Sunstone Cabochon Oval Pendant

Sunstone is for the flat, low stretches when your own warmth feels a long way off and you want a little of your light back. It is a feldspar, usually a warm orange to reddish-gold, but the thing everyone falls for is the glitter inside it: tiny flakes of copper or hematite that throw off sparks of light as you move the stone, an effect with the lovely name aventurescence. It does exactly what the name promises, holding what looks like caught sunlight. People have loved it for a very long time, the Norse among them, who prized its warm shimmer, and good pieces come today from India, Tanzania, and Oregon, in the United States.

It is associated with the Sacral Chakra, the centre of creativity and pleasure, and with the Solar Plexus Chakra, the seat of personal power and confidence.

In the modern crystal healing tradition, sunstone is all warmth and forward motion. It is turned to for confidence and optimism and a renewed appetite for life, the stone people reach for to lift low spirits and remember their own worth. It is known for that bright, outward-facing courage that helps a person step up and be seen. It is understood to support the body's warmth and circulation and a steady, sunny vitality, in keeping with its long association with the sun itself.

Sunstone earns its name the second you tilt it to the light: a warm orange stone with a glitter running right through it, lively and cheerful in a way few stones are. It feels smooth and pleasantly solid, and that sparkle keeps people turning it over in their fingers long after they've picked it up. We love handing it to anyone who has been feeling flat or low, or who is simply drawn to the warmth of it, often someone gravitating to it after a long grey stretch. It is a hard stone not to smile at.

A lot of people like to keep sunstone close when they need a lift, slipping a tumble into a pocket for the dull, draining days or setting a piece on a sunny sill where the shimmer really comes alive. Some keep it on a desk for a hit of confidence before something daunting; others just enjoy it for the cheer of it. It is often kept alongside moonstone, the warm to its cool, a little sun-and-moon pair reached for whenever the day could use more brightness.

Sunstone (Mohs 6-6.5) is reasonably hardy and happy to be handled, though it's worth keeping it out of long spells of strong sun, which can soften the colour. Cleanse with running water, sound, moonlight, or smoke, and dry it with a soft cloth.