Blue Opal Meaning

Blue Opal is a beautiful wisdom stone that increases our discernment and helps us to trust our inner-knowing.  It helps us to grow up and grow past the limitations that may have formerly held us back.  While many people prefer comforting lies, rather than face uncomfortable truths, Blue Opal helps us to realize that “Truth is Comforting.”  Blue Opal helps us to open our eyes and to see what is plainly before us.  Problems need to be called out and solved, not buried and wished away.  Blue Opal gives us courage and helps us pick a good path that will lead us to freedom and peace.  It is a wonderful stone for deep personal work, shadow work, and for transforming into our Highest Self.

Common Opals are fairly widespread and can be found in most types of rocks, wherever silica-bearing waters are found. Opals are especially abundant near hot-springs and Opal often is part of the fossilization process for Petrified Wood as well as fossilized seashells and bones. Precious Opals, by contrast, are much more rare and can only be found enclosed within a rock, where over time the water is slowly removed from the silica gel, a process which can take thousands of years. The silica left behind settles down and, if it settles in the correct formation, it results in the iridescent color which plays across the gem’s surface.

Blue Opal’s energy works well with its “friends” – crystal associates formed in the same geological environment.  Try it in combination with Apophyllite, Cavansite, Picture Jasper, and Rainbow Obsidian.

Opal is included in virtually every known lapidary, texts which describe gemstones and their powers. Most of the legends associated with Opals refer specifically to the Precious Opals that contain flashing  colors.  Opals with a solid stabile color are known as Common Opals. The name Opal most likely derives from the the Sanskrit upala, meaning “precious stone.” It has also been suggested that the name may also come from Ops, a Roman Earth Goddess associated with fertility and the harvest.

At one time, Opals commanded a higher price than any other gemstone, far higher than Diamonds or Rubies. Pliny the Elder (CE 23-79), a Roman author, naturalist, and philosopher described Opal in his lapidary, The Natural History of Precious Gemstones. He related that a generation before him, there had been an enormous Opal, as big as a hazelnut, which had set into a ring which was worth more than a villa. It was owned by a Roman Senator named Nonius. Marc Antony, the most powerful man in the Roman world at that time, demanded that the Senator give the gemstone to him so that he could it to his lover, Queen Cleopatra. Nonius refused and fled, leaving all his worldly possessions behind, taking only the Opal ring.

Today, the vast majority of Opals come from the outback of Australia. The “Opal Capital of the World” is the small desert town of Coober Pedy, in Southern Australia. Opals were discovered in the desolate Stuart Mountain range in 1915, by a 14-year-old boy named Willie Hutchinson. He and his father were searching for gold but instead found a mother-lode of pale white sparking gems.  An Opal Rush began, and hundreds of men seeking their fortune poured into the “Stuart Range Opal Field.” This name was deemed too boring, and was replaced with kupa piti, Aboriginal words that meant “the boy’s watering hole,” a nod to Willie Hutchinson. In a bizarre turn of events, Willie died in 1920 while swimming in a water hole. Kupa piti gradually become Coober Pedy, which local residents now claim means “white man in a hole.”

Australia occasionally produces Precious Blue Opals, typically these are White Opals that have a bright blue iridescence, usually the iridescence is mixed with hues such as green or yellow.   Precious Blue Opals also come from Ethiopia, once again they are White Opals with a rainbow glitter, in which the neon blue hues can be seen dancing with equally vibrant shades of green, pink, and yellow.

Sunrise over the Coober Pedy “golf course”

Common Blue Opals are found in small deposits in several countries.  The most famous deposit are the Owyhee Opals, a sky-blue variety found in the Owyhee mountains that border Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon.  The term “Owyhee” was originally used to specifically designate Opals minded in this area.  As often happens in the crystals industry, the name has been co-opted and is sometimes used for Blue Opals mined in completely different location, such as India.  The reason this happens is that wholesellers and retailers think they can get a better price or sell more stones if it has a fancy name, rather than a simple descriptive name like “Blue Opal”.  In order to be considered a true Owyhee Opal, the gem must be from the Owyhee mountains.

The name Owyhee is actually an older spelling of the word Hawai’i.  Between 1810-1813, parts of the Pacific Northwest were mapped by John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company.  The expeditions included Native Hawaiians.  This was because the Pacific Fur Company sent out two expeditions, one that traveled across the land and the other that traveled by sea.  Due to prevailing winds, ships that sailed around Cape Horn, the tip of South America, would land in Hawaii to take on fresh food and water, before re-crossing the Pacific back to North America.  When the Pacific Fur Company ship landed in Hawaii, they were given permission by King Kamehameha (c.1758-1819) to take forty Hawaiians with them.  The Hawaiian king had only very recently united the Hawaiian islands under his rule, and he was curious about the wider world.  As a result, more than a thousand Native Hawaiians visited or immigrated to the Pacific Northwest during the 19th century and they gave their name to the Owyhee Mountains, Owyhee River, and Owyhee Canyonlands.

Owyhee Mountains, Idaho, USA

There are numerous myths associated with Opal, some romantic and others gruesome.  For more information, please see the longer history article on White Opal.