Celestite
Also Celestine
Pale sky blue, sometimes colourless or faintly straw yellow; transparent tabular crystals with a glassy shine, usually standing in a geode
- Crystal system
- Orthorhombic
- Hardness
- 3-3.5 Mohs
- Handling
- Soft, brittle and cleanly cleaved, so a cluster loses crystals if it is handled. The blue fades badly and permanently in sunlight; keep it in shade or in a drawer. Water dulls the crystal faces, so keep it dry and dust it with a soft brush rather than rinsing it.
- In water
- No
What it is held to be for
Celestite was named in 1799 for its colour, from the Latin caelestis, of the sky. It has almost no old lore, because the fine crystals come from geodes opened only in the last two centuries. What tradition it has is about stillness. It is a strontium mineral, pale and soft and easily ruined, and the practice built around it treats it the same way, kept in one quiet place.
Folk tradition; named 1799 from Latin caelestis
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Venus, Mercury
- Element
- Air
- Signs
- Libra, Gemini
- Chinese phase
- Water
- Year animal
- Rat, Rabbit
- Centre
- Throat Vishuddha
- Sephirah
- Netzach
How it is used
Set on a bedside table or a shelf in the room where you sleep, out of direct sun. Never in a bag or a pocket, where the crystals snap off. A stone to look at rather than handle.
Today
Put it where you can see it from your pillow. Before sleep, look at it and say the one thing you are going to stop thinking about tonight.
A longer working
For seven nights, leave your phone in another room and sit with the celestite for two minutes before bed. No task, no reading, only the stone and the lamp. On the seventh night write down what your sleep has been like across the week, honestly, including the bad nights. If it has improved at all, keep the two minutes and give the stone that shelf permanently.
Works with
- Herb
- Lavender
- Incense
- Benzoin