Agate
Also Achates, Moss agate
Banded chalcedony, translucent to opaque, in grey, white, brown, red and blue layers; a cut slice may show the bands as rings or as a landscape.
- Crystal system
- Trigonal
- Hardness
- 6.5-7 Mohs
- Handling
- Hard, tough and unproblematic. Safe in water, safe to wear daily, safe to handle. The one caution is dye: much cheap banded agate is stained in bright colours, and that dye can bleed in hot water and fade in sunlight. Undyed agate is one of the least demanding stones you can own.
- In water
- Safe
What it is held to be for
Agate is the tradition's stone of steadiness. Pliny takes the name from the river Achates in Sicily and reports that it was carried against scorpion and snake bite, and that athletes wore it to keep their nerve. Its bands are the point: the tradition reads a stone that grew in patient layers as an argument for doing the same.
Pliny, Natural History XXXVII, on achates; Theophrastus, On Stones
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Mercury, Saturn
- Element
- Earth
- Signs
- Gemini, Virgo
- Chinese phase
- Earth
- Year animal
- Ox, Dog
- Centre
- Root Muladhara
- Sephirah
- Malkuth
How it is used
Carried loose in a pocket, where a thumb can find it, or worn as a plain bead. Old practice puts an agate in the hand before a hard conversation and keeps it there until the shaking stops.
Today
Hold the agate and find one band with your thumbnail. Name one thing you will not be moved on today. Put it in your pocket.
A longer working
On a morning you expect to be difficult, wash the agate under the tap and dry it on a cloth. Sit with it in your closed left hand. Say aloud, once, the single thing you are holding to. Then move it to the right hand, stand, and carry it through the day. At night put it on the windowsill and leave it until morning. Repeat for three days if the matter is not settled.
Works with
- Herb
- Sage
- Incense
- Frankincense