Appreciate this post Guardian, read it last night and thought about it within the context of my own relationship to rock/stone.
Think as the C’s discussed, things can come trough Stone or utilize stone and Lethbridge discusses Stone or other objects as being a recorder. And similar to what has been written here by others, they (stone/rocks) are not conscious of what I am, just as my consciousness of what is above is unknown, however, i’ve generally been aware of rock in terms of feelings, not subjective thinking, just feeling that possibly reacts with neurochemicals - don't no, perhaps a kind of sensitivity to rocks recording or just its very primal matter that we don't understand enough about. For instance, in the mountains there are three main ranges adjacent; on east and two west, the east range is young rock and the west is significantly older. When on these ranges they have a completely different feeling, perhaps mimicking their history. Sometimes rock even has a distinct smell that attracts. There is a portion of a river i’ve come to know that only allows access in late September early October due to water forces or ice. It is a bit tricky getting in but once there what is revealed are stones carved by water like the most abstract sculpture one could make. This place and its stone speaks, it hums to feelings which convey no words.
When building a pond at home, have picked rock from around these ranges; some of it going back decades. Of the billions of pieces available, it was only the rock that somehow resonated, maybe like a 2d animal resonates when one senses it is on a graduating path to 3d. Anyway, no words or messages are conveyed other than its resonance, its feeling; maybe there is an electrical field to these things that produces this. Sometimes placing hands on stone there is nothing and sometimes there is attraction, like it speaks on some primal level that is welcomed. Rock has been my feet's best friend climbing amongst its kin and worst enemy where no foothold is safe, like it holds no attraction - not sure if anyone has noticed this, it can feel right or wrong underfoot?
Our history indeed shows that human beings have had a fascination with rock and stone; it can be useful on the one hand and it can be highly fundamental to their way of life on a spiritual level it seems.
Like others here, walking beaches and rivers, picking up stones, examining them and putting them back in their place has been a lifetime thing – why the attraction? Can only conclude that there is something about rock that holds something other than can be seen.
Came across this today and thought to post it along with the above.
Dans Maen = Stone Dance
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwD1MIyN0-E
The geomancers of old were Earth magicians who understood the mysterious currents running under the soil and were able to manipulate this energy to harmonise the land, bringing fertility and well being to the people.
Following in this tradition, award-winning new media artist David Bickley is transporting the form and atmosphere of a stone circle from the remote moors of West Cornwall and digitally rebuilding it with light and sound in Drogheda.
This piece, specially commissioned for the town's art centre, continues David's series of immersive installations under the heading An Index of Ritual Space, a series David has been working on since 1990.
Steve Hartgroves, Principal Archaeologist with Cornwall Council has called David in relation to this project, " a virtual Merlin".
Dans Maen is Cornish for "Stone Dance" and is the name given to a number of stone circles around the remote West Penwith area that also comprises Lands End in Cornwall. The name supposedly refers to the legend that maidens were turned to stone for dancing on a Sunday, an obvious Christianisation of a prehistoric site and its associated traditions.
In the early part of the last century, archaeologist TC Lethbridge visited one such site - the Merry Maidens. This is a near perfect circle of nineteen quartzite granite stones. He had with him a pendulum which he had learned to use for dowsing; he claims to have gotten the idea from a French nautical character who used it to find mines at sea. This idea to dowse for the energy lines, which the stones either map out or are based on, was probably influenced by the work of Guy Underwood who did much work mapping the underlying currents of many ancient sites and even cathedrals, which are all said to be built on even older significant sites or power spots. When Lethbridge started to dowse the circle he felt a very strong spiralling pull, a kind of magnetic field, he also said that the stones seemed to rock.
When I first saw this ancient circle, I was sitting in a vehicle with composer Steve Bayfield in a small lay-by looking up at their silhouettes on the moonlit hill. We both saw them appear to rock, then spin. Although I am definite that they didn't physically move I am sure that part of my being perceived their potential to do so, and the prevailing energies that might drive them.
This piece is about that time, though I have moved my focus to a more remote circle a few miles from the Merry Maidens called the Nine Maidens. This small, fragmented circle sits on top of wild moorland overlooking St Michael's Mount in an area known as Ding Dong...
David would like to acknowledge the generous support of Air South West and the Historic Environment Dept. Cornwall Council in the realisation of this project