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38 The Crystal

hexagram-38-crystal‘BETTER TO WEAR no gems at all than flawed stones. Better to make an enemy
of the tiger than a friend of the rat.’

Amethyst is a sponge for angst, animosity, arrogance. This is just one of
many crystals notable for their thirst. You desiccate around them, skin
patient for the moisturising kiss the virtuous will one day attract, filling
the vacuum left by a worn-out crystal. A new love blossoms on the lips,
the ordinary miracle in the jam jar of the self, the rusty nail beatified.

1st – The Crystal Wristwatch
The resonator makes the oscillator howl with the exact frequency required.
Quartz pulses are added or suppressed to offset the crystal’s ageing. A twist
of the wrist will wind, not wobble, at work or play, in life off the level.
Motion and weather are no longer the enemy: only time and theft.

2nd – The Crystal Cave of Giants
A drugs honcho, in a vest insulated against frostbite, an ice vest on top,
and then an orange caving suit, his respirator pack blowing air over frozen
bottles, clambers among fallen obelisks of light – an extremophile in an
alien world. Smaller selenite crystals are fractured by his aura.

3rd – The Crystal Radio
One wire is clamped to the bedstead, the other pierces the veranda deck,
down to an underground pipe. Just above the eiderdown sits nirvana.
The slightest move jolts the whisker from its hotspot, losing precious revs
from the speedway over the river. The commentary, at best, is garbled.

4th – The Crystal Skull
Where was the finder at the dig? What has become of the log of the find?
The workshop sits by a worm hole in space-time. The receptionist’s eyes
emit blue light. Atlanteans drop in and out in a nanosecond. An alert
ee-aws, announcing delivery of high-speed rotary tools from the future.

5th – The Canary Crystal
Mounted in a necklace of white diamonds, this yellow cushion-cut
brilliant with ninety facets was worn at the ball by a charwoman – a
misprint for ‘chairwoman’. A sweep in Valhalla. Every diamond has its
prehistory of humble hands, grateful for all that light returned to the eye.

6th – The Crystal Initiate
They overnighted in soil. At dawn the Lemurian felt right, if a little strong.
Tiger’s Eye (to a conservationist), Smoky Quartz (to a firebrand), Citrine
(to a birdwatcher), Amazonite (to a reader) were also irresistible – though
beginners should never buy too many at once: crystals can turn to tears.

All six – The Crystal Revelation
A clump of Pentagonite on a matrix grew ten flower clusters in a year.
Two of the blooms, half an inch apart, turned into one bigger cluster.
A third, once just a speck in a crevice, is now overflowing with needles.
Amazing! A home has neither heat nor elements for such formations.


Introduction to Six-Way Mirror | The Index of Hexagrams and Cantos

 

 

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