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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
After I gave a talk to cardiac patients about the Stone Sanctuary, an older woman in the audience came up to me crying, saying “I had a heart attack ten years ago, and suddenly I had to start carving stone, and have been carving stone ever since. I had no idea why…” In the ten…
In the hills above Fairbanks, the frostline goes down about four feet in the winter, so septic systems have to be buried more than four feet. a bit of a daunting task. In researching how to replace an aging septic system last year, I learned that we live on “fractured schist.” This geological underlayment is a continual poetic and…
Not only is it a mystery to me of why the Stone Sanctuary needs to be built, but it is also it is also a mystery as to how my hands find the stones that fit. There is no conscious process of choosing to look for a stone with certain dimensions and angles —…