Labradorite Beaded Bracelet

Labradorite is non-toxic and safe to handle. Rinse it briefly and dry it promptly rather than soaking it, and avoid salt, which can dull the surface along its cleavage planes. Protect it from hard knocks and sudden heat, which can chip or crack it. Not for internal use.

Labradorite crystallized slowly within cooling magma, most famously in the anorthosite bodies of eastern Canada. It was first described from the Isle of Paul near Nain, Labrador, where a Moravian missionary encountered it in 1770 and specimens were sent back to Europe. In 1940, workers building the Salpa Line fortifications near Ylämaa, Finland, uncovered the vividly colored variety later named spectrolite. Much of today's labradorite comes from Madagascar, alongside Canada, Finland, Russia, and Norway.

Labradorite is a calcium-rich plagioclase feldspar, roughly 50 to 70 percent anorthite within the albite-anorthite series, with the general formula (Ca,Na)(Al,Si)4O8. It crystallizes in the triclinic system, rates 6 to 6.5 on the Mohs scale, and has a specific gravity of about 2.68 to 2.72. Its play of color, called labradorescence, is structural rather than pigment: during very slow cooling the crystal separates into microscopic alternating layers, and light interfering between layers roughly 128 to 252 nanometers apart flashes back as blue, green, gold, and sometimes orange or violet. The body color ranges from smoky gray to near black.

• Inuit legend tells that the Northern Lights were once trapped in the coastal rocks of Labrador until a warrior struck them with his spear; most of the lights escaped into the sky, and the fire left behind is the flash seen in the stone today.
• Esoteric tradition holds labradorite as a stone of initiation into the mysteries, carried by those seeking hidden knowledge and said to open a doorway to other worlds and other lives.
• In modern crystal lore it is called a stone of magic, kept by seers and healers to uncover hidden truth and sense what is coming before it arrives.