Rose Quartz
Also Pink quartz, Star rose quartz
Translucent and cloudy rather than clear, in pale to dusky pink; the haze comes from microscopic fibres running through the quartz.
- Crystal system
- Trigonal
- Hardness
- 7 Mohs
- Handling
- Hard, tough and safe in water. Its one real weakness is light: rose quartz fades. Months on a sunny windowsill will take a strong pink down to a dull grey-white, and the colour does not come back. Keep it in a drawer, a pouch, or on a shaded shelf, and it will outlast you.
- In water
- Safe
What it is held to be for
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.
Folk tradition
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Venus, Moon
- Element
- Water
- Signs
- Taurus, Libra
- Chinese phase
- Earth
- Year animal
- Goat, Rabbit
- Centre
- Heart Anahata
- Sephirah
- Netzach
How it is used
Kept where the household passes: a kitchen shelf, a bedside table, a bathroom sill out of the sun. Carried in a pocket through the first weeks of a loss. Given away as often as it is kept.
Today
Hold the rose quartz and think of one person you love and have not told. Send them a message now saying so.
A longer working
On a Friday evening, wash the rose quartz under the tap and dry it. Sit down with it and name three people aloud: one you love easily, one you love with difficulty, and yourself. For each, say a single true and kind sentence. If you cannot find one for the third, sit there until you can. Put the stone by the bed, out of the light, and sleep. Do it again the following Friday.
Works with
- Herb
- Rose
- Incense
- Benzoin