this is one of my favorite rocks...
and living here in california makes it abundantly available.
Just a little over an hour north of me, up in Lake County, is Mt. Konocti, which is a fairly young, currently inactive (though not extinct
) cinder cone volcano. Near it, on Bottle Rock Road, is a road cut that exposes a 60 foot high wall of obsidian! To get great pieces all one must do is pull over and pick them up (we use leather gloves Laurel
). The rock face fractures often because of the road and the road crews scoop it up and pile it nicely by the wayside (the road cut is over a hundred years old and the source of the road name). I’ve seen trucks and tractors at the cut picking up big boulders for commercial rock resellers. The county loves it cuz that’s less work for the crews!
My primary use for obsidian is grounding and warding. At each of the corners of our house I’ve buried pieces to form a psychic ward system. I have several large pieces that I use for grounding and internal warding.