I’m not normally a superstitious person, but I am beginning to see a pattern to my buying fossils and then finding fossils. And extending that a bit further to giving away fossils and finding better fossils! Should I start throwing salt over my shoulder or knock on wood too?
For a while it was almost scary, I would buy, say a cephalopod – caress it, study it, turn it over and over in my hands, even make it into jewelry and wear it. And then find my own! Often better than the one I bought. And oh so much better to have collected it myself! This has happened with trilobites, crinoids, bryozoans, etc. I buy one because I can’t find one and then I find one or more!
Glittering Geodized Cephalopod
Or, I decide to gift a fossil to a friend or relative. Often accompanied by an internal struggle selfishly wanting to hang on to it. Then, finally, letting go with a smile and wishing it a better home. And then within weeks I find an even better specimen of the gifted fossil!
What is going on here?
Are the fossil gods laughing at me and taunting me? Or are they benevolently bequeathing me the fossils of my dreams? What am I supposed to think when I’m on a hunt and practically trip across a perfect cephalopod just sitting there waiting for me to pick it up?
Or I sit down at a dig after being tormented by dreams of taunting trilobites and crinoids and look directly into the face of a large enrolled trilobite almost perfectly prepped?
Or I hit a vein of Prasopora bryozoans that I can just pluck from the hillside?
Would it have anything to do with holding the object of desire, training my eye to its curves and proportions, the nuances of details that can only be seen on a real specimen, literally training myself to recognize every facet of the fossil?
Or is it that the fossil gods need that monetary or gifting sacrifice as a symbol of my commitment to them?
Whatever it is, it works! Buy the fossil that I am looking for and I find it myself! I’m not going to argue with a successful system!
