Te Ao Mārama – garnet earrings

These earrings! Flick through the photos, what more can I say –  they are absolutely stunning!  They are carved in a transparent garnet found by Tim here in our swimming hole.  It is rare to find garnet of this quality in Aotearoa.

Te Ao Mārama is the world of light.  Really there is no better name for these earrings.  And the way they reflect the light makes them very difficult to photograph! I’ve done my best.😬

Garnet has an important place in the story of Māori tool creation.  It is very hard, harder than pounamu, so garnet was used as a hammerstone for shaping taonga and as a grinding stone for drilling holes and finer shaping.  It is a taonga in it’s own right.

These earrings are small and light enough that you can wear them all day every day without a bother.  But also big enough and beautiful enough that you won’t go unnoticed in them.

If you have a second piercing wear a dangling pair of pounamu earrings behind them and they will tinkle like bells in your ears.  It’s truly the most beautiful sound to carry with you through the day.

I have a pair in the same style.  I wear them all the time.  They have a lovely solidness to them.  And on those hoops, they swing and dance in your ears in a way that’s quite mesmerising.  These would make the perfect little pounamu gift for the earring lover in your life.

• Garnet from Te Tau Ihu
• 58mm from Hoop to tip. Garnet 41mm diameter
• One of a kind taonga by Timoti