Agate is a translucent variety of chalcedony, a quartz stone that can be either clear or colored from other minerals. It comes in many shapes and patterns and all colors (although green and blue are rare) and you can usually find them near rivers, streams or my favorite, at the sea. Usually a little heavier than most rocks, agates often sink or hide beneath other stones.

When I was nine or so, I got to spend a week in a cottage at the beach with my mother while my father stayed in the city. He brought us down on a Saturday then left on Sunday for the work week. I’d been all excited over a few agates I’d found, and he was skeptical that I could find very many more. My father bet me I couldn’t find 100 agates by the time he returned on Friday, and said he’d pay me a penny a piece if I did collect that many. I believe my allowance was about 25 cents a week then (a very long time ago!) so that sounded like easy riches to me.

The next morning I was up early hunting a wide stretch of Oregon beach for the bright, translucent stones. Within an hour I realized there were layers of stones under the sand, and all I had to do was sit down and sift through them, and I’d find dozens of agates within the reach of my arms. By the end of Day One I had over 100.

Feeling the first thrill of greed and success in my enterprise, I devoted the bulk of my time that week to mining agates.

Why agates? There’s something appealing about the way they catch the light and sparkle in wet sand, and at least on the West Coast, there’s long been a tradition of collecting them. Even now, if you walk into any seaside souvenir shop, you’ll find polished agates for sale—which adds to the sense that they have some intrinsic monetary value. Also, they come in intricate patterns, and they feel good in your hand. Finding a forgotten agate in a pocket always makes me smile.

By the time my father returned, he was astounded (and no doubt irked) to have to pay me over six dollars for a buckets of rocks. While I remember being excited over my windfall and rather smug at proving my overbearing father wrong, in hindsight it was a hollow victory. I recall feeling somewhat let down when we packed to go home the next day, because I suddenly looked at the art supplies I hadn’t touched, the books I barely opened, the kite I hadn’t flown—all the things I’d being eager to enjoy during that precious week had ignored in my agate obsession.

Besides, what would I do with over 600 agates? Well, my father did buy a rock tumbler which we set up in the garage, and it noisily polished my best finds over the course of the months to follow. Still, those semi-precious stones have long since disappeared into the mists of my childhood. Isn’t that an ironic term? While the agates were seemingly precious to me at the time, in reality that was only half true, because I sacrificed a lot of other quality experiences in order to hoard so many stones.

Now I rarely pick up an agate unless it’s something really special—I’d rather leave it on the beach for someone to find who hasn’t already found more than her fair share.

CONTEMPLATIONS

• Have you ever hoarded something you found in nature?
• How did it make you feel?
• Did you keep your finds?
• Are there special stones that you’re attracted to?
• Have you succumbed to obsessions regarding natural objects?

Hold other mineral allies in your hands here.