Tourmaline takes its name from turmali, an old Sinhalese word for a parcel of mixed, unnamed stones. It comes in nearly every color, and pink is among its loveliest. Here the crystals stay in the white rock they grew in, never cut free and faceted, so you see them as they formed.
This piece is from Brazil. Tourmaline's strangest gift has a legend of its own: in 1703, a parcel of turmali reached a Dutch lapidary, and children playing with the stones in the sun saw them pull bits of ash and straw toward them. Warm tourmaline holds a charge, and that charge was later used to draw ash from a smoked pipe.
In crystal traditions, pink tourmaline has long been linked to love and tenderness, and kept close as a quiet guard. Collectors prize it just as it is here, still in its stone: a field of rose across the white, no two crystals lying the same way.
