Stones of the Throat

10 stones.

Amazonite Opaque blue-green to soft turquoise, streaked and gridded with white where the feldspar has separated into fine bands. Amazonite was named for the Amazon in the eighteenth century, though nobody ever found the deposit there; the green stones traded from that river were probably something else entirely. It kept the name and gathered a reputation as the stone of plain speech. What the tradition asks of it is that you say the true thing without dressing it up. Read back what you just wrote with the amazonite in your hand. Cut every sentence that is only there to be liked. Then send it.
Apatite Transparent to translucent, most often a strong sea-blue or blue-green, also yellow, violet and colourless. Bright, glassy, and usually small. Apatite was named from the Greek for deceit, because it was forever being mistaken for other stones: beryl, tourmaline, peridot. The tradition turned the joke round and made it a stone of accurate seeing, a reminder that appetite and appearance both mislead, and that the honest question is what a thing actually is. Hold the apatite and name one thing you have been pretending about. Say the true version aloud. Then get back to work.
Aquamarine Transparent pale blue to blue-green, usually very clean; the colour deepens with size, and most stones are heated to take the green out. Aquamarine is beryl the colour of shallow sea. Pliny says the Indians cut beryls into long six-sided prisms because the colour looks dull otherwise, which is a jeweller's note rather than a magician's. Sailors carried it, and the lapidary line makes it a stone of safe passage and of speaking calmly under pressure, on the understanding that the two are the same skill. Hold the aquamarine and say the difficult sentence out loud to the empty room first. Then go and make the call.
Celestite Pale sky blue, sometimes colourless or faintly straw yellow; transparent tabular crystals with a glassy shine, usually standing in a geode 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. 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.
Chalcedony Translucent and waxy: milk white, pale grey or soft blue-grey, sometimes faintly banded. The look is half-lit rather than glassy. Chalcedony is quartz grown too fine to see, which gives it a waxy, half-lit look. It is the parent of agate, carnelian and onyx, but the pale grey-blue kind is its own stone. Roman seal-cutters favoured it because it takes a crisp intaglio and does not stick to warm wax. The lapidaries give it to speech, and to people who must say the same thing patiently many times over. Hold the chalcedony while you say, in a level voice, the thing you have already said five times, a sixth time.
Chrysocolla Opaque blue-green to sky-blue, often mottled or veined with black, brown and rust-coloured host rock; chalky where it is soft, glassy where quartz has hardened it. Chrysocolla means gold-glue. Pliny knew it as the green copper substance goldsmiths used to solder gold, and the lapidaries kept the name long after the trade changed. Tradition made it a stone of the throat, for the thing that is true, has waited years, and still has to be said out loud without shouting. Hold the chrysocolla and say the sentence you have been avoiding, quietly, to the empty room. Then wash your hands and say it to the person.
Kyanite Translucent to transparent blades of blue, paler at the edges and deeper along the central streaks; also grey, green, orange and near-black. It grows in flat, splintery fans. Kyanite's old name is disthene, two strengths, for the plain fact that it is soft along its length and hard across it. The lapidary tradition likes a stone that admits to being two things at once, and gives kyanite to people who must hold a difficult position and stay flexible about how they hold it. Lay the kyanite blade flat on your palm. Name the position you are keeping and the thing you will bend on. Both, out loud.
Larimar Opaque sea-blue to green-blue, mottled and marbled with white and sometimes rust-red, in patterns like sunlight falling through shallow water. Larimar is blue pectolite, found in one river valley in the Dominican Republic and nowhere else on earth. It was named in 1974, so there is no old lapidary standing behind it and honesty requires saying so plainly. Its use has grown quickly all the same, and it is now held as a calming stone, for the temper that runs hot and speaks faster than it thinks. Hold the larimar in your palm and take six slow breaths before you answer. Answer on the seventh, or do not answer at all.
Sodalite Opaque deep royal blue, marbled with white calcite veins, with occasional grey or violet patches. Sodalite came out of Greenland in 1811 and has no ancient lapidary behind it, so what it carries is recent and honest: a stone for people who think faster than they can speak. Practice gives it to teachers, witnesses and anyone who has to hold a line of argument steady while being interrupted. Before you speak, hold the sodalite and put what you mean into one sentence. Say that sentence. Then stop talking.
Turquoise Opaque sky-blue through to green, usually webbed or blotched with the brown or black rock it grew in, which dealers call matrix. The blue greens as the stone loses water or takes up oil. Persia mined it at Nishapur and put it on the bridle: turquoise is the horseman's stone, worn against a fall, and held to crack in the rider's place. Boodt wrote in 1609 that it changes colour with its owner's health, which it does, though the cause is oil and water, not omen. Tibet, the Pueblo peoples and the Dine all keep it as a stone of sky and rain. Put it in the bag you travel with and say where you are going and when you intend to be back.