Sapphire
Also Blue corundum
Transparent corundum in every colour except red, which is called ruby instead. Classically cornflower to inky blue, but also yellow, green, pink and colourless, often with fine silk that can throw a star.
- Crystal system
- Trigonal
- Hardness
- 9 Mohs
- Handling
- Very hard, safe in water, and stable in light: it will outlast the setting it is in. Nearly all blue sapphire on the market is heat-treated, which is permanent and harmless. A smaller number are diffusion-treated or fracture-filled, and those can be spoiled by heat, acid or an ultrasonic cleaner, so ask before you clean one.
- In water
- Safe
What it is held to be for
In the Middle Ages sapphire was the stone of bishops and kings: Marbode holds that it keeps the limbs whole and makes peace between enemies, and clergy wore it to cool the body. Two cautions. The sapphire of the Bible is almost certainly lapis. And Agrippa lists the saphir among the things of Saturn, though the later tables and this library place it under Jupiter.
Marbode of Rennes, De lapidibus; Agrippa, Occult Philosophy I
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Jupiter, Saturn
- Element
- Air
- Signs
- Sagittarius, Virgo, Libra
- Chinese phase
- Water
- Year animal
- Rat, Ox
- Centre
- Brow Ajna
- Sephirah
- Chesed
How it is used
Worn as a ring, daily and for years, because it is hard enough for that. Put on for anything that requires you to be believed: a hearing, a vow, a difficult truth told to someone who will not want it.
Today
Wash it under the tap. Put it on and say one true thing you have been softening, in the plainest words you have.
A longer working
Thursday, at first light. Set the sapphire on a clean sheet of paper. Write down the promise you are about to make, or the judgement you are about to give, in one sentence. Leave both, stone on paper, until the same hour the next day. Read the sentence again cold. If you would still write it, wear the stone and act. If you would not, burn the paper and say so to whoever was waiting.
Works with
- Herb
- Borage
- Incense
- Star Anise