Crystal · Late-found violet
Sugilite
- Chakra
- Third eye, Crown
- Element
- Water
- Planet
- Neptune
- Tarot
- Seven of Cups, The Hanged Man
Crystal correspondences are traditional; the descriptions are original to this site.
What Sugilite means
On Iwagi, a small Japanese island, the petrologist Ken-ichi Sugi and a colleague found the first sugilite in 1944, a dull yellowish-brown mineral later named in his honour. Its vivid violet turned up in the 1970s, in manganese-rich rock at the Wessels mine in South Africa's Kalahari manganese field.
Emotional properties
Try to name sugilite's colour and every word misses: purple is too plain, magenta too pink, grape too cheerful. Some feelings resist their words the same way, and forcing one on them too early only makes them harder to see. Describe what you feel instead, the way you might describe this violet to someone who has never seen it.
Spiritual properties
Look steadily at a piece of sugilite for thirty seconds, then shift your gaze to a blank white wall, and a pale yellow-green shape hangs there, the violet's opposite. The eye keeps working after the stone is gone. Let that after-image be the focus of a short sitting, and close your eyes once it fades.
Physical properties
Most sugilite reaches jewellers as smooth domed cabochons, a shape that sits neatly in the dip of a palm. Breathe out slowly while your thumb circles the dome once, and let the next breath in wait a moment before it comes. Three or four rounds slow a hurried breath without any counting.
Care and cleansing
Quartz can scratch sugilite's polish, so wrap it in cloth before it goes into a box with harder stones. Use a damp cloth to clean it, and let a candle burn beside it for an evening to charge it.
A question to sit with
Does an unnamed feeling deserve more time before you rush to label it?
Stones that share a chakra
- TanzaniteViolet from one hillside
- Tourmalinated quartzThreaded opposites
- ZirconAncient brilliance
- AlexandriteShifting light
- AmethystQuiet clarity
- AmetrineTwo minds joined
- AngeliteGentle sky
- ApatiteSharp focus