Before the cabinet
Crystal care and ethics
What the stone is, who dug it, and why it is not a medicine or a water flavor.
A crystal is a mineral, a rock, a glass, a resin, or a trade name. It can be beautiful. It can focus attention. It does not treat disease, and it does not reliably protect you from a person who means harm. Locks, friends, and boundaries do that, when anything does.
No elixirs
Do not soak stones in water you intend to drink. Some, like malachite, carry copper. Some, like pyrite, break down. Some, like selenite, are soft gypsum and simply dissolve into a mess. “Clear quartz is probably fine” is still not a recipe we will print. Drink ordinary water.
Care
- Salt scratching is real. Do not bury soft or metallic stones in salt and call it a cleanse.
- Sun fades some color and heats stones enough to crack or to burn a sill.
- Water is a problem for gypsum, for anything porous or metal-rich, and for opal if you shock it.
- Dust with a cloth. That is the unromantic maintenance.
Provenance
Mining has labor and land costs. Turquoise is often stabilized, dyed, or faked with howlite and plastic. Amber is often plastic. Citrine is often heated amethyst. Jade might be jadeite, nephrite, or dyed quartzite. Ask sellers what the material is. “Energy” is not a species. If you cannot afford an ethical specimen, use glass, paper, or nothing. The rites still work as rites of attention.