December Birthstone: Turquoise

December's stone and the oldest protection

Turquoise is December's birthstone and one of the oldest stones in continuous use anywhere: it was set into jewelry in Egypt, Persia, China and the American southwest, in each case independently, and in each case for the same purpose. It was worn as protection — against misfortune, against falls from horses, against the general hostility of the world — for longer than any other stone on this list.

Zircon is the month's alternative and the odd one: a stone with a name that sounds artificial and a fire that exceeds diamond's, historically colorless or blue, and mostly unknown to buyers. December's two stones could not be more different in reputation: one is the most widely worn protective stone in human history, and the other is a mineral almost nobody has heard of.

The recorded qualities are protection, wisdom, luck and courage. The first and the last are the oldest; the middle two arrived with the stone's use in court jewelry, where a blue-green stone was read as the color of considered judgment.

What turquoise has meant

Every culture that used it arrived at the same reading, which is unusual enough to be worth stating plainly. Turquoise was a stone of safe return: it went with travelers, with riders, with people crossing deserts, and it was placed on the dead in several traditions as a form of passage. The Tibetan and southwest American uses both treat it as a stone that protects a person by staying with them rather than by preventing anything.

The luck attached to it is the same idea in a lighter register, and it survives in the month's own reputation: December's stone is the one that people are most likely to give as a gift for a journey.

Wisdom is the latest entry and the least documented. Blue-green stones in court contexts were read as tokens of judgment, which is how a traveler's protective stone ended up carrying the vocabulary of considered decision-making as well.

December's signs and the year's end

Sagittarius finishes around the twenty-first and its recorded stone is turquoise, matching the month. The Sagittarius page carries that portrait: mutable fire, Jupiter-ruled, philosophical, built for distances.

Capricorn takes the rest of the month and most of January, and its recorded stone is garnet — the stone that opens the year. The Capricorn page sets out the rest: cardinal earth, ruled by Saturn, patient with long climbs and unsentimental about shortcuts.

That arrangement closes the calendar neatly. December's stone belongs to its first sign and January's stone belongs to its second, so a birthday near the solstice sits between two signs and two stones whose colors are opposites: a blue-green for the traveler and a deep red for the climber. The wheel wraps here, and so does the list.

Born on the boundary itself, a person ends up holding the year's last stone and the year's first sign — which the tradition has always read as a good position rather than a confusing one.

Turquoise and zircon in daily wear

Turquoise is a soft stone that changes with its wearer. It is porous, it darkens as it absorbs skin oils, and old pieces are usually treasured for exactly that change — the color of a well-worn turquoise is a record of how long someone has had it. It should be kept away from soap, perfume and heat, which makes it unusual in that daily handling tends to improve it while long storage does the opposite.

Zircon is harder, brilliant, and behaves like a fragile diamond in a setting; its one real weakness is that it can abrade where it rubs against metal, and older stones are often found with worn facet edges for that reason.

The calendar comes full circle from here: November holds topaz and January holds garnet, so December's turquoise is bracketed by gold and deep red — the two warmest stones of the year on either side of its coolest.