for the Skeletal System. It works specifically to vitalize bone, raising its vibration and helping energies flow through it more freely.
Indigo provides the primary nourishing color ray for the Skeletal System.
Freshwater Pearl supports a functional relationship between the skeleton and its associated tissues and provides a moistening quality that is particularly supportive of the joints.
White Coral provides additional support for bone health and maintenance.
CIRCULATORY SYSTEM Dumortierite & Carnelian · Fundamental Activity: Transport
Fundamental Activity: Transport
Vitalizing Formula: Dumortierite & Carnelian
The Circulatory System transports and distributes materials that are already present, making them available where they are needed. Movement is necessary for circulation, but movement is the means; transport is the fundamental activity.
Physical Body
The physical Circulatory System transports blood throughout the body, carrying oxygen, nutrients, hormones, immune cells, wastes, and other materials to and from the tissues where they are needed.
Supraphysical Body
The supraphysical Circulatory System closely mirrors physical circulatory function and anatomy, but exists at a vibration just beyond the realm that our physical senses can access.
Emotional Body
My current thinking is that the emotional Circulatory System transports and distributes the raw materials from which emotions are formed. More complete distribution may allow more of the emotional body to participate in forming an emotional response, helping us recognize what we feel with greater completeness and precision.
Causal Body
My current thinking is that the causal Circulatory System transports and distributes the constituent causal raw materials that form memories.
Mental Body
The mental Circulatory System may transport and distribute the constituent materials needed for thought, allowing a fragment or initial thought to develop into a more complete thought and connect with other thoughts.
Intuitive Body
My current thinking is that the intuitive Circulatory System transports and distributes the resources needed for intuition throughout the intuitive body. When circulation is inadequate, those resources may be unevenly distributed, giving us strong intuitive access in some areas of our lives but little in others. Ideally, they are appropriately distributed so that intuition can serve every aspect of our lives.
The Gemstones
Dumortierite supports and vitalizes the structures through which energies flow. In the physical Circulatory System, these are the blood vessels, and the energy flowing through them is blood. Carnelian vitalizes what flows through these structures and encourages its healthy movement.
That relationship may help us understand the formula’s role throughout the subtle Circulatory Systems: Dumortierite supports the structures through which circulation occurs, while Carnelian vitalizes the materials being transported.
ELIMINATORY SYSTEM Rhyolite & Gray Moonstone · Fundamental Activity: Letting Go
Fundamental Activity: Letting Go
Vitalizing Formula: Rhyolite & Gray Moonstone
Healthy elimination is not simply about releasing more. It involves letting go of what is no longer needed while retaining what continues to serve us.
Physical Body
The physical Eliminatory System identifies, sorts through, and releases substances the body no longer needs through its natural avenues of elimination.
Emotional Body
The Eliminatory System helps the emotional body let go of emotional energy so that it can move toward physical expression. When this function is underactive, emotions such as anger, resentment, or hurt may linger and accumulate.
Causal Body
My current theory is that healthy causal elimination may not involve letting go of memories themselves, but rather regulating the amount and type of energy available to our memories. This could help explain why some memories remain accessible without continuing to haunt us.
Mental Body
At the mental level, the Eliminatory System may help us let go of thoughts and beliefs that no longer serve us—including beliefs that were once useful but are no longer appropriate for who we are or our present circumstances.
The Gemstones
Rhyolite helps the body identify, sort through, and release unwanted energies through its natural avenues of elimination. Gray Moonstone helps the supraphysical body let go of unwanted energies, extending the reach of the formula beyond physical elimination.
Rhyolite is also a volcanic rock—an intriguing parallel with the way the Earth releases material from within itself to the surface.
MUSCULAR SYSTEMRose Quartz & Red Spinel · Fundamental Activity: Movement
Fundamental Activity: Movement
Vitalizing Formula: Rose Quartz & Red Spinel
Physical Body
Muscles create movement in the body and help move substances within it.
Emotional Body
The Muscular System helps move emotional energy toward the physical body, where it can be expressed.
Causal Body
My current thinking is that the Muscular System may support movement within the dynamic threads of light and sound associated with memory. This raises intriguing questions about memories that become haunting or difficult to access.
The Gemstones
Rose Quartz is the primary gemstone used to vitalize the Muscular System. Its relationship with the causal Muscular System raises an interesting possibility: perhaps Rose Quartz supports the free movement of memory within the causal body.
When a System Is Underactive or Overactive
RESPIRATORY SYSTEM
Underactive: Too little appropriate exchange may occur between us and our environment. Depending on the subtle body, we may have difficulty receiving information or recognizing connections that could be useful to us.
Overactive: Exchange may occur too readily or excessively. We may receive more information from our environment than we can comfortably process or have difficulty discriminating what is relevant to us.
SKELETAL SYSTEM
Physical Body
Too little structure may weaken the physical framework, as occurs with conditions such as osteoporosis. We have not identified what an overactive Skeletal System looks like in the physical body.
Emotional Body
Too little structure may allow slight impressions to trigger emotions too readily. Too much structure may make it difficult for emotional impressions to generate an appropriate response.
Causal Body
Too little structure may cause memories to arise too readily or be triggered by slight impressions. Too much structure may make it difficult for memories and information from the past to emerge into awareness.
Mental Body
Too little structure may make it difficult to gather, organize, and focus thoughts. Too much structure may contribute to rigid or narrow thinking and difficulty considering other possibilities.
Intuitive Body
I have not observed underactive or overactive structure in the intuitive body. Its highly organized matrix appears to be inherent to the nature of the intuitive body itself.
CIRCULATORY SYSTEM
When the Circulatory System is underactive, materials that are already present may not be adequately distributed throughout the body in which they exist. Healthy circulation makes those materials appropriately available where they are needed.
Overactive circulation may also create an imbalance, although how that imbalance is expressed may differ from one body to another.
In the intuitive body, overactive circulation may create an imbalance of attention rather than clearer or more accurate intuition. Intuitive information may become disproportionately prominent, so that everything begins to seem meaningful or symbolic, distracting us from ordinary engagement with our lives.
ELIMINATORY SYSTEM
When the Eliminatory System is underactive, we may have difficulty letting go. When it is overactive, we may let go too readily.
Healthy elimination supports the natural relationship between letting go and receiving: we let go to make room for something new.
MUSCULAR SYSTEM
When the Muscular System is underactive, movement may become sluggish or impeded. When it is overactive, movement may become excessive or difficult to regulate.
Healthy muscular activity allows movement to occur freely and appropriately.
More Coming Soon
In NATURE
Are the functions we recognize within ourselves also expressed in the larger natural world?
This is an area I am only beginning to explore.
As meaningful parallels emerge during the Systems project, I’ll add them here.
RESPIRATORY SYSTEM
Earth continually exchanges energy with the Sun and surrounding space. It receives solar radiation, including visible and infrared light. Some is reflected, while much is absorbed by the atmosphere and surface.
Earth ultimately radiates energy back into space, primarily as longer-wavelength infrared radiation.
What comes in is not simply returned unchanged—it is absorbed and transformed as part of Earth’s ongoing exchange with its environment.
SKELETAL SYSTEM
In nature, underlying structures often receive what falls or is released from above. Autumn leaves settle onto the Earth and eventually contribute to new soil and growth. Organic material sinks through the ocean, where it becomes part of other processes, including nourishing deep-sea life and contributing to long-term carbon storage.
These natural processes have led me to wonder whether they might offer a parallel to the Skeletal System: could something that is unwanted in one context become useful when incorporated into an underlying structure?
CIRCULATORY SYSTEM
Ocean currents transport heat, nutrients, organisms, and other materials across enormous distances, while atmospheric circulation transports heat and moisture around the planet. These may offer natural parallels to the Circulatory System’s fundamental activity of transport.
ELIMINATORY SYSTEM
Deep within the Earth, magma rises and can be released at the surface. Material once held within the Earth becomes part of its exterior and can contribute to new land and new structures.
The inside lets go. The outside receives.
And Rhyolite—the primary gemstone used to vitalize the human Eliminatory System—is itself a volcanic rock.
MUSCULAR SYSTEM
The fundamental activity of the Muscular System is movement. One possible parallel in the natural world is the movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates. Could plate tectonics represent an expression of this same fundamental activity on a planetary scale?
Explore the Systems With Me
As I’m delving into the energetic anatomy and subtle body functions of the systems, I invite you to contribute. Simply wear a system-vitalizing necklace or bracelet for a week. Notice what’s happening in your life, and then email me what you noticed.
How to Notice What a System-Support Necklace Is Doing
Wear the necklace daily for one week. Become an observer. Pay attention to what changes—or doesn’t change—while you go about your normal life.
Notice what stands out:
- In your body — comfort, tension, energy, movement, or other physical changes.
- Emotionally — emotions that arise, how strongly you experience them, and how easily
they move or resolve. - With your memory — what you remember, what comes forward unexpectedly, or
whether accessing memories seems different. - Mentally — focus, thought patterns, beliefs, decisions, or how easily thoughts come and
go. - In your behavior and daily life — things you find yourself doing differently
Eliminatory System — Letting Go
Wear Rhyolite & Gray Moonstone daily for one week.
Don’t try to make anything happen. Simply notice:
What are you letting go of—or having difficulty letting go of?
You might notice something physically, emotionally, in your memories, or in your thoughts and beliefs.
Observe first. Interpret later. You don’t need to decide whether the gemstones caused what you noticed. Simply pay attention to what happens.
Respiratory System — Exchange
If you tend to take on other people’s emotions, wear Clear Quartz & Frosted Quartz daily for one week.
Don’t try to make anything happen.
Simply notice:
Do other people’s emotions affect you less?
Observe first. Interpret later. You don’t need to decide whether the gemstones caused what you noticed. Simply pay attention to what happens.
Follow My Exploration
Each week, we’ll introduce another aspect of the body’s systems and their gemstone formulas in our Healing Gemstone News email.
As the project unfolds, I’ll send new insights, articles, videos, and exercises, and add excerpts to this page.
Isabelle Morton, B.S., is the founder of the Gemstone Therapy Institute and GEMFormulas and the original visionary behind Diamond and Gemstone Therapy, which she began developing in 1987. She continues to study and explore the therapeutic properties and applications of gemstones and Diamonds. Isabelle continues to expand her library of educational material. Thousands of people and pets around the world have benefited from her work. Her dream is to see Diamond and Gemstone Therapy recognized as meaningful energy medicine modalities.
