Diamond
Also Adamas, Adamant
Transparent and colourless at its finest, but also yellow, brown, grey and rarely pink, blue or green; the lustre is unlike any other stone, hard and oily-bright, throwing sharp flashes of spectral colour when it is cut.
- Crystal system
- Cubic
- Hardness
- 10 Mohs
- Handling
- Genuinely straightforward. It is pure carbon, chemically inert, unharmed by water, salt, acid or sunlight, and at 10 on Mohs nothing else in the house will scratch it. Two real cautions. It has perfect cleavage in four directions, so a sharp knock on the right plane splits it clean, which is exactly how cutters part rough stones. And because it scratches everything, it must be stored on its own and never loose in a bag with softer stones. Grease clings to it and dulls the shine; warm water and washing-up liquid with a soft brush is all it needs.
- In water
- Safe
What it is held to be for
Adamas means unconquerable, and that is its whole old meaning. Pliny reports that it defeats the hammer and the anvil, and repeats the story that only goat's blood will break it. The lapidaries gave it invulnerability rather than romance: proof against poison and fear. Western tables put it under the Sun, Indian astrology under Venus. Its link with betrothal is modern, built largely by De Beers advertising from 1947.
Pliny, Natural History XXXVII, on adamas; Crowley, 777 (Kether)
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Sun, Venus
- Element
- Fire
- Signs
- Aries, Leo, Taurus
- Chinese phase
- Metal
- Year animal
- Rooster, Dragon
- Centre
- Crown Sahasrara
- Sephirah
- Kether
How it is used
Worn rather than carried: a ring, a stud, an inherited stone. Put it on for what you have decided and will not be argued out of. Wash it in warm soapy water when it dulls; grease clings to it.
Today
Put the diamond on. Name one decision you will not reverse, out loud, once. Take it off only when the decision has been carried out.
A longer working
On a Sunday, in daylight, write down the one thing you have been deciding for months. Write it as a single sentence, in the present tense, with no conditions attached. Set the diamond on the paper. Read the sentence aloud three times, and each time cut a word you do not need. Fold the paper once and put it where you keep documents, not where you keep keepsakes. Wear the stone until the first irreversible step is taken.
Works with
- Herb
- Rosemary
- Incense
- Frankincense