Mysterious Object

Center stage, silver-flecked whiteness and nearly perfect roundness.

     mad·stone, noun

     Definition of MADSTONE, by Merriam-Webster

a stony concretion (as a hair ball taken from the stomach of a deer) supposed formerly in folklore and by some physicians to counteract the poisonous effects of the bite of an animal (as one affected with rabies)

Pretty sure it ain't that, but it's as good a story as any, considering I like stories. I didn't take it from a deer's stomach, just found it near the curb of a suburban Texas street while on an afternoon walkabout. Might be a marble or the gullet-stone of a moa. My friend the hoodoo dude has one too.

Thoth's Hourglass

My friend who cuts my hair and my Mom's hair does so in exchange for paintings; she asked for one to include her zodiac sign Scorpio and and a reworking of the Death card from the Thoth tarot deck

which looks like this

So I set about to produce something with a similar color scheme

As a reference, a teaching model of the birthing process, (swear words not included)

Given to me by one of my favorite persons who was a nurse about such things and many more, a storyteller, and I believe I am using the term correctly, Woohoohoodiwoo Woman.

Here's what I came up with...still not entirely sure it's finished.

 

Lovely Bones

These are a real human femur and part of another one that I found while emptying trash bins at my old job as a janitor in the Health Sciences building at Local State University. This didn't seem like the place for them to be so I took them home with me, where they've been for the past few years. I remembered them the other day while cleaning. A friend who'd enjoy having them will be taking them soon, but in the meantime I'll share them with you. The metal implants are surprisingly heavy, definitely not titanium or any of the newer alloys. The poor decroded-looking one at the top always made me feel sad; I think whoever it lived in must have had a painful gait if they walked at all. The one below it feels smooth, almost as dense as ivory; I think its fracture must have occurred after parting ways from its person.