For 12 years, business owner and reiki master Grace Hodge specialised in bringing the wonders of precious stones like amethyst and rose quartz to markets in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty.
With a priority on selling ethically sourced crystals, she worked hard to offer stones from suppliers who ensure workers receive fair pay and safe working conditions. Ethically sourced stones are also mined with minimal environmental impact, she said.
Since starting her brand Thieves & Co during a school photography assignment, she has grown to find her own strengths within the wellness industry. With a masters in reiki, she said her next goal is to become a reiki teacher. In March 2025, she will move to Bali to do it.
“It’s taken me three years to get to the point to make the decision, but I’ve been in Hamilton, single, no kids, and I just thought why am I here?”
“It hasn’t been easy, I’ve had to sell a house, sell a business, I’m going to have to leave my dog behind. It’s hard to do things on your own as well, but I think I’d feel a lot worse if I didn’t,” she said.
Building a loyal customer base
At her market stalls and online, Grace said her stalls in Hamilton and the Bay of Plenty attracted “likeminded” people.
She also specialised in making handcrafted smudge sticks and sourced many of the ingredients from her garden. Customers who became friends over the years told Digital Serum they would miss Grace’s expertise in healing practices, and her diligence to source the tools needed for them.
Carefully curated angel cards, smudge sticks, stones and palo santo are just some of the goodies Grace made available in Bay of Plenty.
Looking back, as a health practitioner; ethically sourcing crystals had been a main priority for her brand.
“I never say 100% that I’m an ethically sourced business, but I do always work my absolute hardest.”
As a business owner working in the ethical sourcing space, she said New Zealand’s health and safety standards are stricter than other countries.
“What I find really difficult with crystals is that our health and safety laws here are very strict and they’re not going to be the same in a third world country.
“So, it might be normal in a mine that they don’t have shoes on, but that, by our laws, wouldn’t be ethical, but by theirs could be.
“It can be a tricky one to 100% say that I know the courier driver here is paid fairly,” she said.
Amethyst is one of the most common quartzes found on earth and is affected by radioactivity in the earth. What makes the geode so valuable is where it grows, and the lengths gone to extract it.
One place it serves as a key economic resource is northern Uruguay. There, amethyst geodes are found in cooled lava flows that date back to the original breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana around 134 million years ago.
Large geodes weighing 26 tons can fetch over $1m in South America. Once mined, raw materials are transformed by artisans using diamond discs before they reach stalls like Grace’s.
“I have done a lot of travel to go and meet suppliers and work directly with the family. I just believe because you’re working with energy, you need to have that exchange of energy with them because you quickly get a feel if they’re the type of person you want to work for.
“Their energy is going into that stone.
“So it’s so important that you know where it comes from and how it’s been sourced,” Grace said.
Journalist at The Wall Street Journal, Alexandra Wexler reported on a miner in South Africa who said mining for crystals is “back breaking.” She digs for around 10 to 12 hours a day and takes just one Sunday off each month.
“My back, hands and shoulders are always in pain by the end of the day,” the miner who earns an average of about $4 a day.”
Countries known for mining crystal quartz include China, India, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar; unfortunately, largely by informal miners without protective equipment like reinforced boots or helmets, Wexler wrote.
Specialising in the sales side of the quartz and mining sector, Grace felt strongly about shining a light on ethical trade in the mining industry. She hoped her customers considered where they bought their precious stones from too.
“When I started at 19, that stuff didn’t really matter. Everyone was shopping on AliExpress and, you know, now I guess there’s Temu and all of this too, but I feel like it’s shifted a lot.
“I’ve learned a lot more and sourcing crystals got more accessible, people are also willing to pay a bit more because they want to get it.”
“I would say I know the most about the energetic and spiritual side of it, but I struggle a lot.
“There’s a lot to remember, every stone you need to remember where it came from, it’s scientific makeup and geological structure, plus it’s like spiritual and energetic meaning.
“And it’s just a lot, but my brain remembers that that energetic side a lot better.”
Check out the video interview on TikTok below:
SERUM 
Leave a comment