Stones for Grief

16 stones.

Amber Transparent to cloudy honey-yellow through orange to deep red-brown, often with insects, bark or bubbles caught inside; rare green and blue forms exist. Amber is not stone. It is the resin of pine forests that stood tens of millions of years ago, hardened and washed out of the Baltic. Pliny knew this and said so, against the poets who called it the tears of Phaethon's sisters. It has been worn as a protective amulet longer than almost any other material, and Pliny reports it hung on infants for that reason. Warm a piece of amber in your closed hand until it is blood temperature. Say the name of somebody you have lost. Put it in your pocket.
Apache Tear A rounded pebble, black and opaque by reflected light, but clear smoky brown all through when held up to a lamp; often frosted grey where the enclosing rock has weathered off An Apache tear is a nodule of obsidian weathered free of its rock. Black in the hand, it is clear brown when held up to a lamp. The name comes from a nineteenth-century Arizona story of women weeping for warriors lost at the cliff, their tears falling as stone. It is folk tradition and no older. It is kept for grief carried while ordinary life goes on. Hold it up to a window or a lamp until you can see light through it. Then close your hand and let yourself feel whatever that brought up.
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.
Chrysoprase Translucent apple-green to deep green, evenly coloured rather than banded, with a waxy rather than glassy shine. Pliny lists chrysoprasus among the green stones, and medieval Europe prized the Silesian material enough to line chapel walls with it. Its tradition is gentler than emerald's. Where emerald is the long vow, chrysoprase is recovery, and practice gives it to people coming out of a bad year, on the argument that green returns to ground that was burnt. Hold the chrysoprase and name one thing that is better now than it was a year ago. Say it aloud, even if it is small.
Jet Opaque velvet black to very dark brown, taking a deep polish; unusually light in the hand and warm to the touch, never cold like stone Jet is wood that sank in a Jurassic sea and turned to coal. Pliny calls it gagates, after a river in Lycia, and reports that burning it drove off snakes. Rubbed on cloth it takes a charge and lifts a hair. Whitby cut it by the ton after Victoria's widowhood, so it is the stone of English mourning, and the tradition keeps it for exactly that. Hold it until it is as warm as your hand. Say the name of what you have lost. Then put it in your pocket and go about the day.
Kunzite Transparent pink to lilac, palest at the edges. Strongly pleochroic: turn the crystal and the colour deepens along its length, then almost drains away. Kunzite is a young stone. George Kunz described it in 1902 from Pala in California, and everything said about it since has been said in a hundred years, not a thousand. The tradition that grew up is consistent: a stone for a heart that has taken a blow. Venus claims it for its colour and for the gentleness of its work. Hold it in your closed hand and name, out loud, the one person you are still angry with. Then put it in a dark drawer.
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.
Lepidolite Lilac to rose-purple, sometimes grey, with a pearly sheen; either a glittering mass of small mica plates or a solid violet stone, often shot through with pink tourmaline Lepidolite is a lithium mica, named in 1792 from the Greek for scale, because it splits into glittering flakes. The lithium is genuinely there but bound in the rock, and it does nothing to the person holding the stone. The tradition keeps it for the low weeks: not a crisis, but the flat stretch where the work is simply to keep going until the season turns. Put it where you make your morning drink. Touch it while the kettle boils and name one thing you will do today that is entirely for yourself.
Morganite Transparent pale pink to peach or salmon, the colour often faint enough that stones are cut deep to hold it. Morganite is pink beryl, named in 1911 by the gemmologist George Kunz for the banker J. P. Morgan, whose mineral collection he had bought. It is the youngest stone in this part of the library, and its tradition is correspondingly plain: the clarity of the beryl family turned towards tenderness. Practice gives it for patience with people, including yourself. Touch the morganite and think of whoever is annoying you most. Give them one more chance than you meant to give.
Pearl Opaque white, cream, rose, gold, grey or black, with a soft inner glow called orient that comes from the layering of the nacre rather than from any pigment. A pearl is not a stone. It is nacre, laid down in fine layers by a living mollusc around something that irritated it, and that is the whole of its meaning in the tradition: the grain of sand answered with patience. Pliny puts pearls in his book on sea creatures rather than his book on gems, and tells there how Cleopatra dissolved one in vinegar to win a wager. Put on the pearl and name, silently, the thing that hurt and the thing you made of it afterwards. Wear it for the day.
Rhodochrosite Banded rose-pink and white in stalactite slices, or transparent raspberry-red rhombs where it has grown as clear crystals. The Argentine deposits were worked from old Inca silver mines, which is where the name Inca rose comes from. Banded pink and white, it became the tradition's stone of returning delight, given to people who have grown competent and joyless. The lapidary line is simple enough: it is held to remember what you liked before you learned to be sensible. Hold the rhodochrosite and name one thing you loved doing at ten years old. Then do fifteen minutes of it today.
Rhodonite Opaque to slightly translucent rose-pink to red, nearly always webbed and patched with black manganese oxide. Rhodonite is rose-pink shot through with black, and the tradition never separates the two. This is the stone of love that has been damaged and is being kept anyway. Russia mined it as orlets and cut it for the imperial court. Practice gives it after a betrayal or a family falling-out, and to anyone who must forgive without pretending nothing happened. Hold the rhodonite and trace one black vein with your thumb. Name the harm honestly. Then name one thing you will still do for them.
Rose Quartz Translucent and cloudy rather than clear, in pale to dusky pink; the haze comes from microscopic fibres running through the quartz. Rose quartz has no ancient citation to lean on and does not need one; the folk line is unbroken and specific. It is the stone of ordinary affection rather than desire, of the love you already have and have stopped noticing. Practice gives it to the grieving and the newly alone as readily as to lovers, and that is the older use. Hold the rose quartz and think of one person you love and have not told. Send them a message now saying so.
Smoky Quartz Transparent to translucent smoky brown or grey, from a faint tint to almost black; six-sided prisms with a pointed termination Smoky quartz is quartz that has stood for ages in the ground beside something radioactive. The colour is the record of that. In Scotland it is cairngorm, set in dirk hilts and shoulder brooches, which gives it a real national history. The tradition gives it to Saturn and keeps it for weight: it is held to take the charge out of a mood without dulling the person. Sit with it in your lap for five minutes, both feet flat on the floor. Breathe out for longer than you breathe in. Then put it down and stand up.
Sugilite Opaque purple, running from a soft lilac-grey to an intense magenta-violet, usually mottled or veined and often carrying black manganese oxide or brown patches. Only rarely translucent at an edge. There is no lapidary behind sugilite. A pale form was found in Japan in 1944 and named for the geologist who described it; the deep purple that made its name came out of the Wessels Mine in South Africa in 1979. Everything ascribed to it has been ascribed since about 1980, and mostly by people working with the dying and the bereaved. That is a young tradition, said plainly. Put it in the hand of someone who is having a bad week and say nothing about crystals. Let them keep it.