My Tourmaline Teacher

Even when it was still raw I often admired the gem of our “Hidden Miracle” necklace. Showing its amazing beauty on a much bigger surface and on a much more natural way than traditionally faceted gems, charmed me all the time. Every millimeter sparked and glowed in different colors. Through the process of becoming a jewel this stone got very close to my heart, as a matter of fact, it became the symbol of Serendib gems.

Gems are formed under gigantic elemental forces and are almost as old as the planet. The extreme heat and pressure conditions created highly ordered crystal forms that endow gems with glow, clarity and longevity. They get their colors from trace elements, without them they would be practically colorless. The hardly definable purple–red–pink color of the Tourmaline in our “Hidden Miracle” for example is due to manganese.

After we had found the perfect silver holding that highlights the unique beauty of the stone we started to cut the stone to the form required by the jewel. But oh, dear! Every hairbreadth cut bit into a beautiful miracle of a tiny part, it removed a minute shine. I felt we cried over the lost parts together: the stone and me.
– I have to take away from you in order to make you more complete, to make you a jewel – I ask for the stone’s forgiveness.
That’s what Ushani, our gem–polishing girl must have felt when she hardly wanted to polish away the edges. – Such beautiful parts get wasted – she says with a sad look. I try to comfort her, myself and the stone which – after the elemental forces now had to suffer from cutting and polishing.
– You know, Ushani, a little shaping sometimes does good to our inner beauty as well. We must sometimes sacrifice something precious of ourselves in order to make way to even more beautiful, complete and pure qualities. That’s how “gemstones” are formed in the human world, too.

All that is natural is nice and god, however, giving it a form might benefit it to become a sharable, presentable treasure making everyone’s life more abundant and happy. Just like the “Hidden Miracle” of Serendib.