Citrine

Citrine is quartz coloured yellow by traces of iron — ordinary silica given warmth by a geological accident. The name comes from the French citron, the lemon, which tells you most of what you need to know about the colour. It runs from pale champagne to a deep amber, and the best of it holds light rather than simply reflecting it.

Natural citrine is rarer than its popularity suggests. Much of what you find in shops began as amethyst — quartz that turned yellow under heat, whether from the earth over millions of years or in a kiln. Both are citrine; both are quartz. The treatment is stable and standard, and the tradition that works with the stone does not distinguish between them.

The history is old. Greeks and Romans carved intaglios and signet rings from it — the stone was believed to calm tempers and lift the spirits. By the nineteenth century it had become the merchant's stone, carried for prosperity and good fortune in trade. It remains one of the two birthstones for November.

The crystal tradition places citrine at the solar plexus, the Manipura chakra — the seat of personal will, confidence and the warmth that moves you forward. It is the stone of Leo and Gemini, and it belongs to the fire element. In the intention vocabulary of the catalogue it keeps company with abundance, energy and courage.

The tradition's quiet suggestion is to give citrine a role in a practice. Hold it while you name something you are moving toward — opportunity, forward motion, the willingness to begin — and let it keep the note. The stone does not create what it symbolises; it simply keeps the symbol in view.

Below: the catalogue's citrine — tumbled stones, points, jewellery and objects in the solar register.