Stones of Aquarius
7 stones.
- Amazonite Opaque blue-green to soft turquoise, streaked and gridded with white where the feldspar has separated into fine bands. Amazonite was named for the Amazon in the eighteenth century, though nobody ever found the deposit there; the green stones traded from that river were probably something else entirely. It kept the name and gathered a reputation as the stone of plain speech. What the tradition asks of it is that you say the true thing without dressing it up. Read back what you just wrote with the amazonite in your hand. Cut every sentence that is only there to be liked. Then send it.
- Amber Transparent to cloudy honey-yellow through orange to deep red-brown, often with insects, bark or bubbles caught inside; rare green and blue forms exist. Amber is not stone. It is the resin of pine forests that stood tens of millions of years ago, hardened and washed out of the Baltic. Pliny knew this and said so, against the poets who called it the tears of Phaethon's sisters. It has been worn as a protective amulet longer than almost any other material, and Pliny reports it hung on infants for that reason. Warm a piece of amber in your closed hand until it is blood temperature. Say the name of somebody you have lost. Put it in your pocket.
- Amethyst Transparent purple, from pale lilac to a deep grape, and the colour is usually uneven: it sits in bands, or gathers in the crystal tips and thins away towards the base. The name is Greek and means not drunken. Pliny reports the promise, wear it and you will not be overcome by wine, and says the magi lie when they claim more. The Church kept it anyway: amethyst is the bishop's stone. Agrippa's own tables list it among the things of Mars; the later planetary tables give it to Jupiter, and that is the line taken here. Put it under your pillow before you go out for the evening. When you come home, hold it and decide honestly whether the night was as good as it felt.
- Apatite Transparent to translucent, most often a strong sea-blue or blue-green, also yellow, violet and colourless. Bright, glassy, and usually small. Apatite was named from the Greek for deceit, because it was forever being mistaken for other stones: beryl, tourmaline, peridot. The tradition turned the joke round and made it a stone of accurate seeing, a reminder that appetite and appearance both mislead, and that the honest question is what a thing actually is. Hold the apatite and name one thing you have been pretending about. Say the true version aloud. Then get back to work.
- Aquamarine Transparent pale blue to blue-green, usually very clean; the colour deepens with size, and most stones are heated to take the green out. Aquamarine is beryl the colour of shallow sea. Pliny says the Indians cut beryls into long six-sided prisms because the colour looks dull otherwise, which is a jeweller's note rather than a magician's. Sailors carried it, and the lapidary line makes it a stone of safe passage and of speaking calmly under pressure, on the understanding that the two are the same skill. Hold the aquamarine and say the difficult sentence out loud to the empty room first. Then go and make the call.
- Selenite Colourless to white: glassy and transparent in blades, silky and fibrous as satin spar, or bladed into rosettes. It splits into thin flexible sheets. Selenite is gypsum grown clear, in blades and sheets that peel apart like glass. The Romans quarried it as lapis specularis and glazed their windows with it, so it is literally a stone you can see through. The later tradition makes it the cleaner of the shelf: the piece other stones are laid against, held to take off whatever they have gathered. Lay your other stones on the selenite tonight and leave them until morning. Keep it dry, and let nothing wet near it.
- Turquoise Opaque sky-blue through to green, usually webbed or blotched with the brown or black rock it grew in, which dealers call matrix. The blue greens as the stone loses water or takes up oil. Persia mined it at Nishapur and put it on the bridle: turquoise is the horseman's stone, worn against a fall, and held to crack in the rider's place. Boodt wrote in 1609 that it changes colour with its owner's health, which it does, though the cause is oil and water, not omen. Tibet, the Pueblo peoples and the Dine all keep it as a stone of sky and rain. Put it in the bag you travel with and say where you are going and when you intend to be back.