Ruby
Also Red corundum, Carbuncle
Transparent to translucent red, from pinkish through to the deep tone dealers call pigeon's blood. Fine silk-like inclusions are common and can give a six-rayed star when the stone is cut domed.
- Crystal system
- Trigonal
- Hardness
- 9 Mohs
- Handling
- Nothing but diamond scratches it, and it is safe in water and stable in light. The caution is treatment, not the mineral: fracture-filled and glass-filled rubies are common in cheap jewellery, and the filling is damaged by heat, by acid, by a jeweller's torch and sometimes by an ultrasonic cleaner. Ask what you are buying.
- In water
- Safe
What it is held to be for
Sanskrit calls it ratnaraja, king of gems. Medieval lapidaries, Marbode among them, hold that it drives off sadness and that it darkens to warn its wearer of coming trouble. Note the disagreement: Western planetary tables give ruby to Mars, while Indian astrology gives it to the Sun and will not let a weak Sun wear one. Both traditions agree it is a stone of rank.
Marbode of Rennes, De lapidibus; Pliny XXXVII, on carbunculus
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Mars, Sun
- Element
- Fire
- Signs
- Aries, Leo, Scorpio
- Chinese phase
- Fire
- Year animal
- Horse, Dragon
- Centre
- Heart Anahata
- Sephirah
- Tiphareth
How it is used
Worn where it can be seen: a ring, a pendant at the throat. It is put on for the thing that must be walked into, the interview, the confrontation, the stage, and taken off afterwards.
Today
Put it on. Stand up straight, say the first sentence of what you have to say, out loud, to the mirror. Then go.
A longer working
The hour before the thing you dread. Set the ruby in your palm and name three occasions you were frightened and went anyway. Say each one aloud, in order, oldest first. Close your hand on the stone and count ten slow breaths. Then wear it, and do not look at it again until the thing is over. Take it off the moment you are through the door on the other side.
Works with
- Herb
- Basil
- Incense
- Cinnamon