Pearls are the atypical gemstone, unlike any stone imaginable. A singularly unique and exquisite piece of art. Each completely disparate of another.

http://www.americanpearl.com/historyoyster.html.

Perhaps this is the reason that our fascination with the pearl has stood the test of time, and continues to be symbolic of rights of passage for women everywhere today. As females, draping them around our neck, has the capacity to immediately transport us to a sensation reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. They simply exude elegance, exclusivity, and elitism.
However, the pearl is infinitely more intriguing than its beauty.

While the legend of the pearl’s humble beginnings as a grain of sand, is both a compelling and endearing back story, it appears that it is indeed, just a legend. The fact of the matter is, this gemstone has an even more riveting inception. A pearl actually begins its life as an invading parasite. Wait. What? Shockingly, a pearl’s life begins forming when a weakened, damaged, compromised mollusk’s shell becomes invaded by a parasite. The parasite is forcefully aggressive and burrows deeply into the mollusk’s muscle tissue until it dies. At which point, a sac then begins to form around this necrosed parasite (as the mollusk’s body’s natural defensive response). Over time, this sac, through various cellular reactions, becomes what we know as, the pearl.

In the story of the pearl, one can find a litany of metaphors, symbols, representations. Personally, the most compelling, is this. A mollusk, a living entity, through whatever life experience, has become scarred, weakened, and vulnerable to an attack. A parasitic invasion. A painful experience that produces inherent physical change. Change that will completely alter this organism and its life path. And amazingly, almost in spite of itself, this organism finds a way to take what was intended to kill it and utterly transform it. The pain….. producing in the end,  a magnificent pearl.

Perhaps the fascination with the pearl is about more than an appreciation of beauty, but of the pain that produced it.