I am a sucker for things of significance, and in fact, I make a big deal out of the fact that everything in my office at work is of significance, and that's why it gets to be there (I guess apart from the desk and the computer and the phone).
So, I have a stone in my office (I have two), but this is the oldest of the two stones and the one with the biggest story behind it, I think. There's a picture of it attached to the blog.
The stone I found in my garden a little bit less than 20 years ago, just after we had 'done it up'.
Our front garden has slate, which was delivered in ton bags, I remember and then shovelled into the parts of the garden to make it look nicer.
Not long after that, I was just walking through the front garden, and for some reason or other that I cannot explain, I was drawn to one of the pieces of slate.
There are many, many, many pieces of slate in the front garden, but I was drawn to one piece and picked it up and it's that piece that you see in the picture, it turned out that it had iron sulfide attached to the piece of slate in fact fused into this.
Iron sulfide being fool's gold.
From the minute I picked it up and saw it, I was moved by the significance of that whole effort.
I'm a huge fan and a devotee of Lord of the Rings. For anyone who knows that writing, there is a very famous line about all that is gold does not glitter.
The first thing I thought of when I saw the fool's gold was it reminded me of that.
We are all surrounded so much of the time by things that glitter but are of no value and in particular, no value to us.
So, the stone sits on my desk and reminds me that not all gold glitters.
It also reminds me though that some of the most precious things in your life have no financial value, ferrous sulfide is in fact pretty worthless.
This reminds me that sometimes you find the most precious things in the most unusual places, and if you don't look, you are unlikely to find them.
I am aware and have some insight into the colossal amount of weirdness that I have but it does tickle me and inspire me to think that something so seemingly inert and worthless can bring (At least to me) such enormous joy and inspiration.
There are stones everywhere, ay?
Why not go and pick up some stones?
Blog Post Number - 3808