Sunstone belongs to a specific evening. You said yes to the thing three weeks ago, it is now today, and everything in you would prefer the sofa and a reasonable excuse.
It is the stone for going anyway, and for staying long enough to be glad you did, which is usually about forty minutes and almost never the whole night.
What sunstone means
Norse tradition and a good deal of later folklore tie it to the sun, and the modern meanings run along the same line: warmth, confidence, being seen. The stone itself does the visual half of that, since flecks of copper inside it throw the light back and it appears to switch on when you move.
What it can do for you is carry a decision from a calm afternoon into a nervous evening. You decided at four o’clock that you would go and stay a while, and by eight the decision has quietly changed hands to a version of you who is standing in a hallway wondering whether anyone would notice if you left. A stone in the pocket is a message from the earlier one.
What it cannot do is make you enjoy it, make people talk to you, or take away the part where you are tired for two days afterward. It does not treat social anxiety and it is not a substitute for the sort of help that does. What it is, is a small warm object on the side of the version of you who wanted to go.
How people use it
In the pocket at the thing, touched in the doorway, which is the moment the whole evening usually turns on.
Worn on days you have to be visible: presenting, teaching, interviewing, standing up at somebody’s wedding. It stands for being seen on purpose rather than caught, and the difference between those two is most of what makes such days bearable.
Set out the night before, next to the keys, by people who know they will be looking for an excuse at half past six. Deciding once, in the daylight, is worth three arguments with yourself in the evening.
The card it goes with
The Six of Wands, a rider coming through a crowd with a wreath on his staff, being looked at and not minding it. The card is about being seen, which is a good deal more uncomfortable than the picture makes it look, and it says the visibility is allowed.
The intention for both: I will go, and I will stay a while, and I will leave when I said. Three clauses, and the third one is what makes the first one possible.
Three minutes before you leave
Hold the stone and decide two things: the time you are leaving, and the one person you will say more than hello to. Say both out loud in the hallway where nobody can hear you.
Then put it in your pocket and go. When the moment arrives at the party where you are standing on your own by the food, that pocket has your earlier decision in it, and the decision was made by somebody who was not standing there.
Wear it
We are adding a sunstone piece of its own to the collection, and it is not there yet. In the meantime, our sunstone and rose quartz ring sets the two stones side by side, which is a combination we like for exactly this: warmth toward other people and warmth toward yourself, on a hand you can see from where you are standing.
If you decide not to go
Then say so early and clearly rather than at seven o’clock, and take the evening without spending it defending the choice to yourself. A night in that you chose is a different thing entirely from a night in you fell into.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between sunstone and citrine?
Citrine is for a flat stretch on your own, the return of wanting things. Sunstone is for warmth in company, the days when you have to be among people and would rather not be. Different weeks, different stones, and most people know within a sentence which one they are in.
Why does it flash orange?
Tiny plates of copper or hematite inside the feldspar catch the light and throw it back, which is why the stone seems to switch on when you turn it. Jewelers call the effect schiller. It is the same trick as the sparkle in aventurine with a warmer result.
Is it good for shyness?
It is used that way, and what it does is more modest than the word suggests. It holds a decision you made at home, which is that you would go and stay a while, and it gives your hand something to do in a room where you know two people.