Tag: eggs

Tonight I had dinner with . Moments like this make me so happy to be home. One of my favorite things to do is sit and talk with friends over food and drink–those meaty conversations that nourish your whole person. Sometimes the conversations are mundane and earthy, sometimes they are provocative and philosophical. They are always treasured.

And speaking of treasures, swampwitch brought me a gift–an egg that she purchased because it’s a "Valya Egg."

It was actually labeled as a Valya Egg! And it’s purple and sparkly, and it opens like a Fabergé egg. The egg has already been claimed by this mini steampunk poppet (one of Lisa Snelling‘s creations) seen gazing longingly above.

Because I have an uncommon name, I was never able to find any of those personalized gifts that kids sometimes had in the 80s: bracelets, bookmarks, or mugs. There may have been a Valerie or a Val, but I was neither of those. A friend once made me a wooden sign of my name, I have it to this day because it was the only thing with my name.

And now this egg.

Plus swampwitch knows me well enough to know that I am fascinated with eggs as symbols, a part of folklore and tradition, and as a storytelling tool. Eggs by their very nature hide something precious inside. They connect generations. They hold their stories hidden inside the shells. They are a perfect symbol of potential.

(Painted eggs, called pysanky, are an important (and one of my favorite) part of Ukrainian culture. To read more about them from a previous LJ post, click here.)