Tiger's eye

Chakra

Solar plexus, Root

Element

Fire

Planet

Mercury

Signs

Gemini, Leo, Capricorn

Tarot

Ace of Wands, Strength

Crystal correspondences are traditional; the descriptions are original to this site.

What Tiger's eye means

Quartz and fibres of crocidolite, a blue asbestos, grew side by side in a crack that opened and sealed again many times, and those packed fibres throw the gold band of light across tiger's eye. It slides as the stone turns, the way light crosses a cat's eye.

Emotional properties

Pocket tiger's eye on the morning you mean to stop reopening a settled choice, the job accepted, the lease signed, the apology already sent. Turn it over as often as you like and its stripes stay exactly where they formed. The choice can stay put the same way; checking it once more will not make it any more yours.

Spiritual properties

Left unoxidised, tiger's eye stays a cooler blue-grey known as hawk's eye, and only long ages of iron slowly rusting give it that famous gold. Something in you may be at the same stage, a change already underway that has not yet reached the surface. Patience here is not passive; the iron is working the whole time nobody is watching it.

Physical properties

Polished tiger's eye is as silky to the thumb as it is to the eye, with no edge anywhere to catch on. Quick hands and quick feet are its kind of work, a game of catch, a crowded platform, a toddler who has just learned to run. In those moments the body answers before the mind has finished deciding.

Care and cleansing

The quartz seals its asbestos fibres in, so polished pieces are safe to handle, but never sand, cut or grind a rough piece at home. It is tough in every other way: rinse it under the tap, charge it with a morning on a sunlit step, and carry it in a cloth pouch.

A question to sit with

Name the task you keep glancing at instead of meeting head-on: what would the first move be?