We are not solo endeavors living our lives as broken pieces – although it may feel this way at times. I know it as my own truth. With a large swath of life now behind me and spending much of my adult life within a healing journey, I view life, my life, as a woven fabric of all my experiences, including ALL the feelings – the good stuff and the disabling – the dichotomies of life. What I really want to write about is anger and rage but I find it a slippery, ephemeral mist that curls around me in moments then recedes. There are many unanswered questions and more that I need to understand. It’s too soon but I wanted to give it air and space to evolve. I found a journal entry back in 2021, which marked the beginning of this part of my journey, the journey into wholeness.
2021: I have been in touch with rage and anger this week. It scares me. When I touched it, it touched me back like a hazy reflection in a mirror. Not sure exactly what was looking back at me. I didn’t recognize it. Something that had been stashed in a drawer and pushed way down and to the back. And I don’t know what to do with it. Kind of afraid if I take it out completely, it will blow up and Be in ways I’ve never encountered. So, for now it stays in the drawer.
Part of my journey includes the practice of mindfulness, which is a lead-in to this post. Mindfulness is a big part of this journey. Before I began making it a practice, I wasn’t in touch with the gunk that lay, like silt, in a riverbed under the current of life; neatly tucked away where it wasn’t visible, even to me. This brings me to the video I put together for this post – the mindfulness piece of what I do. The beauty, the stillness, being creative in whatever capacity, is also important, just as important as acknowledging the other threads and yarn that make up a life of having lived in the edges.
Awareness is not the same as thinking. It is a complementary form of intelligence, a way of knowing that is at least as wonderful and as powerful, if not more so, than thinking. Life only unfolds in moments. The healing power of mindfulness lies in living each of those moments as fully as we can, accepting it as it is, as we open to what comes next—in the next moment of now. Jon Kabat-Zinn
August 2024: photo while hiking
This is the high desert of Reno, Nevada; a flatland region east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We sit about 4,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level and receive very little rain. You can sometimes find big skys here, and the wind will remind you that the terrain, in some areas, is untouched and wild. This is one of my favorite haunts, Rattlesnake Mountain, which I wrote about last summer when I filmed a video called Dancing with Snakes. There are small trails and rugged, raw places on this small mountain, yet it’s only a couple of miles from the edge of the city. Now, we’re in winter and the snakes are deep underground. I can picture them sleeping below as I walk above looking for rocks to possibly stack. Last weekend I filmed an impromptu video, just because, to enjoy the wide-open spaces, and to see what might line up by following each moment outdoors.
Until getting into the meat of writing this piece, I didn’t know anything about stacking rocks other than I just like doing it. I’ve never done it anywhere else either. I’ve been stacking rocks for a few years now, every few months. I don’t have a planned outcome, nor do I have any intentions before I start. I’ve not thought of it as therapeutic, recreational, nor artistic. Until now. And for whatever reason, today, I can see it so clearly. It’s all of that and spiritual, and soothing, invigorating and immensely rewarding on a physical as well as mental/emotional level. There’s something magical about being in nature, especially untouched nature, that is a form of communication. No, it’s more like listening, allowing, feeling – maybe even finding one’s intuition - and just being which aligns perfectly with living slowly and mindfully; two practices I’ve been cultivating.
There are people who can do amazing things by just taking a rock and putting it on another rock. We’ve been doing this as long as we’ve been making any sort of art – we’ve been stacking rocks. Some cultures have done this as a way of burying their dead and some have done it to create tombs. Some cultures use it as a way to guide people, by making path marks, telling you where to go, where to find water, that it’s an important place-spiritually. These rock stacks, also called cairns, are all over the world. Katy Kelleher
I took a deeper dive into the topic and found some amazing facts about this form of recreation and artistic expression.
The artform has been with us since probably the beginning of time.
Rock stacking has its origins in many cultural and spiritual practices – a Buddhist tradition of devotion and prayer, for one. Ancient cultures around the world have stacked rocks into cairns to mark a path, create a memorial or as a focus point for rituals.
Thanks to social media, in 2010, rock balancing became popular around the world.
Artists who utilize this as an art medium do it for different reasons; Ishihana-Chitoku, Japanese rock balancer, is interested in their overall silhouettes. Michael Grab, a professional rock-balancing artist, wants “to make it look as impossible as possible” for the final creation. Grab’s sculptures do not use glue, support rods, nor are they photoshopped. Other rock balancing artists include; Bill Dan, Andy Goldsworthy (earth Artist which includes balancing rocks), and Adrian Gray, to name a few.
Events and festivals are now worldwide, and some are competitive.
There are opposing views on this recreational activity and art form.
Conservationists caution that soil can be exposed to erosion in a natural landscape setting.
Disrupting critical habitat in the wild can also be problematic.
Some do not like to see rock stacks in remote places as they prefer nature to be untouched by any human form.
In some places such as national parks, rock stacking is illegal due to harm to the environment and the danger to hikers-the larger, more complex trails use deliberate arrangement of rocks as navigational guides. It can be confusing if rock sculptures are also created near these navigational markers.
The Leave No Trace website has some additional suggestions to align with best practices from an environmental perspective showing us that it’s possible to still explore the outdoors, stack rocks and enjoy the freedom of expression.
Leave What You Find: officially designated cairns need to be left in place. Altering these cairns in any way poses a threat to visitor safety, and the ethic of the area visiting.
When making your own rock stacks stick to durable surfaces. Many times along streams and rivers, one will be walking in riparian (by the banks of a river or wetlands) areas. Use designated trails and durable surfaces to minimize impacts.
When collecting rocks only collect ones that are loose from soils, sands, and silts. This will minimize the impact of erosion.
Build your stacks, take pictures, and then return all of the used rocks to their original locations.
Leave the area how it was originally found to maintain the wildness of the area. Pack out all trash, including food scraps.
Remember that other people may be visiting the area while you are there. If listening to music consider using headphones to let nature’s sounds prevail.”
I now have a broader understanding of this art form and decided to go back to the stacks I created last weekend to see if they were still standing. I wanted to collapse the stacks and return the rocks, to the best of my ability, to their original places. Come to find out, many artists use Leave No Trace as part of their working method. They create the stack, take photos and video of the working process and the finished piece then collapse the piece and return it to nature.
I’ll leave the light on.
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