Sunstone
Also Aventurine feldspar, Heliolite
Translucent to opaque orange, honey or red-brown, flecked with metallic copper-coloured platelets that flash as it turns; Oregon material can be clear red or green.
- Crystal system
- Triclinic
- Hardness
- 6-6.5 Mohs
- Handling
- Safe in water and not toxic. Feldspar has two good cleavage directions, so it chips or splits on a sharp knock rather than scratching. Keep it out of a ring you wear roughly, and away from ultrasonic cleaners and sudden heat.
- In water
- Safe
What it is held to be for
Sunstone is feldspar shot through with tiny plates of copper or iron, so that when it turns the light inside it flashes. The tradition takes that literally and holds it a stone of warmth put back into a person, given to those who have made themselves small. Where citrine is for asking, sunstone is for being seen while you ask.
Folk tradition
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Sun
- Element
- Fire
- Signs
- Leo, Aries
- Chinese phase
- Fire
- Year animal
- Horse, Snake
- Centre
- Sacral Svadhisthana
- Sephirah
- Tiphereth
How it is used
Worn where daylight reaches it, as a ring or a pendant outside the collar, rather than kept in a pocket. Taken up before anything that means standing in front of other people.
Today
Hold the sunstone at a window and turn it until the flash comes. Say one thing you are good at, out loud, and go.
A longer working
At noon, or the brightest hour the day gives you, sit where the light falls. Turn the stone slowly until you find the angle at which it lights, and hold that angle. Name three things you have done that nobody thanked you for. Then set the stone down in the light and leave it there until evening. Take it up again the next time you have to speak for yourself.
Works with
- Herb
- St John's Wort
- Incense
- Copal