How the ancient Chinese nurture jade?
Nurturing your own unique jade is definitely the greatest joy in the jade collecting experience. Nurturing jade is the course of wearing the jade with you and providing extra care. Its the course of sublimation from a little caterpillar to the beautiful butterfly.
As I mentioned in previous article, according to the renowned literacy “Ancient Jade Identification” from 1700’s, the Art of Jade Nurturing could be categorized into: Gentle Nurturing, Intensive Nurturing, and Spiritual Nurturing.
1. Gentle Nurturing: Wearing the jade piece directly on your body. Warm the jade by your own human temperature and rub it with clean hands every day. If its an antique piece, then you need to place this piece in a beanbag and wear it directly on your body for the first year. 1 year later, you can let it touch your skin. The key is this jade piece shall absorb your body temperature and bond to your body.
2. Intensive Nurturing: Rubbing the antique jade piece intensively, to expedite the maturity. Usually the jade merchandisers adopt this method. After one year’s wearing, the hardness restores gradually. Then you can wrap it with an old white cotton cloth (colored cloth is not allowed), and rub it. In old days, the merchandisers would hire somebody to rub the jade day and night. Usually you need to change to another cloth after a period of time. When time goes by, the color and brightness of the jade piece would return. Of course, it takes much shorter time than Gentle Nurturing to recover an antique jade piece. While the shortcoming is the intensive force might hurt the piece, causing unrepairable damage. Sometime the invisible cracks could be generated.
3. Spiritual Nurturing: It is the course of combining yourself and your jade. It a journey to find yourself in your jade, and find the jade from yourself. Spiritual nurturing is holding and rubbing the jade during the meditation. Ancient Chinese believed the exquisite jade is the perfect birth on the earth by absorbing the elite from the nature. The spiritual nurturing is the interaction between you and your jade piece. The two parties absorb the best from each other, and nurture each other.
Ancient Chinese believed Jade Nurturing is an Art. Because you need to rub the rust away by your hands, from your heart. While if you don’t exert your strength properly, the delicate jade piece also can be destroyed in your own hands.
