The pearl symbolizes femininity and thus, the Anima. It is beautiful, shiny and silverish, like the moon, which also symbolizes femininity.
The pearl also symbolizes the Self. To the alchemists, it was the philosophers stone; the oyster, which is corruptible flesh, creates and contains something incorruptible, the pearl. From there the idea sprang that after death the corrupted flesh of people would be gone (like the oyster) and what is left is the incorruptible and immortal soul (the pearl). According to an old Persian teaching, the pearl is the symbol of our most inner and perfect core. The alchemists used pearls for the life elixer of immortality.
The Latin word for pearl is ‘margarita’. Therefore the name Margaret means pearl.
