Ca3Al2(SO4)(F,OH)10·2H2O
A starburst of light widening the bounds of awareness
Creedite is named after the mining district of Creede, in Mineral County, Colorado, USA, where it was first found. The town itself was named for the prospector Nicholas C. Creede. The mineral was described in 1916 by E. S. Larsen and R. C. Wells.
Creedite is a hydrated calcium–aluminium sulfate that also carries fluorine and hydroxyl, which places it among the hydroxyl-halides. It crystallises in the monoclinic system, most famously as radiating, spherical "starburst" sprays of fine prismatic needles, colourless, white, orange or violet, and fairly soft (about 3.5 to 4 on the Mohs scale).
It forms by the intense oxidation of fluorine-rich ore deposits, especially around fluorite. It is mildly reactive to acids, and its rarer purple material fades with prolonged exposure to light, so it is best kept and displayed away from strong, direct light.
First described in 1916 from the Wagon Wheel Gap fluorspar area of the Creede district in Colorado, creedite has since been found in oxidised fluorine-rich deposits in several countries.
Its most celebrated specimens — brilliant orange starburst sprays, with rarer purple examples — come from the Navidad mine in Durango, Mexico. Other localities include Nevada, Bolivia, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
The purple variety of creedite is highly light-sensitive and its colour fades with prolonged exposure. Display it in low light, away from direct sunlight and bright lamps, to preserve the hue.
Its radiating, sea-urchin sprays of fine needles are unmistakable — whole spheres of crystal exploding outward from a single point.
Carrying both fluorine and a sulfate group, creedite bridges two mineral classes, classed among the hydroxyl-halides.
It ranges from colourless and white to vivid orange and rare violet — the purple being the prized and most light-sensitive form.
"Those whose minds are merged in Samadhi are not deluded by the external jugglery."— Bhagawan Nityananda
Creedite works at the throat — the gate of expression and resonance that stands between the heart and the mind — but its named gift reaches higher: it activates the Light Body and spiritual vision, and expands consciousness. As an Expanding stone its energy radiates outward from that centre through the layered subtle bodies, one after another, so that awareness is no longer cramped inside the physical self but opens out, wide and luminous, like its own starburst of crystal needles thrown out from a single core. Its transmission is balanced and steady, and it stays a fair while — long enough to find and loosen the root of a contraction, not only its surface.
This is the widening the stone is known for: consciousness stretched past its usual edges until the small, separate sense of self softens and the larger field shows through. The mind resting in that wider awareness is, as the quote says, no longer fooled by the "external jugglery" — the passing show of forms stops being mistaken for the whole of what is real.
"In pure being consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and disappears. Before all beginnings, after all endings — I am."— Nisargadatta Maharaj
That is creedite's quiet work: to widen the window until the watcher notices it was never only the small self at the glass — the awareness in which the whole show appears and disappears, steady behind it all.