Some Sort of Symbol

If you truly hold a stone,

you can feel the mountain

it came from.

Mark Nepo

THE BOOK OF AWAKENING

When I was a little girl, I was always collecting stones.  There were never any two alike.  In the summer, I especially liked to hold a stone in my hand and feel the energy stored from the sun.  I   had an old cigar box to keep my treasures safe. 

My cigar box is long gone, but my habit of collecting stones continues.  I have some from Maui, Sedona, Key West, and Boulder Junction.  Some are from farms, fields, oceans, rivers, and neighborhood walks.  The stones are all different shades of color and a variety of shapes. 

My one time favorite I discovered on the ground at a market in a small village in Mexico.  It was shaped exactly like a heart.  There is a huge boulder in Wisconsin that I sat on during the summers.  I would read, watch my children play, and day dream.  When I still had the statue of Hebe in the yard, I would come home and place my new rocks around her feet.   Enjoying a feminine vortex near a river bed, I was overwhelmed to come around a bend and see thousands of rocks piled singularly one upon another, reaching towards the sky.  I was even more surprised years later  to discover the very same scene along the ocean.

I believe stones must be some sort of symbol for me.   Perhaps I feel the energy within them and the shared energy grounds me to this earth.  I associate them with medicine wheels or sweat lodges I have helped to build.  I have used stones to form energy grids or to experience them as a hot rock massage.  I can hold river rocks and hear the water flowing. 

For whatever reason, I respect rocks just as much as flowers or birds.  Before I have ever removed a stone from its nesting place, I always ask permission to carry it away and thank the earth for its gift.  The earth does not belong to us, we belong to it.  And as temporary residents, we need to care for it in a more respectful and honorable way.