Rocks are great holders of stories. Boulders and mountains, pebbles and stones, hold the stories of their own existence and the ecosystems in which they’ve lived. Rock People are physical bodies of knowledge, living libraries who chronicle stories through the spiraling flow of time.
Rocks hold all of their stories without any judgments. No blaming and shaming the wildly diverse beings who’ve crossed their paths. No resentment and regrets. No shoulds or not-supposed-tos disrupting natural cycles.
Imagine the countless generations, the centuries of shifting seasons, the steady flow of migrations through lands, water, and air, and astonishing changes in the inhabitants of earth the Rock People have seen.
Over twenty years ago, the spirits instructed me to search for a rock for guiding ceremonies with circles of people. I was living quite far from town, immersed in my ceremonial lineage, and finding my way, step by step, through a hugely transformational time. I wasn’t meeting with circles of people, so I wasn’t entirely sure why the spirits were sending me off on this quest. Curious, I felt drawn into the adventure.
For many weeks, I reached out to the Stone People with gift offerings and requests for help in my search. I kept my ears and eyes open while walking with my dog in high desert canyons, on needle-covered earth beneath towering pines, along riverbanks in the shadows of volcanic mountain peaks.
One summer afternoon, I felt a rock’s insistent calling as I waded barefoot in a cool refreshing creek. At the source of this spring-fed river, the waters emerge from underground and create lush boggy wetlands. Somewhere along the way, the waters gather themselves up and form a river heading north.
The rock from the river has been with me for some time now, carried along in my journeys through life and across the lands. The River Rock is a beloved companion in my medicine bundles, a guide who sets the ground for ceremony with the circles of people who have come.
A tangible shifting occurs when River Rock is passed around a circle. There’s something essentially soothing in the way the rock feels – the water-softened blackness, the tangible grounding weight, the smooth indentations and round curves.
While holding the rock, people tend to close their eyes and sit awhile in the silence. Instinctively, they breathe out a deep breath. Comforted. Connecting. Coming back home. River Rock gets held close to the heart and turned side to side for close examination. River Rock evokes the lighting up of eyes and recalling of cherished memories.
River Rock grows warmer when passed around the circle, traveling hand to hand to hand, connecting heart to heart to heart. Bodies of knowledge touching other bodies of knowledge. Holders of stories honoring other holders of stories. River Rock and the humans weave themselves together, gathering up and sharing more stories along the way.
Human beings and rock beings are made of similar materials. Elements of the earth. Minerals. Stardust. The physical bodies of rocks and humans inevitably change. Rock People show us how to lovingly embody our changing bodies of knowledge, becoming a living tapestry of stories woven through time.
We can learn from the Rock People how to carry our own stories, and honor the stories of others, without dividing the world into the good or the bad, the right or the wrong, the superior or inferior, the Love-able or the hate-able, the respect-worthy or the disrespect-worthy.
We can unlearn the human-made-up lies that dehumanize, denature, isolate, confuse, and distort. These falsehoods generate genocides and justify all kinds of endless wars.
Having lived in a refreshing mountain creek, River Rock brings us the medicine of the wild waters. In their natural state of being, rivers create their own paths, dancing over rocks and around fallen trees, forming waterfalls and canyons, widening into marshy wetlands, branching out into trickling streams. Rivers naturally flow with unbridled freedom, passionately finding their way.
As humans, we’ve spent a lot of time damming up the waters of the earth. We force rivers to change according to our agendas. We dry up river beds. We infuse the waters with toxic wastes. We build walls and barricades to block the flow. We turn crystal clear living waters into stagnant pools. We force rivers to become something other than who and what they really are.
Just as we’ve done with the wild waters on earth, we’ve spent a lot of time damming up our genuine humanness and distorting our natural existence on earth. We hide behind facades, addictions, and fears. We flood our bodies with toxic chemicals. We barricade our minds, block the flow of our creative passions, and build higher and thicker walls around our hearts. We shape ourselves into something other than who and what we really are.
River Rock invites us to feel again our origin stories, to remember and regenerate our free-spirited heart-centered ways. The gifts of the river, carried in the rock passed hand to hand, call us to reclaim our ingenuity so we can find our way around obstacles. Distractions can simply drift on by.
We’ll find ourselves in the spaciousness of potential and possibility, with many doorways for exploration and learning and adventure, when the walls built out of either|or judgments no longer shape our paths.
River Rock reminds us to send our love downstream. Together we’ll create a wild and free-flowing river filled with stories carrying healing medicine for life on our earth.
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Originally Published on https://joannedodgson.com/blog
