Crystal · Carbon from deep time
Shungite
- Chakra
- Root
- Element
- Earth
- Planet
- Saturn
- Tarot
- Four of Pentacles, The Devil
Crystal correspondences are traditional; the descriptions are original to this site.
What Shungite means
Near the shore of Lake Onega, in Russia's Karelia region, carbon-rich mud laid down about two billion years ago hardened into a black rock whose richest seams are almost pure carbon. The geologist Alexander Inostrantsev named it in 1879 after the nearby village of Shunga.
Emotional properties
Grief and worry both like to spread past their own edges, colouring a whole week instead of the hour that caused them. Shungite's flat black offers nothing for that spreading feeling to catch on, no vein, no glint, no pattern to follow. Hold it through the hour that actually hurts, and let the rest of the week stay its own colour.
Spiritual properties
Shungite's carbon never settled into the orderly lattice of a diamond or a flake of graphite; it stayed disordered. Unlike a crystal point, it asks for no admiration; it simply persists, plain and unlit. Remember that plainness when a task in front of you keeps demanding to be made impressive before it is allowed to matter.
Physical properties
Pick up a piece of shungite and it is lighter than its black suggests, with a dry, matte surface like pencil lead where it is unpolished. After a shift of fussy, careful work, roll it once across the palm and let the fingers open wide around it. Precision can wait for tomorrow.
Care and cleansing
Shungite sheds a fine black dust, so keep it off pale fabric and wash the dust off your hands afterwards. Rinse off the loose dust under the tap to cleanse it, then set it out under a full moon to charge. A lidded tin of its own keeps the dust from greying its neighbours.
A question to sit with
What feeling have you let colour a whole week that only actually lasted an hour?
Stones that share a chakra
- Smoky quartzGrounded and unhurried
- Snowflake obsidianPattern in the glass
- SpinelQuiet, true fire
- Tiger's eyeGolden vigilance
- Tourmalinated quartzThreaded opposites
- TourmalineLive current
- UnakiteMottled balance
- VanadiniteContained blaze