Iolite
Also Cordierite, Water sapphire, Dichroite
Transparent violet-blue, and famously two-faced: turn the stone and it shifts from blue to a smoky straw-yellow or almost nothing. That pleochroism is the whole character of it.
- Crystal system
- Orthorhombic
- Hardness
- 7-7.5 Mohs
- Handling
- Hard enough for daily wear, safe in water, and the colour is stable in light. It has one weakness: it parts easily along a single plane, so a sharp knock on an edge can split a stone clean in two, and it does not like an ultrasonic cleaner. Set it where it will not be struck.
- In water
- Safe
What it is held to be for
Iolite has no ancient name; it was described in 1813 and called after the Greek for violet. You will read that Norse navigators used it to find the sun through cloud. Treat that carefully: the sagas mention a sunstone without saying what it was, and no iolite has been found in a Norse burial. The modern tradition is milder, a stone for keeping your bearings.
Modern lapidary tradition; described 1813
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Jupiter
- Element
- Air
- Signs
- Sagittarius, Libra, Taurus
- Chinese phase
- Water
- Year animal
- Pig, Dragon
- Centre
- Brow Ajna
- Sephirah
- Chesed
How it is used
Worn as a pendant or carried when you are between things: moving house, changing work, leaving someone. Turn it in the light now and then, because watching one stone show two colours is most of the point.
Today
Turn the stone slowly in a window until the blue goes pale. Ask yourself which of the two colours today has been, and answer.
A longer working
On a Thursday, take a map or open one on a screen. Put the iolite on where you are now. Say aloud where you were five years ago and where you expect to be in five more. Move the stone to that second place. Look at the distance between the two marks without deciding anything. Leave the map out overnight with the stone on it. In the morning, write down the first practical step, and only the first.
Works with
- Herb
- Eyebright
- Incense
- Lavender