{"title":"May — Emerald","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWe do not carry emerald, and none of the stones below is one.\u003c\/strong\u003e Chrome diopside, green agate and moss agate are their own minerals with their own histories. Calling any of them emerald would be a lie, and an easy one to catch.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChrome diopside comes out of Siberia and reads almost black in low light, then turns green under a lamp. Moss agate is not moss — the green threads inside it are mineral inclusions that grew through the silica while it was still forming.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese are the greens we would wear in May.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOr the colour, at entry price:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/products\/month-in-colour-baguette-birthstone-necklace?variant=49085095805098\"\u003ethe May Month in Colour necklace →\u003c\/a\u003e — gold-plated solid silver with a green baguette, cut from cubic zirconia rather than emerald.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"\/blogs\/the-codex\/moss-agate-meaning-engagement-rings\"\u003eThe file on moss agate →\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ca href=\"\/pages\/birthstone\"\u003eAll twelve months →\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"green-agate-bird-butterfly-ring","title":"The Flight Itself — Green Agate Bird \u0026 Butterfly Ring","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIt is the stone of being able to prove it.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is a river in Sicily that has been renamed at least four times. Around 300 BC it was called the Achates, and a Greek called Theophrastus — Aristotle's student, the first person we know of who tried to write a serious book about rocks — recorded that a banded stone was being pulled out of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe named the stone after the river. Agate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe river is now the Dirillo and has almost no agate left in it. The name outlived the supply by two thousand three hundred years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBefore it was jewellery it was administration. In Mesopotamia agate was carved into cylinder seals, rolled across wet clay to sign a contract. Rome kept the habit and put it into signet rings — a stone hard enough to take a carving, and hard enough that the carving would not soften after ten thousand pressings. When a Roman pressed an agate into wax, the point was not decoration. The point was that this could not be faked.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIt is the stone of being able to prove it.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe banding is real geology, not pattern-making: chalcedony laid down in the cavity of a lava bubble, one microscopically thin layer at a time, each one recording a slightly different chemistry in the water that made it. You are looking at a sediment log. It just happens to be beautiful.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eI chose green agate here because the silver work is already busy — a bird, a butterfly, leaves — and a loud stone would have turned it into an argument. The agate sits underneath all of it and holds still.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating on the wings and leaves, so the two metals do the work the stone is not asking to do. The band is open, which means a little forgiveness in the fit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePosted to you tracked. 5–10 days to the UK.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis one takes the longest at the bench of anything in the first collection, because every leaf edge is finished by hand and there is nowhere to hide a rushed one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural green agate — 3.5×7 mm marquise, 4×6 mm oval and pear, 3×3 mm round\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNano emerald-green accent stones — laboratory-grown, not mined emerald\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOpen band — adjusts a little\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFree UK delivery · 5–10 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCarried for centuries as a stone of steadiness and of proof. Some people feel something. Some don't. If you don't, it is still a two-thousand-year-old idea you are wearing on your finger.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49038640414890,"sku":"ASI8-AGA-001","price":159.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/p01a.jpg?v=1786491298"},{"product_id":"quiet-resistance-african-opal-goat-zodiac-necklace","title":"Quiet Resistance — African Opal \u0026 Chrome Diopside Goat Zodiac Necklace","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe character for goat is sitting inside the character for beautiful.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChinese writing keeps its history in plain sight. Characters are built out of smaller characters, and once you know a few components you start reading things nobody meant you to read.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYang, the goat or sheep, is one of those components. It is inside mei — beautiful. It is inside shan — good, virtuous, kind. The same small animal, twice, propping up two of the largest words in the language.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNobody has to argue that the goat matters. The argument is already finished and it finished in the writing system.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe character for goat is sitting inside the character for beautiful.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWei, the eighth earthly branch, is the double hour from one until three in the afternoon. The flat part of the day, after the heat and before the light turns. The hours that get through on stamina rather than momentum.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis one took the longest to settle. Goats read as either comic or biblical and neither is what the sign means, so the animal here is a ram — horns curled, standing still, in front of a bare silver branch.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBare branch on purpose. The other pieces in the series have flowers or grass. This one is out of season and holding its position anyway, which is the whole idea.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe metal is solid 925 sterling silver with gold plating on the ram and the mount. Plating is a surface finish and it wears with time; the silver beneath it does not.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePosted to you tracked. 5–10 days to the UK.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe horns are the part that goes wrong. They spiral, which means they cannot be polished flat, and each one is worked around separately.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural African opal — 4 mm round\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhite cubic zirconia accent stones — laboratory-made, not mined\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating on the ram and mount\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePendant 25.49 mm across, on a box chain\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFree UK delivery · 5–10 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCarried for centuries as the sign of holding a position without raising your voice. Some people feel something when they put a sign on. Some don't. Either way it is an old idea and it is accurately made.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49044068958378,"sku":"ASI8-OPA-023","price":189.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/23-1.jpg?v=1786612346"},{"product_id":"green-agate-multi-stone-ring","title":"Gathered Force — Green Agate Multi-Stone Ring","description":"\u003cp\u003eSixteen pear-cut green agates, set close along a band that runs the length of the finger. One stone would be a detail. Sixteen is a decision.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAgate is a banded chalcedony — it grows in layers inside a cavity, which is why no two stones in this ring hold the light the same way. Seen together, the differences are the point.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural green agate: 5 × 7 mm (0.63 ct each) and 4 × 4 mm (0.25 ct each)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eApprox. 43 mm along the finger\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSolid 925 sterling silver\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003ePosted to you tracked. Because the stones are natural, colour and banding vary between pieces.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49045090009258,"sku":"ASI8-AGA-031","price":219.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/31-1.jpg?v=1786612695"},{"product_id":"chrome-diopside-flower-ring","title":"Dark Shoot — Chrome Diopside Flower Ring","description":"\u003cp\u003eChrome diopside is a green that reads almost black in low light and turns emerald under a lamp. Here it is massed into a flower head with a gold bee landing on the edge, on a band shaped like a cut branch.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe stone comes mainly from Siberia and is mined in a short window each year, when the ground is hard enough to work. It is not a substitute for emerald; it is a different, darker green.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural chrome diopside, 4 × 6 mm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNano emerald-green pavé\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSolid 925 sterling silver, black rhodium and gold-tone plated details\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003ePosted to you tracked.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49045092335786,"sku":"ASI8-DIO-041","price":189.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/41-1.jpg?v=1786612740"},{"product_id":"moss-agate-pear-ring-set","title":"Forest Trace — Moss Agate Pear Ring Set","description":"\u003cp\u003eMoss agate is not moss. The green threads inside it are mineral inclusions — usually iron or manganese — that grew through the silica while it was forming. They only look like plants.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhich is why no two of these rings are the same. A pear-cut stone sits above a crown of marquise-cut clear stones; the two bands stack into one shape.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural moss agate, pear cut\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMarquise and round accent stones\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSolid 925 sterling silver with a rose gold-tone plated finish\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTwo-piece stacking set\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003ePosted to you tracked. Because the inclusions are natural, the pattern in your stone will not match the photograph exactly — that is the point of the stone.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49045092434090,"sku":"ASI8-AGA-043","price":159.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/43-1.jpg?v=1786612740"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/collections\/43-1_e5108506-368d-4039-ae46-90c5c422f113.jpg?v=1787777688","url":"https:\/\/asieight.com\/collections\/may-birthstone\/stone-agate.oembed","provider":"Asi8","version":"1.0","type":"link"}