Jet
Also Gagate, Black amber
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
- Crystal system
- Amorphous
- Hardness
- 2.5-4 Mohs
- Handling
- Fossilised wood, organic, and very soft, so it scratches on almost anything in a pocket, keys included. It is a coal and it will burn. Keep it from heat and direct sun, which dry it and craze the surface. Do not soak it and do not use solvents. Polish it with a soft dry cloth.
- In water
- No
What it is held to be for
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.
Pliny XXXVI, on gagates; Whitby mourning trade
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Saturn
- Element
- Earth
- Signs
- Capricorn, Scorpio
- Chinese phase
- Water
- Year animal
- Pig, Dog
- Centre
- Root Muladhara
- Sephirah
- Binah
How it is used
Worn against the skin in the first weeks after a loss, as a bead on a cord or a small carved piece in a breast pocket. Traditionally kept close for a year and then put away deliberately.
Today
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.
A longer working
On the evening of a new Moon, sit with the jet and one object that belonged to what you lost. Speak plainly for as long as you need. There is no form of words for this; the truth of it will do. When you have finished, wrap the jet in cloth and set it by the bed. Leave it there for a month. At the next new Moon, decide whether to carry it further or to put it away.
Works with
- Herb
- Rosemary
- Incense
- Cypress