Stuff That Glows

 

My "deep Lenten reflection" for Ash Wednesday is pictures of things glowing under blacklight. Of course photos don't really do them justice, but you can get the idea. The first thing glowing under blacklight is what seemed to be an ordinary rosary with bright green plastic beads, made by the Dairyman's Daughter's aunt.

Here is the clear rosary that I discovered glows, as it looks in natural light. If I'd looked more closely, the Our Father beads are actually a bit yellow, so they do look different, but it's subtle. You'd have to really be paying attention. The third to last Hail Mary bead (lower left) is green-tinted, and it also doesn't light up.

Here it is under blacklight. It's a really beautiful blue - you can sort of tell in this photo. And you can see the beads that don't glow.

It only occurred to me tonight that Jørgen my little stuffed narwhal might glow under blacklight... and indeed he does!

And so does this Hmong ornament I got at the International Festival almost exactly a year ago.

Here they are together. Doesn't Jørgen have the cutest little smile? Just like a real narwhal, I'm sure. Though bottlenose dolphins have cute smiles, and they're small whales too.

The Hmong ornament is supposed to hang, so here are a couple of pictures of it dangling.

And this is somewhat anticlimactic, but here is the crucifix on the rosary I made. It doesn't glow under the blacklight, but after you shine the blacklight on it, it glows in the dark for about ten seconds.

Spellcheck keeps wanting to change Jørgen's name to "Jurgen," which is closer to how it's pronounced. You pronounce it "YURR-gen," with a hard G. I don't know if real narwhals glow under blacklight, but apparently duckbill platypuses and wombats do - their fur glows green! 

Famous Hat