There's a color this month that feels like an exhale.
Peridot forms deep in the earth's molten mantle under extreme heat and extreme pressure. And in rare cases, it doesn't come from the earth at all. Some peridot arrives here through meteorites, quite literally falling from space.
And yet, what emerges from all of that intensity is one of the lightest, most joyful colors in nature. Not muted. Not heavy. But bright, alive, and warm.
I think that contrast is a mirror for something a lot of us go through. At least at some point in our lives.
I also think we sometimes believe the struggle and the light are opposites. That we're either in the hard season or the good one, but never both at once.
But sometimes the struggle is exactly what produces the light. The pressure doesn't cancel out the joy. It creates it, expands it, or helps us see it.
The Gem of the Sun
Ancient Egyptians called peridot "the gem of the sun." They mined it on a small volcanic island in the Red Sea, and believed it protected against negativity, dark energy, and night terrors. Especially when worn close to the body and close to the heart.
Here's something I find beautiful: they mined this stone at night, because it glowed brightly under torchlight but was nearly invisible in the harsh light of day.
I think the light in us can work the same way. Invisible in the glare of everyday life, with its pressure and obligations, but once we finally slow down enough... we (hopefully) actually notice it.
The Romans called peridot the "evening emerald" for a similar reason — it held its color and its glow even as everything else around it dimmed.
What Peridot Asks of You
Spiritually, peridot connects to the heart with a distinct quality of lightness. Not with solemness but with joy.
It doesn't ask you to keep pushing... It asks you to release.
To let go of old emotional weight. Old guilt about feeling good (especially when others do not). Let go of old beliefs that joy has to be earned before you're allowed to have it.
If you've been carrying something heavy, a hard season, a loss, a long stretch of simply getting through. I want you to hear this clearly:
You do not have to keep proving you deserve to feel light again.
The lightness was always the other side of what you were carrying. It isn't something separate you have to go earn. It's simply what's next.
A Personal Observation
In the Personal Energy Portraits I've created over the years, I've noticed something that has stayed remarkably consistent.
When a bright, spring green shows up, it almost always represents new opportunity.
Something hopeful.
Something exciting, right on the edge of becoming real.
Not something forced into being, but something that was simply ready.
I think a lot of people are in that exact space right now, even if they haven't quite let themselves believe it yet.
If You're Feeling That Flicker
If you've noticed a little more hope creeping in lately, a little more curiosity about what's next, lean into it and trust it.
That's not naivety. That's peridot energy.
Light that formed under real pressure, finally allowed to be seen.
You don't have to earn your joy back. You just have to stop bracing against it.
I made a video going even deeper into this, the history, the meaning, and what this color might be telling you right now.
And if you're in a season where something new is quietly forming, I create Personal Energy Portraits designed to reflect exactly this kind of transformation.
→ Learn more and schedule a session
The light was never missing. It was just waiting for the pressure to finish its work.
— Tonya