I
n this example of fine art jewelry, the Opal Bird Brooch, you can see that a golden bird with a bejeweled breast is perching upon a leafy branch of a golden tree.

The gemstone at the birds breast is a natural, crimson colored 12.3 carat, Mexican Fire Opal. The gold bird brooch measures 9 cm long by 4.5 cm high and too 528 hours to complete by hand.

The opal bird brooch is not alone in the annals of symbolic jewelry. You’ve may have seen or  even have some jewelry with bird motifs. Our feathered friends have long inspired great works of fine art jewelry, paintings and sculpture. In fact,  a number of Celtic artifacts with the bird motif,  show us that the use of bird imagery was widespread even as early as the Iron Age.

The feathers of a bird hold a revered place in nature based societies. The American Indian chiefs’ headdress represents the rays of the sun and each of its feathers were earned through a rite of passage.

Metaphorically birds correspond with the spirit’s flight towards the heights of realization and the mind’s sensual flight towards cognition. Piercing even through the clouds of doubt a bird’s ascension is analogous to the path of spiritual initiation and maturation.

As a piece of symbol jewelry the Bird Brooch brings us into the world of mythology. Birds have often been associated with spirit and divinity in the Christian tradition they represent the Holy Spirit. Birds were also identified with the Greek god Zeus, the Hindu Vishnu, the Hebrew Jahveh and was one of the four animals mentioned in Ezekiel’s mystic vision.

Stories of fabulous birds have parallels with stories of the garuda of India, the simorgh of Persia, the anka of Arabia and Turkey, the feng-huang of China, and the bennu of Egypt. – Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature, Jane Garry and Hasan El-Shamy

They are aspects of the sky realm and of the movement that carries us past the heaviness of life. Most of us have heard the catch phrase a “little bird told me so”, but only a few people know that it suggestive of mystical affiliations. Birds are also considered to be spiritual messengers and represent higher thoughts. They are known to be prophetic creatures, that bring messages down from on high.

The Fire Opal Bird Brooch, like birds themselves, represents lightness, the power of levitation, air, transcendence, higher knowledge and virtue.