Quick Specs
- Type: Bookmark with a hanging charm
- Size: 7 3/4 inches
- Design: Engraved feather with a curved top; chain with a sun charm
- Finish: Silver-toned
- Glow: Glow in the dark
A Silver-Toned Feather with a Sun on a Chain
The blade is one flat feather with a center shaft running its whole length and fine diagonal barbs engraved on both sides, narrowing to a soft point at the bottom. The center shaft stays straight while the barbs angle toward the tip, which gives the blade a quiet sense of direction. At the top the shaft curls over into a hook. A small ring hangs from that bend and carries a fine chain, and the chain ends in a sun: a round charm with a ring of sharp, tapering rays, tiny dots along their edges, and a smooth, dark domed center that sits in the middle like a pupil. The finish is a silver tone that runs bright on the raised barbs and darker in the engraved lines and between the rays, which gives both the feather and the sun an antiqued look. The bookmark is sold as glow in the dark. At 7 3/4 inches it is a long, slim piece, and the chain lets the sun swing a little at one side of the feather. The two motifs read quickly at a glance, since the feather is light and upright while the sun is round and spiky.
A feather belongs beside a book more naturally than most charms do. Quills cut from the flight feathers of geese and swans were a main writing tool in medieval Europe until steel pens replaced them in the 1800s, so a feather bookmark takes the shape of an object that once wrote the pages it now marks. The sun on the chain adds a second image, and it gives the bookmark a lively end that stays visible while the book is closed. Seen together on a closed book, the long silver blade and the small round sun make a pair of shapes that suit a shelf of grimoires, journals and Tarot guidebooks. The silver-toned finish sits well against dark bindings, pale page edges and brass clasps. The glow in the dark finish gives the piece a reason to live in the book you read at night, since a light-charged finish is made to show up when the room goes dim. A long, narrow blade with a swinging chain also gives the marked book a clear outline when it sits in a stack on a shelf or a desk.
Practical Reading and Gift Applications
Use it in the book you open most often: a novel, a spell journal, a grimoire, or a Tarot guidebook open to the card you’re studying. A bookmark spares your page corners from folding, which conservation guidance recommends. In a journal, move it forward each night so the next blank page is waiting. On a nightstand, leave it in a closed book so the sun charm shows at the edge of the cover. If you read several books at once, give each one its own marker so you can find your place in any of them. A feather and sun also make an easy gift for a reader, a writer, or anyone who collects sun pieces. For more places to put your notes and your bookmark, browse my journals collection.
How to Use Your Feather and Sun Bookmark
Slide it in, give it some light, and treat the book gently.
- Mark your page
Open the book to the page you want to mark, slip the feather blade between the pages, and let the chain and sun charm rest outside the book. A long slim blade is easiest to place when you hold the pages open with your free hand and lower it in slowly. When you pick the book up later, the sun charm shows you where you stopped.
- Give the glow some light
Light-charged finishes absorb light first and release it afterward, so leave the bookmark in daylight or under a lamp for a while before bedtime. Then carry it into a dim room to see how it looks, and expect the glow to fade gradually as time passes. Charge it again whenever you want a stronger glow, since the cycle can be repeated again and again.
- Handle the book with care
Conservation guidance for books calls for a bookmark in place of turned-down corners, turning pages from the top corner, and keeping food and drinks away from the pages. Lift the book from the center of the spine when you take it off a shelf. When you finish a book, take the bookmark out and move it to the next one.
The Tarot Fellow Standard
I stock this bookmark for its two motifs and its finish: an engraved silver-toned feather with a curved top, a sun on a fine chain, and a glow in the dark piece you can leave in a book overnight. It does a small, useful job and looks like a charm while it does it. I choose pieces like this for readers who keep a stack of books beside the bed and want something that belongs with them. For more sun imagery, browse my sun and stars collection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Glow in the dark pigments are phosphors. In the common strontium aluminate type, europium takes in blue or near-ultraviolet light, and defects near dysprosium atoms catch some of the excited electrons. Heat energy frees them a little at a time, and each one returns to europium and gives off a greenish light. After charging, the glow lasts for hours and fades gradually. Sunlight, fluorescent, LED, blacklight and incandescent light can all charge it.
No. Light-charged pigments such as strontium aluminate and zinc sulfide only store light and give it back, and the charge can be renewed again and again. Strontium aluminate is described as non-toxic and chemically inert. Radioactive glow is a separate technology: radium paint, once used on watch dials, is a radiological hazard, and tritium lights glow without charging because the isotope keeps decaying.
The feather of Ma'at stood for truth. Ma'at was the goddess who personified truth, justice and cosmic order, and her feather was the standard in the judgment of the dead. A person's heart was weighed on a scale against the feather: a heart lighter than or equal to it meant a virtuous life and a way forward to the paradise of Aaru, while a heavier heart was devoured by the monster Ammit.
Many cultures gave the sun a god. Ra was the sun god of ancient Egypt and one of the oldest gods in its pantheon, shown traveling through the underworld in a solar barque. In Greek myth Helios personified the sun and drove a golden chariot across the sky each day, and art usually shows him as a youth wearing a crown of sun rays. His cult was strongest on the island of Rhodes.
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