Tuesday, May 21, 2013

I Made a Cairn!

Creating this was such a fun experience. It was all so accidental! I had written love, joy and peace on the three rocks and had taken photos of them with my phone. My intentions were to keep a bowl around and fill it with rocks with different words on them.

This past weekend as I was walking, I noticed the rock that I've written perseverance on. I didn't stop to pick it up until I'd gone to the end of the road and turned back around. I was in the country and part of my walk was on a dirt road, which is a bit difficult when you are accustomed to walking on hard concrete. I liked the rock because it was long and relatively flat which meant it would be easy to write on. When I picked it up, I knew I wanted a long word to take up all the space I had. Since I was struggling with my walk, perseverance was the first long word that came to my mind!

I got home from my walk and sat down on the porch to write on the rock. By this time it was fairly dark and I was writing by candlelight (the ones you light to keep the mosquitoes away). I wrote the word twice and left letters out both times! The third time was most definitely the charm! I finally got it spelled right. I persevered!

(Perseverance might also have been on my mind because the day before I'd celebrated 39 years of maintaining the satisfying annoying delicate balance people refer to as marriage! LOL)

I do not know what possessed me to begin trying to stack these rocks but that is exactly what I did the next day after my walk. I fiddled and played, and got extra rocks from my stash I'd picked up on other walks. Finally I got this arrangement to stay stacked. But the rocks that have life and hope on them were blank and it didn't look right. I decided to put life on the big rock and then the empty hope rock looked lonely! So I thought a bit and added hope to the mix.

Maybe sometime I will find another rock that will balance between love and joy. I'm not sure. It will be difficult as the love rock was the most difficult rock of all to keep balanced (and that surely might be a metaphor!).

Anyway, it was a very Zen thing to do, relaxing and soothing. I might try to make another cairn someday soon. In the meantime, I am very pleased with this one!

Also this past weekend, I looked up from talking to my husband just in time to see a bobcat cross the driveway road into our yard! It was one of the times when you blink and ask yourself, "Did I just see what I thought I saw?" It was probably a once in a lifetime experience.

8 comments:

  1. I really like that cairn. I feel peaceful looking at it.

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  2. "So I thought a bit and added hope to the mix."

    That line. Brilliant.

    Love what you created, and love how your voice shines through as you write this!

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    1. Thank you, Beth! Hope is always a good thing to add!

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  3. Love your cairn. I'm curious whether you are gluing it together to keep it together, or relying on perfect balance to keep it there. Yes, love is the hardest thing to keep balanced!

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    1. Thanks! No, I didn't use glue! I am depending on balance!

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  4. Love these "thangs" you do, Annie, and also love hearing you describe your neck of the woods...

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