Crystals
Amazonite is microcline feldspar, Mohs 6 to 6.5, used for saying it, boundaries, calm. The mineralogy, whether it is safe in water and sunlight, what gets substituted for it, and what a stone can honestly do.
Start with the mineralogy, because most of the bad advice about this stone follows from not knowing it. Amazonite is microcline feldspar. On colour: Lead and water trapped in the feldspar structure, which was only worked out in the 1980s.
Where it comes from: Colorado, Brazil, Madagascar and Russia. Not the Amazon, despite the name, which appears to be a mistake that stuck.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Mineral species | Microcline feldspar |
| Chemical formula | KAlSi3O8 |
| Mohs hardness | 6 to 6.5 |
| Crystal system | Triclinic |
| Chakra | Throat and Heart |
| Usually linked to | Virgo, and to Uranus |
Hardness matters more than it sounds. The Mohs scale runs from talc at 1 to diamond at 10, and anything below about 5.5 can be scratched by ordinary window glass or by the quartz dust in everyday grit. At 6 to 6.5, amazonite is hard enough to handle daily wear without much trouble, though it will still scratch a softer stone it is stored against.
Sits between the throat and the heart, and gets used for the specific job of saying something emotionally difficult without it turning into a fight. Often recommended for people who either go silent or go too hard.
In the shorthand most shops and books use, it is a Throat and Heart stone, and the three words attached to it most often are saying it, boundaries, calm.
This is the section that matters, and the one most pages get wrong. Cleansing advice is handed around as though every stone were the same mineral, and it is not. Here is what amazonite will actually survive.
| Method | Safe? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Water | Briefly | Brief contact only. Dry it straight away rather than leaving it to sit wet. |
| Direct sunlight | No | Fades in direct sunlight. The colour loss is permanent and it is faster than most people expect: a sunny windowsill will visibly pale a piece within a season. |
| Salt or salt water | No | No salt, dry or dissolved. It is abrasive and it attacks softer and porous stones. |
| Moonlight | Yes | Harmless to every stone on this list, which is most of why it is the method that suits everything. |
| Smoke, sound or breath | Yes | Nothing physical touches the stone, so nothing can be damaged by it. |
Dyed quartzite and dyed howlite are both sold as amazonite. Real amazonite shows fine white grid-like streaks from the feldspar twinning, which dye cannot imitate.
Two general rules that hold across the whole shop. If the price is far below everything else on the shelf of that size, something has been substituted or treated. And a stone sold with no locality at all is usually one the seller cannot trace, which in this trade often means tumbled, dyed and bagged somewhere a long way from where it came out of the ground.
Amazonite is usually linked to Virgo, and to Uranus. Worth being straight about this: crystal and zodiac pairings are modern, they are not consistent between sources, and two reputable books will give you two different signs for the same stone. They are a useful organising idea rather than a tradition with a single lineage behind it.
If you want the part of this that does have a fixed method behind it, the Sun in Virgo sets out what that sign actually describes, and it is calculated from a date rather than assigned by a writer.
Every piece of amazonite in the shop is the same stone with the same associations, which is both the appeal and the limit of it. A birth chart is the opposite: it is calculated from your date, time and place and it describes one person. If you do not know your birth time, this covers how to find it.
Briefly, and dry it immediately. It is not a stone to leave soaking or to rinse often.
Yes, and permanently. Keep it off sunny windowsills. The colour will not come back.
Saying it, boundaries, calm. It is associated with the Throat and Heart chakra.
Mohs 6 to 6.5. That is hard enough for daily handling.
Dyed quartzite and dyed howlite are both sold as amazonite.
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