Beaded Edge Opal Earrings

✦ NATURAL ETHIOPIAN OPAL ✦ A stone of hope, imagination, and ever-changing light Opal has long been associated with hope, love, creativity, intuition, and transformation. In modern crystal traditions, it is believed to encourage self-expression, awaken the imagination, and help its wearer reveal their truest colors. These meanings belong to folklore rather than science, but they seem especially fitting for a gemstone that never looks quite the same twice. ✦ PLAY-OF-COLOR Natural Ethiopian opal appears to hold an entire hidden sky within it. As the stone moves, tiny flashes of green, blue, gold, orange, violet, and red may suddenly appear, vanish, and return somewhere else. This phenomenon is known as play-of-color. The colors are not painted onto the stone and do not come from a surface coating. Opal is composed of hydrated silica, with microscopic spheres arranged inside it. When light passes through these tiny structures, it bends and separates into spectral colors, creating the shifting rainbow seen within precious opal. Every arrangement is different, making each natural opal entirely one of a kind. ✦ HYDROPHANE Many of today’s finest Ethiopian opals come from the volcanic highlands of Wollo Province. A remarkable deposit discovered near the village of Wegel Tena in 2008 introduced the gem world to Ethiopian opals with luminous body colors and unusually vivid flashes. Many Ethiopian opals are hydrophane, meaning that their porous structure can absorb water and other liquids. This unusual quality may temporarily change the stone’s transparency or play-of-color when it becomes wet. ✦ HISTORY AND LORE Opal has gathered legends for thousands of years. The ancient Romans treasured it as a symbol of love and hope, believing that a gem containing the colors of so many other precious stones must also possess all of their virtues. Ancient Greek tradition connected opal with foresight and protection, while old Arabic legends imagined that opals fell from the heavens during flashes of lightning. Although opal eventually acquired an undeserved reputation for bringing bad luck, this superstition is not ancient. It became popular largely because of Sir Walter Scott’s 1829 novel “Anne of Geierstein.” For most of its history, opal was considered one of the luckiest, most mysterious, and most magical of all gemstones. ✦ OCTOBER BIRTHSTONE Opal is one of the traditional birthstones of October and has long represented hope, truth, purity, and the beautiful possibility of change.