Pink Opal Meaning

Pink Opal opens our hearts so we can feel the love of the Divine and the presence of our Guardian Angels. It helps us to connect to our Highest Self and to feel oneness with all of creation. It encourages us to be more generous and community-minded, letting go of ego-driven attachments and instead striving towards a higher ideal. Pink Opal encourages us to stand up for social justice, using nonviolent means and by including others rather than fragmenting into groups. It asks us to love more and to see all of humanity as our family. Pink Opal can guide us along our true path, whatever that may be, and aid us during any spiritual awakening we might go through along the way.

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.

Pink Opal’s energy works well with its “friends” – crystal associates formed in the same geological environment.  Try it in combination with Fluorite, Snow Quartz, Topaz

All Opals are colorless/white, unless they have additional inclusions.  In Peru and Mexico, Pink Opals get their color from quinones, an organic plant material that   mixed in with the silica during the stone’s formation.  In Australia, France and the USA, the color is due to Manganese.

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 a flashing “fire” of color inside them. Tumbled Opals, by contrast, are known as Common Opals, and have a flat color. 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 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. Nonius refused and fled, leaving all his worldly possessions behind, taking only the Opal.

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 Pink Opals, and also has a unique variety of common Opal.  Instead of being pure Opal, however, the Australian variety is actually opalized radiolarite.  When this stone is red and/or yellow, it is called Mookaite Jasper.  Mixed in with those two colors, its not unusual to see pinks, purples, and even white stones.  Normally, they’d all be called Mookaite Jasper, but occasionally, the pink ones are marketed as Pink Opals instead.

There are stories found online that Pink Opals are associated with the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt.  Supposedly, the information comes from a National Geographic article, but that article doesn’t appear to exist.  Likewise, claims that Pink Opal, or any shade of Opal, are one of the ‘Seven Sacred Stone of the Cherokee’ is suspicious since the only sources for this information are new age websites as well as the simple fact that Opals are not found in Cherokee lands.

Most of the common Pink Opals on the market from the Andes mountains of Peru.  They are famous for their vibrant bubblegum pink hue, but can also be a paler pastel pink or a vivid fuchsia.  Peruvian Opals also come in shades of blue and green, and it is the only South American country that has these pretty gems.  Opals are the national gemstone of Peru.

Very little is known about the religion and culture of the Incan Empire, but in the late 20th century, a new practice of worshiping the Incan goddess Pachamama has become popular in the Andes.  Pachamama is an Mother Earth goddess, sometimes represented by a bowl of dirt or by a stone.  Rituals to this goddess are usually performed using Quechua, the Incan language, although some parts may be in Spanish.  They often involve offerings of potatoes, coca leaves, and flowers but may also include stone figurines of ancestors and encaycho (personal spirit stone).  Rituals occur weekly, often taking place on Sunday to replace Christian worship, and can be seen at Incan sites such as Machu Pichu. Pachamama is a benevolent goddess who brings forth abundant harvests and healthy children.  During the first week of August, there is a Pachamama festival in Cusco.  Since 1949, the oldest woman in the community is elected as the “Pachamama Queen of the Year” and is shown respect as a living symbol of wisdom, fertility and life.

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