Found my marbles... ;-)

Okay, let me back up a space or two:

Back in that gorgeous transformative month called January, I began taking on online course from my friend Miss Leonie. (Her badge is in my "posse" block. Click on it when we're done, but not before! lol) When I was finished, one of my goals was to get all of my art supplies together.
Along the way, one of my real-life friends - surfergirl~N, let's call her - gifted me with a whole bunch of her art supplies. Then yesterday, I finally did the deed...I got my "art tub," a clear storage box I'd filled with arty odds and ends, out of the shed. FINALLY!
(Yes, turtles take a while to get there, but they get there eventually.) ;-)

So now all of my art supplies are in the same room. Wheee!
And now I have a LOT to go through, to see what still writes/works, what needs to be tossed, what to keep and use and play with, and what to pay forward to someone who knows what she's doing! (Like calligraphy. I have a calligraphy set now. I know squat about it, and I don't believe I have either the grace or the patience - mainly the patience! - to give it a go at this moment.)
Yesterday I opened up the art box and began to unpack it. What I came to realize was that I was unpacking memories and miracles as well...miracles as in, Holy crap, most of these markers are still good!...and memories of coloring as a child with smelly magic markers, imbued with odors like grape and cherry and licorice and cinnamon and apple and lemon! (Do you know, the grape and cinnamon pens still smelled good! the lemon, not so much. lol)

And that brings me to the marbles.
I had forgotten that I had salvaged much of my marble collection in our move in 2000 and squirrled it away in the art tub. Unpacking and looking at them brought back many memories.
I also looked at them with new eyes, these little spheres of glass so gaily patterened and etched within...artist's eyes, magick eyes. Hey, some of them could pass for gemstones, and these wee spheres can hold energy right alongside their crystalline cousins.
Then came the lightning stroke of inspiration: I'd been looking for an appropriate medium to do some of my ninja-work with in the near future; why not some of these marbles? HA - genius!
So I pulled some of the marbles aside to come with me on a trip back east that's coming up in the near future. I've got two sets...one for my ninja work; the other for a very special boy I recently met.

I mean, gotta pass some of the traditions along, right?
I'll have to see if I can remember some of the old games. Maybe some of my posse will be able to help me... ;-)