Steady in the Dark: A Collection of Mothish Stones

A message

(for the night of heart, for the dark days, for the scales that cover our eyes)

A reminder
(that light you hold within your chest is a beacon of lunar navigation, those wings you beat are strong enough to rise above)

A prayer
(for steady hands, steady feet, for trust in inner dreams and innate knowledge)

* * *
A humble moth offering for you, this Friday afternoon, listed in the shop momentarily.
~ Umber ~

Offerings: The New-New

Stone Feathers: Collections
Colored like the ocean at dusk when pelicans hover and sunlight lingers only in tidepools.

Stone Feather No 26: The Days I Find The Blues
There is something about those days, the days I find blue feathers, the days I know luck smiles down upon me.

Winged: A Sea Stone
A full wing, because sometimes one needs to feel the full span and scope those feathered phalanges can stretch.
* * * * *

Every time I finish a new batch of work, I gather them close, lay them out, and declare them all my new favorites.

*In the shop momentarily...*

Offerings of the Winged Persuasion, Part Deux

Winged
(I love these)

* * *

Stone Feather No 25

OHHHHH!  The shade of this stone is unlike any I've yet to find, mottled with lavender streaks and purple pockets, OY!

* * *

Weathered: A Feathered Sea Stone
(Officially the largest feathered stone to date, heavy, slick, and measuring in at a full seven inches)

To be listed momentarily!

Offerings In Stone

Good Morning this Fine Friday!
I'm high on caffeine this morning (Two cups! With cream!  Ya! Ya!)  and I've some new work to share with you:

All the green in the woods (and subsequently ending up in my mouth) has been finding it's way into my work, along with a few finch who have been catching my eye with their flashy feathering (hey baby, check out how red my head is, wanna get a drink?  I know the best spot in the woods for fir tip tea...).

All of that to say,
I'M QUITE AWAKE.
And will be setting these babies into le shoppero about 1:00 pm PST today!

Ciao Bellas e Bellos!
~ Umber

While We're On The Subject

Of Barn Owls that is.

It occurs to me that I've yet to tell you a tale of where my owlish love began: in the second story of a elderly farm house on a street called Louie.  I was still in single digits of age.  My sisters and I grew up in a house partly made of science, partly made of magic, and full of encouragement to question and explore.  My father was the town science teacher, known by each and every child still in school.

I realize this is sounding like the opening to a Mary Shelley novel and while we did have a great many questionable objects floating in formaldehyde, and what I'm about to reveal may lie akin to grave robbing, we were a somewhat respectable family living in California's central valley in the 1980's.

My first experience with barn owls was not so much with the birds themselves, but rather with their digestion.  On special Saturdays my father would deliver a few choice nuggets coughed up by local barn owls, filled with the remains of their prey.  Delighted, I would spread out my tools:

Probes.

Picks.

Scalpel.

Needle.

Forcepts.

And ever so carefully, while other children watched The Flintstones and Small Wonder, I would dissect owl pellets, carefully identifying rat femurs and mouse vertebrae.  Consulting creased pages with drawing of bones, spreading digested fur out to see if any treasures lingered behind.

What kind of wonderful creature was the owl!

They could swivel their heads 280 degrees, soar soundlessly through the night, scare the pants off of you if you happened to be wandering in the dark, AND their stomachs did all the work of forks and knives and cutting boards and garbage compressors.  And if that wasn't enough, they delivered all the information of who they found in swaying grasses and lonely country roads in a tidy little pellet for my scrutiny.

Amazing.

And so the love affair was born.

While it's been a great many years since I had the pleasure of a pellet, it's easy to recall the first mysteries the owls presented to me.  I've been chasing them ever since.

~ Both the Barn Owl and Barn Owl Feathered Stones will be in the shop lickity split ~

~ I'm off to take the Pup to the dog park before he loses him mind ~

~ CHEERS ~

PS: LADIES, YOU ARE UNBELIEVABLE!