Gathering
Stones
There is something
comforting about stones and rocks. Our
Indian sisters and brothers believe each stone and rock
has a spirit. This is true, I think. When
I hold them in my hand, I feel their solidity, but something
else passes from them to me. I think of what they
have seen, what has shaped them: The passing of ice fields,
inch by ponderous inch; the tumble of white water;
the rolling and pounding from the waves; the fire and
molten forces that heated, spewed and fused them; the
snows that covered them; the
eons that passed them.
Still
they endure.
I like to have them
about, close to me. They take me on a journey. Sometimes
I travel back to their gathering, their selection. There
is joy in their gathering. Finding them means
time away from concrete and pavement, to a time where
there's time.
You
can ponder as you wander, regarding the jewels at your
feet. Some are found along mossy-banked
streams. Some come from the stream beds, wetly gleaming.
Stones are found at riverside,
half buried on the graveled beach. Others
find their way to night table or desk top from the ocean's
shores, rubbed and rolled on the sea floor, then cast
shoreward, now waiting for you or me to recognize our
kinship.
Two small
rocks sit atop my computer as I write. One looks
like New Mexico and the other Mojave. They
give me an anchor in this hard-to-hold world.
The
rocks with the smooth egg-shape seem laid by ancient stone
birds—perhaps the Roc? Several
pancake-flat stones invite an artful, piled arrangement,
which looks spare and stylish, like a Japanese garden.
Tranquility prevails. In contrast, the sharp-toothed
obsidian gleams darkly and tells tales of violent upheaval
and molten flow. Careful, it waits to bite if
you touch too hard.
But these are my
stone friends. You'll find your own. Each
one will whisper a haiku into your ear.
Each has its story to tell. Contained
within is the weight of years, a mystery that perhaps
shall be revealed to you alone. The voice
of ancient wisdom is in their being—when our ears
are open to hear.
I think
that we who love the rocks and stones are kindred spirits.
Many there are who cannot walk upon the beach or shore
or field without returning home with pockets jingling
with a stone or two. If you are one, then you know their
lure. If you've no stones
surrounding you, you may want to go exploring for them
now.
The
round ones and the egg-shaped ones speak to us of life.
For some of us, our lives are
now changing from egg creators to wisdom bearers.
These forever eggs are a reminder of our new phase.
We will always be Woman, bearer of life, caretaker
of Gaia, with the enduring strength of rock to sustain
us.
Our hair, now with
the gray and silver glinting, does it bother us? Regard
the rocks. Even as some
are brown, some ebony, and others glint with gold,
there are those beauties of gray, silver and white. All
are beautiful. Who is to say which one is more so?
For young
women, the egg rocks speak of possibility, the magic of
creation, ripe with roundness.
Go now to water.
Go to canyon and field. Go to nature. Walk
along, with eyes alert, and senses quivering.
The lesson is not to accumulate, but to select, most carefully,
the one or two pieces of mini-earth that call. Welcome
the moment when your eyes alight upon the right one.
It will call your name. Will you heed the call? Will you
lift it, hold it in your hand?
Consider this rock,
or its offspring, this stone. Does it speak to you? What
does it say? Smooth it with your fingers, oh so gently.
Can you hear its voice, its cells singing to yours?
Ask
the stone's permission to remove it. Tell
it you need it for just a little while. Just a passing
blip from the eons it has endured. Someday, perhaps,
your bones and its bones will blend and return to the
meadow, the field, the river bank, the ocean shore where
you first met. So unite now, the two of you,
both strong and enduring. This is your moment to blend
spirit and sing together. Later, when you honor rock,
you will remember this moment of discovery: The
moment when strong woman and enduring element found one
another.
Patricia
Frank
writes
from
Beaufort,
NC
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