Calcite
Also Yellow calcite, Orange calcite, Green calcite, Blue calcite, Iceland spar
Transparent to opaque in almost any colour: glass-clear as Iceland spar, and commonly honey yellow, orange, green, pale blue, pink or chalky white. Clear pieces show every line beneath them doubled.
- Crystal system
- Trigonal
- Hardness
- 3 Mohs
- Handling
- Soft, and it dissolves. At 3 on Mohs a coin, a key or another stone in the same pocket will scratch it, and a fingernail marks a poor piece. Acid attacks it outright: vinegar, lemon juice, a fizzy drink or a splash of cleaning spray will fizz the surface and eat the polish away. Plain water dulls and clouds it over time, and rain is acid enough to matter. Keep it dry, brush the dust off with something soft instead of washing it, and never put it in a drink or make an elixir with it.
- In water
- No
What it is held to be for
Calcite is the commonest carbonate on earth: limestone, marble, chalk, shell and stalactite are all this one mineral. It has little old lore, because it was never rare. What practice it has is modern and follows colour — yellow and orange to the Sun, green to Venus, blue to the Moon and the voice. Clear Iceland spar doubles anything seen through it, which Bartholin described in 1669.
Pliny, Natural History XXXVI, on marble and lime; Bartholin, Experimenta crystalli Islandici (1669)
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Sun, Moon
- Element
- Water
- Signs
- Cancer, Leo
- Chinese phase
- Earth
- Year animal
- Ox, Goat
- Centre
- Solar plexus Manipura
- Sephirah
- Yesod
How it is used
Kept on a shelf or in a cabinet, and handled little: a coin in the same pocket will scratch it. Choose the colour for the work, and keep one piece for one thing rather than a bowl of them.
Today
Wipe the dust off your calcite with a dry cloth. Name one thing in the house you have been meaning to throw out, and throw it out now.
A longer working
In the last quarter of the Moon, take the calcite and a dry cloth into the room that has gone worst. Clear one surface completely — not the whole room, one surface. Wipe it. Set the calcite in the middle of it and say what that surface is for. Put back only the things that serve it. Repeat on a different surface each evening until the new Moon, then put the stone away.
Works with
- Herb
- Chamomile
- Incense
- Mastic