Jade: Meaning, Properties and How to Use It
Jade is the stone of steady good fortune rather than sudden luck. Tradition ties it to harmony in a household, to long life and to money that arrives slowly and stays. In China it has been valued above gold for four thousand years, and the reading has always been moral as much as magical.
What tradition says
What is Jade known for?
Confucius listed the virtues of jade, comparing its warmth to benevolence and its ring to music, which set the tone for everything after. Chinese burial suits were sewn from thousands of plaques of it; Maori hei tiki carry ancestors in the same material. Two different minerals wear the name, nephrite and jadeite, and both are extraordinarily tough rather than hard. The lore hears that toughness as endurance and calls jade a stone you inherit.
The practice
How do you use Jade?
Wear it constantly rather than occasionally, which is the traditional way.
A bangle or a pendant worn for years is the whole practice.
At home, keep a piece in the room where the household gathers rather than in a private drawer.
Give jade away when someone is starting a family or a business.
Read here as a language of symbols. Medical, legal and financial questions belong with a professional.
Two more
What does Jade pair with?
Stones are kept in small sets rather than alone, and these two are the usual company for this one.
What it is kept for
What do people reach for Jade for?
The same stone, read through the thing you came here with.
Questions
What else do people ask about Jade?
Which is real jade, nephrite or jadeite?
Both are. Nephrite is the older material, the one Chinese carving worked for millennia, softer in colour and slightly greasy in lustre. Jadeite arrived from Burma in the eighteenth century and takes the vivid emerald green that the market pays most for. Neither one is a fake.
How do I test jade at home?
It feels cold and heavy in the hand and stays cold longer than glass. A steel blade will not scratch it, though that test damages the soft imitations you may have paid for. Tap two pieces together and real jade rings rather than clicks. None of this catches a good resin filled stone, so buy on paper.
Next in the library
The stones beside this one.
Two ways on
One stone is a reminder, a library is a map.
A hundred and four stones and sixty four everyday uses, sorted the way a week arrives. If you came here through the body rather than the mineral, the seven chakras are the other way in.
- 104
- stones, each with what tradition says
- 64
- everyday uses, six stones under each
- 7
- centres, the same set read through the body