Pumice

Pumice is a volcanic rock made of rough, intensely bubbly volcanic glass, sometimes holding crystals, and usually pale. It forms when superheated rock under high pressure is thrown out of a volcano and cools and loses pressure at the same moment, trapping the gas as a froth; ground to powder it is called pumicite. Scoria, a related rock, is darker and denser with larger bubbles. Cunningham describes pumice as light, rough and able to float on water, and notes its use in soaps for scrubbing dirty hands. He gives it to Mercury and air and calls it projective. At one time it was pressed into the hands of women in labour, or worn, to ease the birth. His chief use is a banishing spell: holding the stone in the projective hand, one pours into it the energy behind a problem, whether a habit, a painful emotion, an ailment or an unreturned love, and then throws it into a lake, stream or the sea, where it releases the problem and, by floating, lends strength to rise above it. A basin of water poured onto bare earth will do instead. Placed on the altar or in the home, pumice also serves protective magic as a sponge for negativity.