Unakite is a beautiful green and pink stone that is composed of epidote, orthoclase feldspar, and quartz. This crystal has been used for spiritual and healing purposes for centuries. Unakite has a relaxing and nurturing energy that can help release pent up emotions and promote a sense of balance. Let’s explore the metaphysical properties and healing abilities of unakite.
What is Unakite?
Unakite is a combination of green epidote, pink orthoclase feldspar, and clear quartz. It typically has a mottled green and pink appearance. The green epidote gives unakite its name, as “una” means green in Greek. This stone was first discovered in the Unaka Mountains in North Carolina in the United States, which is how it got its name.
Unakite ranges in color from lighter minty greens to deeper forest greens and from soft pinks to rich reddish pinks. It is the presence of copper in the epidote that gives unakite its characteristic green color. The pink, on the other hand, comes from the orthoclase feldspar. Unakite commonly occurs in masses and ranges from semi-translucent to opaque. It has a Mohs hardness of 6 to 7 and can be polished into beautiful tumbled stones, beads, and other jewelry pieces.
Unakite Meaning
In crystal healing traditions and spiritual practices, stones are used for their energetic and metaphysical properties. Unakite has a gentle but powerful energy that is said to aid spiritual growth and assist in rebirth. Here are some of the prominent meanings and uses of unakite:
- Promotes emotional balance and stability
- Encourages release of negative energy and finding inner peace
- Supports personal growth and spiritual awakening
- Aids visualization and psychic abilities
- Fosters healthy relationships and heart chakra healing
- Boosts self-confidence and helps overcome trauma
The soothing green and pink colors of unakite reflect its ability to balance emotions and enhance spiritual awareness. The stone integrates the energies of the heart and third eye chakras, providing a sense of wholeness.
Unakite Crystal Healing Properties
In crystal healing, unakite is valued for its ability to gently release blockages and negative energy from the emotional body. It brings stability during times of change and transition in life. Specifically, some of the metaphysical properties of unakite include:
- Emotional healer – Unakite helps to lift painful emotions that are buried deep in the subconscious. It brings these issues to the surface so they can be dealt with and released. This allows any heart wounds or traumas to finally heal.
- Strengthens relationships – By reconnecting you to your heart energy, unakite enhances compassion, kindness and healthy relationships. It brings balance to codependent relationships and fosters unconditional love.
- Boosts self-confidence – This stone empowers you to have faith in your own abilities and believe in yourself. It is an excellent crystal for anyone recovering from traumatic experiences.
- Spiritual growth – Unakite expands spiritual awareness and aids meditation and visualization. It can assist in making contact with spirit guides and seeing psychic visions more clearly.
- Rebirth & renewal – With its soft, nurturing energy, unakite helps release stagnant energies and patterns to make way for growth and renewal. It supports major life changes and facilitates a smooth transition.
Overall, unakite is the stone of balance, compassion and unconditional love that can both heal emotional wounds and open the heart to receiving more love.
How to Use Unakite
Here are some of the most common and effective ways to use unakite:
Jewelry
Wearing unakite in jewelry like necklaces, bracelets and rings is an easy way to benefit from its healing properties throughout the day. Place unakite jewelry over the heart chakra or third eye chakra to enhance their energies.
Meditation
Holding a piece of unakite during meditation helps to ground and focus your energy. Unakite strengthens visualization and can allow you to sink into a meditative state more easily. Place it between your hands or over the third eye.
Crystal Grids
In a crystal grid, unakite can be combined with stones like green aventurine, rhodonite and rose quartz to boost heart chakra healing. Focus your intention on balancing relationships or releasing emotional blockages.
Body Layouts
Lay pieces of unakite directly on the body, especially near any areas of pain, injury or disease. The stone’s nurturing energy can accelerate the healing process.
Home & Office
Keep unakite tumblestones or geodes around your home and office to promote peaceful, compassionate energies in those spaces. Place them in areas where you spend a lot of time.
Heart Chakra Healing
Position unakite over the center of your chest to realign and stimulate the heart chakra. Try meditating while lying down with the stone over your heart. This can release repressed emotions in a gentle way.
Combining Stones
Pairing unakite with other healing crystals can enhance its metaphysical properties and amplify the stone’s effects. Here are some powerful combinations for unakite:
Unakite & Rose Quartz
This partnership expands the heart chakra energies. It encourages love, compassion and emotional healing on a deep level by resolving painful issues from the past. Together these two pink stones foster self-love.
Unakite & Green Aventurine
Green aventurine stimulates the heart chakra with positive intentions while unakite releases blockages and negativity. This allows fresh vitality and compassion to flow freely through your heart center.
Unakite & Labradorite
The spiritual energies of labradorite paired with unakite’s heart-centered vibrations create a powerful combo for awakening. This partnership awakens psychic abilities, creativity and a profound sense of purpose.
Unakite & Apache Tears
Gentle unakite mellows out the intense grounding effects of obsidian in apache tears. Together, they encourage you to acknowledge painful emotions and then release them to find inner peace and acceptance.
Unakite & Lepidolite
Lepidolite is known for calming stress and anxiety. With unakite, it provides emotional balance and stability during chaotic or uncertain times. These two stones encompass the entire range of pinks and greens for full heart chakra support.
Chakras
In chakra healing, unakite is most commonly associated with the heart chakra but can also resonate with the third eye and lower three chakras.
Heart Chakra
The main chakra that unakite impacts is the fourth chakra, also known as the heart chakra or Anahata. Located in the center of the chest, this chakra governs love, compassion, relationships and acceptance. Unakite’s green and pink colors directly stimulate the energies of the heart chakra for emotional balance.
Third Eye Chakra
This indigo chakra located between the eyebrows relates to intuition, visions and wisdom. Unakite activates the third eye for clearer insights and heightened spiritual awareness that comes from an open heart.
Lower Three Chakras
The lower three chakras ground your energy and establish your sense of safety in the world. By clearing blockages in these chakras relating to survival, creation and personal power, unakite ensures you are rooted to fully express heart chakra energies.
Overall, unakite is closely linked to Anahata but can clear and align all seven chakras as part of its role in facilitating spiritual growth.
Zodiac Connections
In astrology, unakite has connections to zodiac signs that are known for their compassion, spirituality and intuition. Here are the signs most connected to unakite and its properties:
Libra
Libra is the sign of partnerships, balance and harmony. Unakite supports Librans in achieving more balance in all areas of life, especially in relationships. It also boosts decisiveness.
Pisces
Dreamy Pisces is highly intuitive and spiritual but can sometimes lack grounding. Unakite helps them find emotional stability without losing their magical spirit. It enhances creative visualization.
Sagittarius
Optimistic Sagittarians have big dreams and high aspirations. Unakite motivates them to turn visions into realities. It provides energetic support for achieving their goals.
Taurus
While steady Taurus is usually quite grounded, unakite assists during times of change by anchoring their energy. It allows them to move forward without sacrificing security.
Cancer
Sensitive Cancers care deeply but hold onto emotional wounds. Unakite encourages letting go of pain from the past so they can nurture themselves and others from a healed heart.
Benefits of Unakite
Here is a summary of some of the top benefits of unakite:
- Balances emotions and stabilizes moods
- Strengthens compassion and fosters healthy relationships
- Aids in releasing energetic blockages and traumas
- Calming, nurturing energy brings comfort in difficult times
- Boosts visualization abilities and spiritual alignment
- Promotes personal growth and the development of unconditional love
- Supports the heart, third eye and lower chakras
- Helps you move forward after painful incidents or separations
From enhancing meditation to recovering from failed relationships, unakite can gently help restore balance and well-being in a variety of ways. Its soft pink and green hues emit compassionate vibrations that comfort the soul.
How to Cleanse Unakite
It’s important to regularly cleanse your unakite crystal to clear any accumulated negative energies. Here are some of the best ways to cleanse unakite:
Sea Salt Bath
Soak the unakite in sea salt dissolved in water overnight to refresh its energies. Rinse it afterwards.
Sage Smoke
Pass your unakite through the smoke of burning sage or incense to smudge away stagnant energy.
Sunlight
Place the crystal in direct sunlight or moonlight for 4-6 hours. The light will renew its vibrations.
Crystal Clusters
Keep your unakite near larger cleansing crystals like selenite towers or smoky quartz clusters. Their high vibration will cleanse nearby stones.
Earth Burial
Bury your unakite in the earth for a day to absorb the grounding energies. Remember its location!
Sound Bath
The sound waves of tuning forks, singing bowls or bells clear negative energies. Expose unakite to the sounds.
Cleanse your unakite regularly to prevent energy buildup. You’ll feel the difference in its loving, compassionate vibration.
Charging Unakite
After cleansing, you’ll want to charge your unakite with positive energy. Here are some methods:
- Place it in sunlight to absorb the light’s pure energies.
- Bury it in the earth overnight and allow it to soak up earth energies.
- Keep it on an amethyst or quartz cluster for a few hours to charge from the cluster.
- Hold the stone during meditation or yoga practice to charge it with your own energy.
- Set an intention like love or healing and focus this purposefully into the crystal.
- Sleep with unakite under your pillow or by your bed to charge all night.
A fully charged unakite will feel vibrant, strong and ready to help you heal!
Unakite in Jewelry
Unakite is very popular in jewelry and has been since Victorian times. Its soft pink and pistachio green colors make it stand out in jewelry designs. Here are some tips for using unakite jewelry:
- Necklaces – Unakite pendant necklaces lie close to the heart chakra for emotional healing.
- Rings – Wear unakite rings during meditation for grounding and visualization support.
- Earrings – Dangle earrings place unakite by the third eye chakra to increase spiritual awareness.
- Bracelets – Stacked unakite beads boost heart-centered intentions and relationships.
- Anklets – Anklets transmit unakite’s energy into the lower chakras and earth star chakra.
When shopping for unakite jewelry, try to find pieces made with real unakite rather than synthetic versions. The real stone’s energy is much more powerful. Also be sure to cleanse and charge your unakite jewelry regularly.
Where to Buy Unakite
Beautiful unakite crystals are widely available both online and in most crystal shops. Here are some of the best places to buy unakite:
- Etsy – Many crystal sellers offer unakite on Etsy in raw, tumbled, polished and jewelry forms.
- Crystal Shops – New age and crystal stores usually carry a selection of unakite specimens and products.
- Mineral Shows – Check out crystal and mineral shows where you can find high quality unakite from different locations.
- eBay – Unakite is frequently sold in auctions and buy-it-now listings on eBay.
- Rock Shops – Some rock and gem shops have raw unakite specimens harvested from different sites.
Whenever possible, try to buy unakite crystals and jewelry directly from the creator or a small shop. This ensures you aren’t getting a synthetic stone. Hold the unakite in your hands to intuitively feel out the one calling to you!
Is Unakite rare?
No, unakite is considered a fairly common mineral and is mined in many locations around the world. It is much easier to find than rare collector crystals like ruby, emerald or alexandrite. However, top grade unakite with bright pinks and deep greens is more desirable and valuable. While not exactly rare, high quality unakite is also not abundant. Lower qualities of mostly green unakite are most common.
The main factor that limits the supply of fine unakite is that is must have the right balance of pink orthoclase and green epidote to display its signature mottled coloration. Finding thick undegraded seams of perfectly balanced unakite is uncommon. While plentiful in nature, flawless unakite is worth the search!
Identifying Unakite
It’s important to be able to identify real unakite since synthetics and lookalikes exist. Here are some tips:
- Color – Genuine unakite has a distinctive mottled pink and green appearance from orthoclase and epidote.
- Pattern – The color should be distributed somewhat evenly rather than concentrated in large patches.
- Clarity – Unakite typically has a soft satin finish rather than being completely transparent.
- No Bubbles – Authentic unakite will not contain air bubbles, debris or carbon pieces.
- Hardness – A real stone tests at 6 to 7 on the Mohs hardness scale.
- Quality – Low quality specimens are very light green with little pink color.
- Scratch test – Glass and resin can’t be scratched by a knife or nail but unakite can.
If in doubt, consult a reputable gemologist. But following these guidelines will help you spot real unakite easily.
Unakite vs. Green Aventurine
Unakite is sometimes confused with the similar looking green aventurine. But these are two distinctly different stones. Here’s how to tell them apart:
- Color – Unakite has pink and green coloring while green aventurine is solid green.
- Inclusions – Aventurine has a sparkly finish from mica or quartz flecks while unakite is matte.