Cosmic Gold

Your first parent was a star. In a timeless past, long before we or our world burst into existence, and across the broad expanse of space, a star collapsed. With its final breath, it exploded. It cast glowing, glittering flecks outward, to serve as the seeds of new stars, the heated cores of new planets, and the beginnings of other celestial bodies. With each supernova, each destruction of a star and the solar system around it, atoms collided, slamming new elements into existence. It took the collapse of countless stars and the destruction of far more celestial bodies to create the atoms that form our galaxy, our sun and planet, all the seas and mountains and forests, and your body. Your celestial body. Your first parent was a star.

These collisions also gave birth to gold, a brilliant metal that occurs naturally, in a pure state. Small, smooth, polished pieces reflected sunlight from beneath the currents of streams or rivers, winking up at those who first discovered the lustrous metal thousands of years ago. This glittering material would soon be eagerly sought after because it was rare and beautiful, both markers of value in the ancient world. From at least the Bronze Age onward, people hunted for it. According to legend, this shining material was first discovered by an Ancient Egyptian called Zosimos, who accidentally found gold while searching for tin around the year 2500 BCE. Science unveils an even earlier date for the first known use of gold: archaeologists uncovered a necropolis – a city of the dead, or cemetery – in Bulgaria that dates to 4600 BCE, where our ancestors were buried with golden items. Even before we learned to forge iron or smelt bronze, we were sending our ancestors into the afterlife with golden and gilded offerings. Throughout the ancient world, stars are often used as guides, whether helping sailors navigate at night, leading our loved ones to the afterlife, or comforting us with their long-lived wisdom and glittering, seemingly eternal presence.

For thousands of years, this luminous metal was smelted – heated and melted – to separate the desired metal from the ore in which it was found, and to remove any impurities from within the gold itself. This alchemical process, discovered by ancient people, means that some of the earliest golden objects in the world are made of pure gold. These items were designed for adornment and offering, as gifts meant to beautify, delight, and enhance. Pure gold, however, is remarkably soft and malleable, and it is easily shaped and molded. It is also less resilient to scratches and pressure, which can warp or destroy the object and its decoration. To forge stronger items without losing the reflective and lustrous appearance of gold itself, ancient goldsmiths alloyed the material by mixing it with other metals. By 2500 BCE, golden objects were often crafted from a mixture of approximately ninety percent pure gold and 10 percent silver and copper. The amount of copper in these objects increased over time, as it creates harder, more durable metals that maintain the desired golden shine.

Tools and weapons were sometimes created from these harder golden alloys, which were offered to deities and spirits at remote mountain top shrines, in grand temples, in sparkling bodies of water, and in the darkest shadows of caves. Some of these include golden hammers, tongs, or blades. Golden swords, however, were highly valued by elite, wealthy people, and they are sometimes found in burials. Although the blades were too soft for battle, the symbolic power of the blade’s form invokes might, ferocity, and prowess in combat. Combined with the luxurious, shining metal, these objects reflect not only the bearer’s superior ability in battle and status as a wealthy person with access to rare and valuable materials, but golden swords communicate that the person who wields one is so very respected – perhaps even feared –, and that they do not need a working sword to be powerful. Their identity, their past, and their power are enough.

Rare and flashing with the sun’s reflected rays, golden objects are often handed down from one generation to the next. These items become heirlooms, not only as objects that represent a single person’s history and deeds, but as symbols that invoke the identities, histories, and values of entire lineages and families. As heirlooms, these pieces of adornment remind us that we belong to things more vast than our singular selves, our finite experiences, and our short lives: we belong to one another and to our traditions, we belong to the spiraling expanse of time, and we belong to the infinite, glittering stars.

Lustrous and shining, gold is a time-honored, valuable mineral of adornment. Its soft nature allows for its easy shaping into various forms and symbols. The material imbues symbols with the inherent qualities of the metal itself. When paired with stones, gold amplifies the stone’s properties, particularly boosting the resonance of healing frequencies. Associated with wisdom and deep love, gold also enhances the natural gifts and intention of the wearer. While the star-born nature of gold creates cosmic opportunities for manifesting our highest good, its earthly properties also serve to ground our energies, so that we might serve not only ourselves, but others who accompany our terrestrial journey. The Hoku Earrings, expertly crafted from this very material, serve as an amulet to remind us to channel the ancient wisdom of the stars and to allow these energies to take root in our lives and collective consciousness.

Gold gives shape to many of our most important symbols, laden with meaning, handed down through generations of wise women, shamen, and priestesses. Golden rings that encircle fingers, wrists, arms, and ankles remind us of the never-ending cycles of nature, time, and endless love.

The gentle swoop and strong cross-arm of the ankh firmly remind us that nothing ever truly ends: that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only refocused and transformed. It is through such alchemical translation that we are born, like gold, and like the stars who came before us.

The earliest roots of alchemy sought the transmutation of mundane materials into glistening gold. By crafting such transformative symbols from the material itself, we are capable of casting our own lives in a golden glow – of manifesting our greatest dreams. By adorning our star-born bodies with the celestial gifts of metal and stone and channeling our intention through symbols, we are invited to transmute the drab mundane into the glittering, celestial, and golden.

Ex astris ad astra. From the stars, to the stars. The very atoms that compose your body were born from dying stars. Those same stars also created gold, which connects our earthly bodies back to the cosmos. The Hoku Earrings remind us of this connection while empowering us to stay grounded and manifest the highest good for ourselves and others. By adorning our star-borne bodies, we are invited to transmute our everyday experience into something more – something glittering, golden, and guided with intention.