Celtic animals are gathered and painted with brilliant colors, reflecting traditional Celtic symbols and updating into a more contemporary presentation. Pioghaid the Magpie (shown here) is joined by Coileach the Peacock, Cwn Annwyn the Dog of the Underworld, Caoit the Cat, Corr the Crane, Eas-Ganu the Eel, Payshtha the Dragon, and Beli the Eagle upon prints, pillows, mugs, tiles and boxes, and other gift items.
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Several years ago, I bought a curly bamboo plant. Actually it was a stick, green and curved back on itself in two places. It had no leaves, no roots, no particular signs of life, except that it was green. Along with this came Feng Shui instructions which read, roughly, put the uncurly end in water and keep both ends very carefully out of direct sunlight. So I did. For about two years, I kept the uncurly end submersed in fresh water in a sturdy wine carafe on top of the entertainment center, which is about as far from direct sunlight as it could be placed. About two months after it arrived, it sprouted a leaf. A tiny teeny little green leaf. We were thrilled, and figured our Feng Shui operation was well on its way. Like good followers of instruction leaflets, we positioned it appropriately and added water every few days, so that its little feet would never dry out. It spouted thin tendrils of roots which curled up inside the carafe bottom. All was good.
Several months later, it sprouted a second leaf. A few months after that, it sprouted a third. We figured this was the way of Zen life. Slow journey and all. We kept it watered, kept it out of direct sunlight, kept its feet wet, etc etc etc.
I'm no Feng Shui guru, and I'm just as likely to align a stack of outdated People magazines to the east-west as north-south, or northeast-southwest, with no regard whatsoever to the balance of the universe, and my luck and riches are as equally unlikely to change as a result. Feng Shui may work quite well for some folks who are better attuned to the balance of the universe. Personally, even though I try to be sensitive to the balance of the universe, usually our clutter bunker is more attuned to Flung Shui (tentative credit given to a cartoon on my fridge door).
We have no mirrors in the bedroom (apparently a Feng Shui no-no). I wish I could claim this was a purposeful act to keep evil spirits from sliding under the bathroom door. But frankly it's only because the one mirror we did have in the bedroom fell out of its moorings one night and hit the floor, scaring the cat. Our luck and riches did not change as a result, but the cat developed a great fear of falling plates of reflective glass. We did the math: Seven years of bad luck in the face of eight remaining lives, and figured that we wouldn't risk 56 years of terror for the poor thing, and never replaced the bedroom mirror.
The curly bamboo is supposed to bring great luck and riches. Well, that may very well be the case, but from its perch up on top of the entertainment center, I think it was more occupied with listening to Law & Order episodes and waving its few tiny leaves to the tunes of the theme of Gilmore Girls. In any event, not much changed until the day the cat discovered its location.
Even though she'd seen this thing up on top of the entertainment center every day for several years, all of a sudden she felt some catly urge to reach it and chew on its tiny few leaves. She's a clever cat, but the entertainment center stands about five feet high, is covered with stacks of video tapes, cassette tape boxes, miniature cars courtesy of Readers Digest Select Editions, owls holding incense, owls holding keychains, owls holding nothing, and a lava lamp (don't ask). There is just no room for a cat unless something sacrifices its position to four paws and a zooming tail. The owl holding the incense nobly gave up and bit the dust first. Moments later, keychain owl chose to join incense owl in a heroic demise. That was about the time I peeked around the corner from the office to see Chatterbox standing up on the top of a side table and batting things out of her way in order to reach the bamboo.
How'd I know she was aiming at the bamboo? It was cowering from her. Tiny wee leaves atremble, this poor plant was leaning backwards in a futile attempt to avoid impending doom! Well, ok, maybe not. But it was tilted back at an angle that would indicate it was about to follow keychain owl and incense owl into plunging death. I grabbed it from the top of the entertainment center and bad-kittied Chatterbox down from her attack point. After I retrieved the two owls and restored them to their rightful spots, as outlined by the bare spaces in the dust, I grabbed Chatterbox and gently deposited her out of range.
Without thinking about the 'keep out of direct sunlight' edict in the instruction pamphlet, I carried the bamboo to the kitchen and set it in the one place I was relatively sure Chatterbox would not attempt to attack it: near a big threatening white Kitchen Aid mixer. It just so happens that the mixer is right next to the window with its lovely southern exposure and view of the behind-us neighbors and their yard.
About two days later, I noticed that the few tiny leaves had grown to larger leaves, and were being joined by two more small leaves. Within a few more days, the leaf count was up to eight and all were turning beautifully into the sunlight. Within another week, those leaves were doing so wonderfully that even more had started to show up, as did a check for $5000 which I had thought I would never see.
Based on this, I now believe that curly bamboo likes sunlight, the directer the better, and may even contribute to luck and riches. In fact, I get the sneaking suspicion that if I had just moved it there a few years ago, that check might have arrived when it was expected, instead of being nearly three years late...
Chatterbox has since lost interest in plant life for the time being, now that the bamboo is being guarded by the big evil loud threatening Kitchen Aid mixer (which is only evil and loud when it is turned on to make bread, a winter-season event), and has taken up the fine art of de-crochet, best defined as the art of persistently unraveling and eating a handmade green afghan. She's still working on the fringe on one side, but has managed to consume most of that and is now eyeing the other side's loose threads.
