The Wilde AltarA developing queer pagan library
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Gay-led and LGBTQ+ affirming. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, nonbinary, intersex, asexual, questioning people, and respectful allies are welcome. No role here is assigned by anatomy or orientation.

Crystal cabinet

Rhodonite

Rhodonite, a manganese silicate, often cut with its black manganese-oxide veins.

The usual ornamental piece is opaque pink to rose, netted with black veins and patches of manganese oxide, sometimes with gray or brown. Crystals are less common in the gift shop than the massive veined rock. It should not show the bacon-like concentric bands of banded rhodochrosite, and it should not scratch as easily as that carbonate does.

What it actually is

Material identity
Name used hereRhodonite
Mineral or materialRhodonite, a manganese silicate, often cut with its black manganese-oxide veins.
HardnessAbout Mohs 5.5 to 6.5, varying with the piece.
How it formsRhodonite forms in metamorphic manganese deposits and in some hydrothermal settings, with the black oxides weathering or crystallizing alongside it. The pink is manganese in a silicate, a harder chemistry than the carbonate cousin.

Trade names and mix-ups

Rhodonite is frequently confused with rhodochrosite, which is a softer manganese carbonate with pink and white bands rather than pink with black cracks. Fowlerite is a zinc-bearing variety, a specialist's word. Pink dyed howlite and plastic take the color and skip the mineral; if a seller says pink rhodonite and the piece has no black veins and a waxy candy look, ask more questions.

Care

Harder than rhodochrosite, but still scratchable and not fond of acids, knocks, or salt. Wipe with a damp cloth and dry. Do not soak, do not store in a salt bowl, and do not scrub the black veins as if they were dirt; they are part of the rock. Sun is unnecessary. Dust gently.

Provenance

Ornamental rhodonite has been quarried in Russia, Australia, Sweden, and elsewhere, sometimes as a carving stone for large vases rather than as a mystical small. Manganese mining has its own environmental bill; buy a modest piece, refuse a forgiveness surcharge, and do not accept rhodochrosite under this name just because both are pink.

Symbolism

  • the black vein and the pink field
  • a fair note
  • repair that does not erase
  • contrast you can see

Folklore, only where it exists

Rhodonite was named in the early nineteenth century from the Greek for rose, which already tells you not to expect a classical cult. Russian stone workers used the veined rock, orlets in the trade, for grand decorative objects in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. That is a lapidary history. The metaphysical assignment, emotional balance, forgiveness, and the healing of betrayal, is modern and often described as if the black veins were scars with a program. They are manganese oxides. The Wilde Altar will let the contrast remind you that a fair note can hold both the harm and the hope without sanding either one off. The note still has to be fair. The silicate does not forgive anyone on your behalf, and it does not require you to reconcile.

Cautions

An original practice

The Two-Color Note

  • A piece of rhodonite
  • Two scraps of paper, or one card with a line drawn down the middle
  • A pen
  • An envelope
  1. 1On the left, write what happened that you are not willing to call fine. Keep it to five lines.
  2. 2On the right, write what you want now, including the possibility that what you want is distance.
  3. 3Set the rhodonite across the middle so you can see both sides. Read both aloud. If you are writing to a partner, any gender, take out any sentence that exists only to wound.
  4. 4Copy a single short note that a person could read without needing a translator for your rage. If no such note exists today, do not invent one. Date the scraps and put them in the envelope unsent.
  5. 5Move the stone back to its dish. Seal the envelope and label it send or wait.
Both colors stay on the page. I will not sand the black off to be pleasant. I will not use the pink to skip the truth.

Dry the dish, keep the stone out of salt and out of any glass, and put the envelope where a decision is possible tomorrow.

A practical action. Either send the fair note, say the fair thing in person, or write wait on the envelope and mean it for a defined number of days.

Substitutions

  • A pink paper and a black paper clipped together
  • A piece of rose quartz and a separate black pebble, if you have no rhodonite and will not pretend they are one mineral

Beginner questions

  • Is rhodonite the same as rhodochrosite? No. Rhodonite is a manganese silicate, typically pink with black veins, and harder. Rhodochrosite is a manganese carbonate, often banded pink and white, and much softer.
  • Will it force forgiveness? No. You may write a fair note or you may decline to reconcile. A mineral does not decide.
  • Can the black veins be cleaned off? They are not dirt. Do not scrub them out, and do not soak the stone to try.
RhodochrositeRhodochrosite, manganese carbonate (MnCO3).GarnetA group of nesosilicate minerals, not one species. Common red jewelry is often almandine or pyrope; grossular, spessartine, andradite, and uvarovite are other garnets.BloodstoneDark green chalcedony with red spots of iron oxide, also called heliotrope.