National Wear Your Pearls Day December 15, 2024
Soon after learning to make jewelry, I discovered pearls as though I had never seen them before. Buying them from reputable pearl dealers has become something of a celebration each time I renew my inventory of these glossy gemstones. I do a little dance inside myself, sometimes even outwardly, because the feeling I get is like that of a kid being handed a huge poof of cotton candy at a fair.
For me, pearls have come to symbolize endurance, strength, patience, healing and individual beauty. When I work with pearls creating new pieces of jewelry, I feel all of these emotions as though they are coming from the pearl itself. Pearls are a product of all of these traits because they come from an irritant, a granule of flotsam, like a grain of sand. In other words, something that didn’t belong inside the mussel or oyster became rejected by the creature via the creatures self defense mechanisms: the formation of nacre around the irritant flotsam so that it won’t be an irritant any longer.
Layer upon layer of nacre is formed around the irritant over a long period of time and the result is a perfect iridescent pearl. If you have ever held a handful of pearls you can feel the silky softness of the nacre that signals to the brain a pleasant tactile experience.
People are like pearls in so many ways, no one wants to be an irritant and each of us is individually beautiful. We overcome obstacles in life over time through endurance, strength, patience and healing. In time we “coat” over our pains and hurts and we emerge stronger and if we make it through with our wit, we have an iridescence that shines through our eyes and out into the world around us.
On National Wear Your Pearls Day, wear your pearls and shine out to everyone by knowing deep down your own strength and beauty as a person.
From The National Day Calendar, How to Observe Wear Your Pearls Day “When life throws dirt your way, put on your pearls as a reminder that you have value regardless of your current circumstances.”
On a side note, I am the lucky recipient of mother’s strand of 16″ pearls given to her by my father in 1961. They are still perfect and will continue their journey with me and I will wear them on the 15th of December layered with a modern strand that I have created. I didn’t realize just how amazing mom’s pearls were until I began working with pearls in my jewelry business.
“Pearls are my cotton candy.” “Girls gotta wear her pearls.” “The world is your oyster, go and find your pearl.”
Thank you for reading my blog post, with love, Rachel