Petrified Wood
Also Fossil wood, Silicified wood
Opaque brown, red, honey, grey and black in bands and streaks, with the growth rings, grain and sometimes the bark still readable; takes a glassy polish
- Crystal system
- Trigonal
- Hardness
- 6.5-7 Mohs
- Handling
- Silicified wood is quartz and behaves like it: hard, stable and safe in water. Some pieces keep patches of unreplaced wood or pyrite, and those crumble or rust if they are wetted, so keep a rough or flaky specimen dry and handle it gently.
- In water
- Safe
What it is held to be for
Petrified wood is a tree replaced cell by cell with silica. What you hold is quartz in the shape of timber, with the rings and often the bark still legible. The tradition takes it exactly as it looks: the past made solid and still readable. It is kept for ancestry, for long patience, and for anyone weighing whether a thing is worth another twenty years of their life.
Folk tradition
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Saturn
- Element
- Earth
- Signs
- Virgo, Capricorn
- Chinese phase
- Earth
- Year animal
- Ox, Dragon
- Centre
- Root Muladhara
- Sephirah
- Malkuth
How it is used
Kept as a piece on a shelf or a desk rather than carried, and often set near photographs of the family. Handled while a long decision is being made, then left alone for weeks at a time between handlings.
Today
Find the growth rings and count ten of them with a fingertip. That is ten years of a life. Then say what you want your next ten to hold.
A longer working
On a Saturday, put the petrified wood on a table with a sheet of paper. Write your grandparents' names, or the names of whoever raised you. Under each write one thing you took from them that you want to keep and one you would rather set down. Take your time and leave gaps where you do not know. Fold the paper and keep it with the stone. Read it again in a year, and add to it.
Works with
- Herb
- Oak
- Incense
- Pine resin