Another, the most dramatic side to look from at the heart of the Stone. It describes the moment when slowly accumulated hidden changes reach critical mass and the entire system suddenly restructures.

Conceived during the Hagalaz phase by a seed of hailstone, projected by lightning into the depth of the Earth, Crystal was nurtured by a heavier, earthy fraction of the Air, settled from above once the storm calmed down and Naudiz phase began. It was a dark night because Fire was hidden by raw, chaotic Earth. But crystal was growing quietly underground, turning dark and raw Earth into hard and transparent.

The moment when the tip of the crystal makes a hole in the horizon and the first rays of the Light break into the Air - the Night turns into the Day.

The Crystal, the Earth evolved to the higher state, can now conduct Light - the spirit of the Fire. It holds heat and density down and extracts the Light quality from the Fire.

Light is light both in the meaning of shine and weight - all the heaviness left as a perfect hardness of Crystal.

There is a rune for this transformation called Dagaz.

It means "Day" and "Dawn". You see it shares one of the diagonals with Naudiz, showing the transition of transparency from the Air to the Earth.

And it has another, ascending diagonal, which below the horizon represents density of the Earth growing into hardness while it gets closer to the surface, so the transition of the Light from the Earth to the Air becomes possible after reaching the critical center point.

The transformation happens at the point of intersection of the ascendance of Hardness and the descendance of Transparency, in the very center of the entire Philosopher's Stone.

In my opinion, the best description, which grasps the essence of this rune, is written by Russian poet Andrei Bely (Andrew White) in the "Northern Symphony - first, heroic" more than a hundred years ago:

42. …And then I finally heard something like a running horse…
43. Somebody was racing at me from a distant hill, trampling the poor earth with hooves.
44. I was amazed to realize that the centaur Bucentaur was flying toward me… held hands over head, spread apart… smiled with a lightning smile… a little scary.
45. His raven black body trampled the spent earth, swinging his tail.
46. In his deep melodious voice, the centaur shouted to me that from the hill he had seen the rosy sky…
47. …That from there is visible dawn…
48. And so the centaur Bucentaur shouted to me in his melodious voice, as he rushed past me like a whirlwind.
49. …And flying into the distance, the mad centaur was shouting that from the hill he had seen the rosy sky…
50. …That from there is visible dawn…

To do the Dagaz I suggest using the gesture of two vertical palms facing each other at the level of the solar plexus. Each palm will represent the vertical bar of the Dagaz rune with fingertips as the Air of the breast and wrists as the Earth of the belly.

This Rune is made of simultaneity.

• With a chest full of Air hold a brief pause and tune into the level of Air and Earth feeling the fingertips and wrist of your left palm.
• Slowly breathe out and slide your split attention from the two starting points of fingertips and wrist of left palm to the single point of the center between your palms in front of your solar plexus.
• Keep exhaling and seamlessly, without pause, pass the center point and continue double attention point movement to the right palm.
• Finish at two points, fingertips and wrist of the right palm, and hold your breath a bit to resonate with Air and Earth as suggested by the right vertical bar of the Dagaz rune.
• Breathe in freely and repeat.

As usual, we use breathing only in the beginning, when we learn rune step by step. Once you can feel and produce states of simultaneity in both hands and a double-crossing stream in between - you do it as a whole integral process not attached to breathing.

While doing the Dagaz rune you may start feeling the warm, smooth, and sleek surface of your crystal between your wrists. After a while an amazing breakthrough of Light from the center may flush at you.