Lapis lazuli tower, carved and polished into a six sided point with a flat cut base. At 19cm tall and 635g this is a large piece, heavy enough that it needs both hands to move comfortably and tall enough to hold a corner on its own.

The blue runs in broad horizontal bands, deepest and most saturated through the upper half and breaking into softer denim and grey blue lower down. Between the blue sit wide areas of grey and cream calcite, some of it clouded and some of it sharp edged, and across the paler ground there is fine gold pyrite, dense in patches and sparse in others. The point itself is mostly pale, with blue banding running up into it.

About this lapis lazuli tower

Every tower in the Grove is photographed as it is, under ordinary light and without lifting the blue. That matters more with lapis than almost anything else we carry, because the deeply saturated solid blue used in most product photography is not what most lapis looks like in the hand. This piece carries a lot of visible calcite and a lot of visible pyrite, and both are shown clearly in the images so there is no surprise when the box opens.

Worth knowing: lapis lazuli is not a single mineral. It is a rock, mostly made up of the blue component with calcite and pyrite alongside it, and the proportions vary from block to block. The grey is the calcite. The gold is the pyrite. Neither is a flaw, and a piece with no calcite at all in it is worth being curious about.

Traditional correspondences

Lapis lazuli is one of the oldest worked stones there is, and the traditional associations have stayed remarkably consistent: truth, clear speech, and seeing something plainly rather than comfortably. It is usually reached for around the throat and the brow, and in practice it tends to be worked with when something needs saying rather than when something needs soothing.

A tower is the form chosen for direction and focus, at a desk, at a doorway, or as the centre of a grid. This piece pairs well with clear quartz, sodalite or amethyst.

Correspondences are traditional and are offered as part of a practice, not as a substitute for medical or professional advice.

Caring for lapis lazuli

This is the important part, because lapis is softer than most of the towers people buy. It sits around 5 to 5.5 on the Mohs scale, which is below quartz. That means a quartz point, a carnelian tumble, even a set of keys will scratch it. Keep this tower away from harder stones on the same shelf and do not let it knock against anything in transit.

Keep it away from water and away from anything acidic. The calcite in lapis reacts to acid, and the pyrite can mark if it stays damp. No water cleansing, no salt, no household cleaning sprays. A dry soft cloth is all it needs.

Prolonged strong sunlight is best avoided as well. To cleanse, use sound, breath or moonlight.

What you receive

One lapis lazuli tower, 19cm tall and 635g, and nothing else. Wrapped for the post and sent by Royal Mail Tracked.

Browse the rest of the crystal towers, or see everything currently in stock in lapis lazuli.

For the mineralogy behind the stone, Mindat holds the reference data on lapis lazuli.

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