Chrysocolla
Also Gem silica, Eilat stone
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.
- Crystal system
- Monoclinic
- Hardness
- 2-4 Mohs
- Handling
- A copper mineral, and toxic. Its dust and powder are poisonous: never grind, sand, saw or drill it, wet or dry, and never breathe anything that comes off it. Never put chrysocolla in water and never make an elixir with it, not even indirectly; water and acid attack the surface and carry copper into the liquid. It is also soft and crumbly, and sweat, vinegar and lemon will eat it. Handle sealed, polished pieces only, keep it away from food and children, and wash your hands afterwards.
- In water
- No
What it is held to be for
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.
Pliny, Natural History XXXIII, on chrysocolla, the goldsmiths' solder
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Mercury, Venus
- Element
- Water
- Signs
- Gemini, Taurus
- Chinese phase
- Water
- Year animal
- Snake, Rat
- Centre
- Throat Vishuddha
- Sephirah
- Binah
How it is used
Worn at the throat or held in the hand while talking, and mostly kept for hard conversations. Sealed, polished pieces only, and hands washed after; this is a copper mineral, not a bath stone.
Today
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.
A longer working
Pick a Wednesday and a thing you have not said to someone who deserves to hear it. Sit with the stone dry in your palm, never in water, and say the thing aloud three times: once angrily, once flatly, once kindly. Keep the third version. Put the stone away, wash your hands, and say it to them within the week. If the week passes, the working is unfinished. Begin again.
Works with
- Herb
- Mullein
- Incense
- Copal