I hold a rock from Second Beach (La Push, WA, Olympic National Park, land of the Quileute).It is black, heavy; feels dense. Pyramid shaped, it has a smooth-ish surface. Barnacles on the surface mark this as a sea stone.
I have always picked up rocks. And I have often wondered how a rock came to be where I found it. What was its journey? Did it work its way up through layers of earth, pushed and pulled as the ground froze and thawed? Was it carried by water? What larger structure was it originally part of?
I hold this rock in my left palm as I write. It is cool, cold really. It rests in my hand, rounded and heavy. The barnacles look like tiny white volcanoes attached to the rock. They also remind me of the deer teeth I once found in the woods. I imagine this rock in Pacific surf at Second Beach – lifted, tumbled, dropped – did it rest in a crevice long enough for these barnacles to take hold?
I am discovering the bedrock at my own core. It is solid, even as my life whirls around me trailing colored streamers, raising clouds of dust. The rock at my core could host lichen or barnacles, but it is rock. Weighty, implacable, it is ballast in a world that often feels about to erupt. My solid core holds me, keeps me steady when I am buffeted by wind or waves. Some of what wants to toss me about or pull me under is weather of my own making, some of it is from others, but my solid core keeps me anchored.
I may bend and sway. I may feel currents tugging at me, but I am not going to blow away, wash away or sink. My strength is the steady power of endurance. I hold together and the disturbances pass. All will pass. We only pass by; our lives are a blink in the deep context of the universe. Our energy was and will be here always. The span of one human life is so much smaller than the journey of this rock, from boulder to rock, to pebble, to sand.
Stones teach patience, steadiness, endurance. Rocks contain the power of change. It takes a pressure beyond my imagination to turn coal to diamond, to turn a rock like this to molten magma. This rock holds stories I can only dream. This rock holds lessons I am ready to receive.
Love the new website, Judith, especially the blog portion. Nice job!