October's Rainbow Beauties: Opal & Tourmaline

Welcome back to Rock Talk with Angel!

Today's post is for the Librans, and the very beginning of Scorpio--these lovers of beauty, balance, and mystery have some of the most beautiful birthstones of the entire year. October's birthstones are some of the most colorful, as well--their rainbow colors make them legendary for lovers of beauty and gemstone healing.

Without further ado, I give you: Opal and Tourmaline, the colorful birthstones of October!

Read on to discover 5 facts about each of these beautiful, and legendary, gems!

5 Facts about Opal

1. Opal is neither a crystal, nor a true mineral; it is technically a mineraloid, an amorphous material lacking an orderly lattice or crystalline habit. Opal is a hydrous silica gel, which forms up in veins of opportunity, and only under specific environmental conditions. The silica gel is composed of tiny silica spheres, which are deposited in layers as the opal grows.

2. Opal may reflect rainbow play of color (known as opalescence), or be a solid material without flash. The difference between the opalescent precious opal and the common opal (without flash) lies in the way the silica spheres are arranged. If the spheres in the opal are arranged in orderly layers, it allows light to split into its spectral colors (in the same way a prism splits the light into rainbows). If the spheres are disorderly, the material will not create rainbow opalescence. 

3. Opal can be found in many countries, and varies greatly in appearance. The most famous opal varieties are found in Australia, Mexico, Ethiopia, and select other areas. Australian opals are considered to be the most desirable and stable of the opals, as they form by water filtering through sandstone and ironstone, rather than the rhyolite matrix many other opals form in. 

4. In the healing community, opal is associated with intuition and psychic energy. It is associated with dreams--in Australia, aboriginee culture connects opals to Dreamtime, the dream world and source of spiritual energy. 

5. Opals were highly prized in many ancient cultures--in ancient Greece, opals were associated with the ability to see and foretell the future. Ancient Romans ascribed the ultimate power to the opal, as it was believed that since it contained all colors, it could contain all the powers of the other gems. Aztec rituals included opal stones, and ancient India celebrated the opal as a symbol of the goddess of the rainbow. 

*Note on the supposed "unluckiness" of opals: there is a common belief that opals are unlucky if bought for oneself, or if worn by someone who was born outside of October. This contemporary idea isn't reflected by thousands of years of ancient cultures' beliefs about opal. In fact, the clearest origin we can find for this "unlucky" myth is a fictional story published in 1829, "Anne of Geierstein", written by Sir Walter Scott. Surprisingly, a character's death in the story due to a cursed opal became a cultural theme--this myth led to opal sales falling 50% and remaining affected for decades, a fiction that was happily supported by competitive diamond brokers.

Here at Phenomenal Gems, we believe you make your own luck. We've never seen any evidence or reason to believe that opals are unlucky for anyone to wear--we encourage you to make your own decisions. 

5 Facts about Tourmaline

1. Tourmaline is a group of borosilicate minerals, a complex family of closely related minerals that range from colorless (achroite tourmaline) to jet black (schorl). It forms in nearly every color of the rainbow.

2. Tourmaline is organized by both names referring to its chemistry, and its color--for example, Elbaite is a lithium-bearing variety that may be found in multiple colors. However, when zoned in a certain way, Elbaite tourmaline may be also called "watermelon tourmaline", or a solid pink Elbaite may be known as "rubellite". Generally, it is more accurate to refer to tourmaline by its chemical varieties, as many now consider color variety names as inaccurate.

3. Tourmaline is extremely complex in chemistry and crystal forms, and is considered the most popular collectors' mineral for high-end mineral collections. It is widely believed to have produced some of the finest mineral specimens of any species, ever found.

4. Tourmaline's contemporary healing attributes are generally connected to its color: pink tourmaline is believed to offer emotional healing, green tourmaline is commonly associated with emotional growth and plant growth, black tourmaline for protection, blue tourmaline for intuition, and so on. As it is more common for tourmaline crystals to be bicolored or tricolored than mono-colored, we can conclude that tourmaline may have many healing attributes in a single piece.

5. Tourmaline is a 7 on moh's scale, and its purported healing and high durability made it an ideal choice for amulets and carved talismans in ancient cultures. Tourmaline was associated with good luck and enlightment in ancient India, and associated as a gem of true vision in Africa. In Egypt, it was thought that tourmaline traveled through rainbows, gathering its many colors as it went. Indigenous cultures in both North and South America prized tourmalines for their healing power and spiritual energy. 

As you can see, these two colorful October gems are as complex in their folklore and healing as they are in their visual appearances. Check back next month for November's golden birthstone twins!

Which do you prefer: opal or tourmaline, and why? Do you lend any credence to opal's contemporary bad luck myths, or are you on the side of ancient good luckk attributes? Leave a comment below! Thanks for reading, and rock on my friends!

See more blog posts on Rock Talk with Angel, located at PhenomenalGems.com.