Carnelian
Also Sard
Translucent orange to deep red-brown, sometimes banded. Held up to a lamp it glows through like a coal; the darker brown material is usually called sard.
- Crystal system
- Trigonal
- Hardness
- 6.5-7 Mohs
- Handling
- Safe in water and in salt, and hard enough for daily wear. Long direct sunlight can pale it, so do not leave it on a windowsill for a season. Much carnelian on sale is heat-treated agate, and that colour is stable.
- In water
- Safe
What it is held to be for
Pliny calls it sarda, after Sardis where it was first cut, and notes the practical reason it filled Roman signet rings: hot wax does not stick to it. Egypt cut it into amulets for the dead. Islamic tradition prizes the aqiq ring above other stones. Everywhere it turns up it is a stone of doing rather than dreaming, the one you take to the thing you have been avoiding.
Pliny XXXVII, on sarda
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Mars, Sun
- Element
- Fire
- Signs
- Aries, Leo, Virgo
- Chinese phase
- Fire
- Year animal
- Horse, Tiger
- Centre
- Sacral Svadhisthana
- Sephirah
- Geburah
How it is used
Worn on the working hand, or set on the desk where you can see it. It is a morning stone, taken up at the start of a task and put down when the task is done.
Today
Put it on the table beside your work. Do not touch it until you have done twenty minutes without stopping, then pick it up.
A longer working
At sunrise on a Tuesday, set the stone in the first light that reaches the room. Write one sentence saying what you will finish today, one sentence and not a list. Put the paper under the stone. Work. At the end of the day, if the thing is done, tear the paper up; if it is not, leave it under the stone and read it again tomorrow before you write anything new.
Works with
- Herb
- Marigold
- Incense
- Dragon's Blood