Bloodstone

Bloodstone is jasper — a dense, cryptocrystalline quartz — coloured deep forest green and marked with irregular spots of iron-red. The red comes from haematite, iron oxide, and it is the source of the name that has stuck in English for centuries. In the mineral trade it is technically known as heliotrope, from the Greek words for sun and turn, though that name travels less well than the plain and visual one.

Its history begins with carving. Romans set it in signet rings; Greeks cut it into seals and amulets. Medieval Christian tradition wove a story around it — that the stone formed from drops of Christ's blood fallen onto green jasper at the crucifixion — which gave it another name, martyr's stone, and a place in ecclesiastical jewellery across Europe. Whether or not the story is believed, the objects remain: carved and polished, worked into rings and cameos, passed through centuries of hands.

The tradition places bloodstone at the intersection of fire and earth. The green jasper is grounded, earthy; the red flecks carry fire's quickening quality. This duality gives it a particular place in the chakra map — Root for steadiness, Heart for the vital force — and associates it with Aries and Pisces in the zodiac.

For all that history, the tradition's most honest instruction is a simple one: choose the stone, hold it briefly in the morning, and set a plain intention — courage today, steadiness first — before you set it down. The stone's work is to keep the intention in sight. Your practice does the rest.

Below: our catalogue's bloodstone — tumbled, carved, set in silver and cord, kept close to the body where the tradition has always placed it.