Yellow Opal Meaning

Yellow Opal inspires joy and invites us to dance wildly, drunkenly, and sensually with the Divine Beloved! It helps us to be more open-minded and willing to invite all people, both those who are like us and those that are very different, to come to the Divine Party and celebrate together. Yellow Opal asks us to pop our comfort bubbles and instead embrace all the different colorful sides of life. It helps us to find joy in our religious/spiritual life and to support the dogma which makes our hearts glad and lightens our souls.

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.

Yellow 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

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 Yellow Opals, typically these are White Opals that have a brilliant golden iridescence, oftentimes the iridescence also has pink hues.   Precious Yellow Opals also come from Ethiopia, once again they are White Opals with a rainbow glitter, in which the yellow hues can be seen dancing with pinks and neon-green.

Sunrise over the Coober Pedy “golf course”

Opals can come in many shades of the rainbow, but one of the rarest varieties is a bright yellow hue.  Nicknamed “Canary Opals” they are often reserved for fine jewelry.  The name is partially due to the stone’s color, but some of the Yellow Opals actually come from the Canary Islands of Spain.  While they lack the iridescence of precious Opals, these Yellow Opals can be translucent and appear very similar to Citrine and Yellow Sapphire.  According to lore, Opals are supposed to protect and preserves hair, especially among blonds.  This power is said to be even stronger for Yellow Opals.

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