Monday, October 13, 2008

Hiking in Heaven



    Some god or goddess, perhaps several, visited one of my favorite trails since I last walked here.  High on West Rock Ridge a gathering of cairns appeared overnight--as if they had scheduled a meeting and were now in session.  Or, perhaps a coven of witches celebrated the fall solstice here.  They had made it into a magical place.

     I spent some time there admiring the forms--the balancing, the beauty, the work of such exhuberant play.  I pictured the slow, grunting frolic of lifting and arranging the stones, the conspiracy of preparing this extravagant surprise for unknown hikers.  The sheer audacity of bidding stone to appear light like dancers.  For these were not broad based cairms meant to withstand the winter winds that would push along the ridge.  They were single stones set verticle, three, five, seven stones together marching skyward.  Why they did not topple I could not say except that the creator had told them to stay.  I was unwilling to touch one with the lightest finger.  


     At first they blended with the surrounding forest.  I saw two, three, six.  The more I looked, the more structures I saw.  I walked quietly, respectfully, peering around me.  There was a rock balanced high on the stump of a lost branch of a tree.  One composition included found objects, a rusty saw and an old bottle.

     There was a feeling of worship to the place.  Something both sweet and powerful had been made, a sacred grove.







                                                                                                                  













2 comments:

Unknown said...

Beautiful experience! There's something especially intriguing about balance. On one hand, it's part of nature, the result of going with the flow. On the other, it symbolizes the struggle of man to work against entropy.

Chances are, those precarious stacks wont stay in place for long - you got them at just the right time!

Husna said...

This is a fabulous example of grace. Thanks for sharing.