Gemstone: Tiger’s Eye, Hawk’s Eye, and Ox’s Eye

Tumbled tiger’s eye stones

The tiger’s eye stone is a metamorphic rock that develops when quartz slowly replaces blue asbestos (fibrous crocidolite).  The quartz remains oriented in the fiberlike strings of the asbestos, and so develops a chatoyant or cat’s eye effect appearance when cut parallel to the strand orientation.  The iron inside the asbestos sort of ‘dissolves’ out of the asbestos as it is replaced by quartz, yet remains trapped in the matrix.  Its rusty oxidated color is what makes this stone often have a brown-gold appearance.  However, tiger’s eye stone has a large color range that includes red, cream, black, blue, and blue-green in addition to the typical brown-gold.  Red or deep brown tiger’s eye (sometimes called Bull’s Eye or Ox’s Eye) often develops if the gold tiger’s eye is slowly heated, which can occur naturally or can be induced.  Blue, gray, or blue-green tiger’s eye (sometimes called Hawk’s Eye) is most commonly a result of an incomplete replacement of the asbestos.  This type of tiger’s eye will often also include gold streaks within the blue matrix.  Tiger’s Eye stones can also be artificially dyed, which results in bright, uniform purples, greens, and bright blues.

Red, blue, and gold tiger’s eye stones. Often called Ox’s/Bull’s Eye, Hawk’s Eye, and Tiger’s Eye stone respectively.

With the exception of dyed stones, which diminish tiger’s eye’s natural energies, the color of tiger’s eye doesn’t really change its energy.  It might, however, change how you choose to use it.  Red tiger’s eyes, for example, might be chosen for use in earthy, base chakra work.  Golds might be more fire or solar focused and maybe of more use in solar plexus chakra work.  Blues and greens might be better in air or water work, and for heart and throat chakra work.

In Love is in the Earth, Melody writes that since tiger’s eye looks like “sand and sunlight”, we can think of it as melding the energies of the sun and earth.  As such, its energies combine “sharpness and grounding”, which makes it “quite practical in its sphere of concern”.  It’s earthy resonation “encourage[s] stability with dynamic beauty [… which] is conducive to peacefulness and stimulates the actions required [… to meet] with others while in a meditative state.”

Since tiger’s eye is so earthy, it can help one develop a more grounded, practical and discrete mind.  Gold tiger’s eye in particular can be used to “eliminate the blues”, much as it actually did in its creation, and brings optimistic brightness to its uses mental state.  All tiger’s eyes, as metamorphic rocks, help to balance “yin-yang energy” and bring awareness to perception as well as to assist in “providing insight to issues which induce internal mental battles, delivering one from the ‘horns of dilemma’ and the conflicts associated with willful pride.”  It also prompts “an admiration for the pure and beautiful, which helps one to develop a passion for life”, and to open to a fuller existence.

This type of admiration and passion is generally accompanied by a great enthusiasm, and tiger’s eye “can help prepare the systems of the body for the approach of enthusiasm” by acting to help “attune one to the connectedness of the brothers and sisters of the planet, releasing introversion and fear, while promoting experiences which are fresh and new.”  This connectedness also tends to bring increased awareness to your own personal needs and the needs of others, as well as a discernment between the “pleasure of wishing and the act of having.”  Consequently, it can be “used to stimulate wealth and to enhance the stability required to maintain wealth.”

Physically, tiger’s eye has been used in the treatment of eye, throat, and reproductive system disorders, as well as intestinal constrictions.  It’s also been used to help align the spinal column and to mend broken bones.