A Winter Walk in the Stone Sanctuary: Video
Walking through the Stone Sanctuary; October, 2016
Mount Sisyphus
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that…
Stone Sanctuary, Chapter 11: The Red Egg Rises
Completion: The Red Egg Rises When the heart attack had me nine years ago, I had no idea of the long journey that was about to unfold. There is no absolutely way I would have chosen to have go through this ordeal, yet from it emerged a much deeper connection with life…
Stone Sanctuary, Chapter 10: Sorting the Stones
Sorting the Stones In making an egg out of stone, it helps to sort the stones first. In the myth of Eros and Psyche, Psyche’s first task was to sort the seeds, to learn to be selective and to put things in order. All Psyche had to do was sit down and cry…
Stone Sanctuary, Chapter 9: Imagining a Red Egg
Those of you have been following this story for the last few years know the central importance of the mythology and symbolism of the Red Egg in this narrative. I have been circumambulating around the idea of making a large egg out of red river stone for some time; originally I had planned…
Stone Sanctuary, Chapter 8: One bucket at a time
The devastation at the World Trade Center was first emptied a five gallon bucket at a time. In the myth of Iron John, a lake is emptied one bucket at a time, i.e, one works with the unconscious very slowly. The red truck is frequently loaded with forty of these ubiquitous buckets…
Stone Sanctuary, Chapter 7: Inner Work
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul. Oliver Wendell Holmes On this rock I will build my church. Matthew 16:18 There seems to be a correspondence between where I am working with stone and what I am working on within. Last summer and fall, after being away from Alaska and home for five…
Stone Sanctuary, Chapter 6: Reflections on fire
Reflections on fire It is a wonderful alchemical pleasure to sit inside the cabin with a fire in the woodstove, and look to the outside world and see a fire on the stone altar. The dual fires reminds me of the alchemical axiom from the Emerald Tablet, “As above, so below.” The…
Stone Sanctuary, Chapter 5: “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.”
For reasons known only to my unconscious, it somehow felt that it would be a good idea do the inside of the cabin in stone. As I was slowly fitting the fractured stones together, I suddenly recalled the story of the Three Little Pigs; I thought, “Perhaps after trauma one wants to build a…