The husband was digging around in the front yard. “Look at this,” he said, holding up a large, scabby, bony looking object I recognized as an elk antler. “Here’s another one,” he said, brandishing a second. They were not a perfectly matched set; the second specimen was less architectural, seeing how a couple of the points were broken off it. Still, it was a formidable rack. Yanked from the damp earth where they had quietly lain for a long time, blanketed by weeds, they were, in a word, repulsive. The place where the antler attaches itself to the bull’s head was the worst, wet and spongy and creepy looking. How the antlers got to my yard, I’ll never know. It’s a new house for us. You never know what might turn up.

“Ugh,” I said. I was on the front stoop, giving myself a pedicure. I was painting my toenails blue, which is all the rage now. According to color symbolists, blue is the color of spirit and devotion.

“What should I do with them?” my husband said. I was tempted to say put them back where you found them, but something made me hesitate.

“Hand them over,” I said, not entirely graciously. “Let me see what I can do with them.”

This might be a good time to say that about two dozen years ago, driving around Arizona, at a tiny shop set up right on the road not far from Flagstaff, some Native American women were selling their crafts. Mostly they had gorgeous hand wrought silver jewelry, which I could not afford, but they also had small rugs and baskets. I bought a pretty wool rug in red and black. Over the years, dogs have chewed off a good bit of the fringe, but the rug is still attractive. The item I was most drawn to, however, was a pair of bleached antlers arranged on a leather cloth. Just looking at them, I felt their magic. I was working up my nerve to ask the price, one of the women firmly said, “Not for sale.”

In the laundry room I filled the utility sink with bleach and cold water. I dropped the antlers in and let them soak for a day and a night. I wondered if now was my chance to own magic antlers. For two days I set them outside on a table to sunbathe. When they were completely dry, I sanded them lightly. The whole time I worked, I thought if nothing else they’d be terrific ornaments lit with white lights on my mantle this Christmas.

My antlers are more ivory than white. They are lightly veined with hints of cocoa, a shade that could be attributed to residual dirt, or the bull’s natural antler color. While I was bleaching and scrubbing and sanding, I chanted to myself, “Heal the bone.” Around the same time my antlers were discovered, a member of my family broke not just one, but two bones. I invited these bony protuberances that once crowned the head of a large four-legged animal to send spirit healing to a two-legged one. Call me crazy, but I think it worked.