as i was walking along an old stone wall that i have walked so often in my childhood i was struck with the idea that it would be really neat to take a nice sized rock home to my fire pit and when i had a nice fire i would be warmed with memories of my youth. as i was walking back home home with rock in tow i thought man wouldn't it be nice to have a couple rocks on the fire pit from different, special places of my youth? i plan to do it slowly as i revist special places and slowly build a warm fire of memories. could be just me being me but i thought i would share the idea in case it might sound nice to someone else.
Thanks foe sharing Ken, thats a great idea :thumbsup:
That is a cool idea. Thanks for sharing!
Stones do that to people...they talk.
When the Forest Service demolished and removed the chestnut shelter I used to use, they also removed the fire pit. A group of my friends rebuilt it, with my help, and the pit means more than ever.
I walked the creek I used to walk as a child, where I had lost a freshly-shed tooth (came out as I was drinking at a fountain at school, lost it in the creek on the way home and picked up a white toothy-looking rock to place under my pillow to fool the Tooth Fairy with. It worked!). I spied a special rock there, some forty years later and took it with me as a remembrance. Do they do things for us? Yes, in our souls. And I believe that the things they do for us is payment for the "taxi service" we provide them, taking them further along in their journeys. Their journeys last for all time, and we will never know their beginnings nor their ends. It is an honor to encounter them and pass time with them, then, for we become part of the everlasting trek.
I know you will see much as you gaze into the coals of your fire pit. Thanks for sharing.
Killdeer :campfire:
I have done the same.
It reminds me of "the rocks are gonna talk and the rivers will sing out in praise"
Last falls elk hunt I grabbed a couple rocks and rusty nails from the ground up on a 10,000 foot peak's old fire lookout. Someday (when my backyard is a bit bigger perhaps) I plan on building my bow workshop and I am going to re-create that lookout... windows all around with the hinged-upwards shutters...
(http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h58/mmbackpacker/IMG_3813.jpg)
and it'll have that handfull of small rocks on the front doorstep as well as a couple nails...
Mike
its funny why we feel the need'want of doing things as i am constantly picking up rocks along my walks and carring them for awhile then setting them down. i have allways done this, unsure of why but when i read things like Killdeer wrote i know i'm not alone. i run often and carry a rock that i found for strength, just feels right, feels strong and alive.
Elk Ninja,
thanks for sharing the picture, i love to see area like that, beautifull!
For some reason I can't explain, I like to bring back rocks from places I've visited, hunted, etc. There certainly is something 'cool' about rocks.
When friends go to far away places, that I will never be able to visit, I always ask them to bring me back a pebble, aor a small stone. These visitors, now tell me stories of far away places and long ago times. Every pebble has a special place in my spirit!
I take a little bit of charcoal from each fire on my hunts and add it to my collection to add to my Mojo.
I crush it all together and use it to blacken my face while hunting - That way everyone that has enjoyed the fellowship of the fires is along with me while hunting -
Regards;
T-Bell
That is an awesome idea Ken. Thanks. I know of a few stones that I would like to bring home for something like that.
T-Bell,
i have also taken ashes from old camp fires that i have found in the woods from long, long ago. makes ya wonder about the past visitors and their stories.
You do have a way with words Killdeer. All of you are sharing some pretty neat thoughts. Thanks.
Making me think of my son.
Sitting here...with the cursor blinking. Fingers on the keys...Trying to think of how to say...Momentos, like rocks and seashells bring back memories.
Ken,
I have a coffee table FULL of various mineral specimens, pottery shards, arrowheads, axes, etc that I have picked up all over the country- TX, NM, WY, IN, OH, NJ, NC, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Northwest Territories, CA, AZ and all I have to do is look at them, or pick them up to remember exactly hwere I was and what I was doing at the time.
I can't explain it either, just know I like it and its pleasurable to do- I don't really feel a need to explain it to others or justify..I just know its a fun thing to do that makes me happy.
Near where I live a man has collected rocks for years to honor the memory of his grandmother who was transported to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears, escaped and walked all the way back to north Alabama. He wrote a book about her journey.
The wall he built from these rocks is so incredible it is hard to imagine one man accomplishing such a task.
Now people bring him rocks from all over the world to leave in this sacred place. I have some ancient nutting stones I am going to give to him to put in the wall, he has one section that looks like faces and the nutting stones would fit perfectly.
Scroll down on the link and you can see his wall.
http://www.spiderruth.com/Tennessee%20Fitness%20Spa.htm
when i was over last oct man that sounds so long ago LOL!!! any ways me bob and his son bobby were walking up this little ridge and bobby spots somthing on the ground and picks it up it was a bit of cristal rock so that had me looking as well and i found two nice little bits that i brought home. every time i look at it i laugh as it reminds me of ralph hes the guy i left behind as i didnot want to bring him home with me. LOL!! and of all the real nice people i saw like killie and ron- martin -bob- rob -tommy -chuck i dont know there trad names but hey it was like family. they all had a laugh at ralph i think this pic will say it all.thanks for the real good time i had while i was over there guys your all tops in my book. oh and you to killie (http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh305/jeffburg/avatar7406_2-1.gif)
Yup. I've been bring rocks, and sometimes bones and tree/plant parts and other stuff, home from my hunting trips for a lot of years. They work better than my journals in jarring my memory.
broke the new "memory pit" in today with friends and family, will add more as i go along. great day.
Pretty cool post! I'm constantly picking up rocks and other items when I'm out walking about. Sometimes I carry them for a while like Ken mentioned and then just decide to put them down. Other times they get added to my collection of rocks and things that I have laying around at home. They each have a story and bring back memories of good times and places :)
yup it sure is a neat post thanks forstarting it bro.
I came across what appeared to be an ancient fire pit in Michigans` Upper penninsula. I was in a Cedar swamp, and either a Cedar tree grew up in the middle of it, or someone placed the rocks in a circle around the tree. Either way, I left the stones where they were, but dug some of the dirt from within the circle, and took it home.
I put it in a jar, and gave it to my wife for Christmas. She loved it, and it sits on top of her piano.
I was gonna take a rock, but I had severly underestimated how long it would take me to get back to a road, and I knew I was gonna have to double time most of the hike back to camp so everyone wouldn`t be worried.
I have a fire pit in front of my house that is surrounded by river rocks from Alaska, Montana & Idaho. When I moved back to Texas from Alaska, I actually mailed a box full to myself. Thought it kind of nuts but now I don't feel so bad. They came out of the Little Susitna river that I spend a lot of time at! :)
I've been bringing rocks home from my trips for many years. I keep mine in the landscaping around the front entries to my home and shop as momentos of special times and places. Far better than a trinket from a tourist trap.
I always felt a little odd for doing it - now thanks to everyone here I find out I am normal!
One of the best things about flintknapping is gathering the rocks. It's another kind of hunting and I enjoy it about the same. There's a couple tons of rock in my garage, all sorted in 5 gallon buckets, from ten or twelve states. Sometimes late at night I sit down between a few heavy buckets and look through fifteen or twenty gallons of memories. The crotch-deep snow in the Bighorns, the great gray owl in Montana, and the hard, last goodbye to a dying friend. The perfume of junipers in the high country, sunflowers to the horizon in North Dakota, and a gator sliding into tea-dark water in north Florida. Those buckets are full and heavy with beautiful rocks and more. It's the "more" that's special.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v249/Killdeer/Hunting%20and%20Camp/2007%20November%20Hunt/th_MVI_5104.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v249/Killdeer/Hunting%20and%20Camp/2007%20November%20Hunt/?action=view¤t=MVI_5104.flv)
Powerful medecine in that idea, Ken...and that picture, Killie...
Chris,
clik on the picture, its a video, very nice Killy i can allmost smell the smoke and feel the heat, thanks for sharing.
Haven't brought any rocks back from hunting trips,but fishing trips is another story.The Wife's flower beds are adorned with various sized river rocks from all of our fly fishing trips.They are from fist sized all the way up to "too large to carry on my own" size.
Thanks Killie. I am in Norway, away from home... again. That really made me smile. Funny how a simple camp fire can make nearly everything right.
While in Japan a few years ago, I had something happen that I thought was something else. On a Sunday, my day of rest, I took a walk thru (I believe the town was Tokushima.)
At the edge of town, and below and just to the side of my hotel, maybe 100 yards away, was a hill. Formerly it held a castle and was built up as a reinforced battlement. Since more time than I have been around the castle was destroyed and the hill reverted to wild. The person at the desk of the hotel told me of wild dogs that lived up there.
This Sunday morning, I looked out of my window and saw two dogs, likely the "wild dogs" in a large clearing on the hill so I thought I would take a walk to include the perimeter of the hill.
I got maybe half way around and heard a squeeky whiny noise ahead. I snuck in and found.... a small light colored puppy, maybe 6 weeks old, had rolled off the hill. I squatted and looked at it, wondering what to do. Something made me turn, and just 50 yards away, up a severe drop off from the hill, was momma dog, just watching. I took that as a cue and got up and walked away, about 25 yards and quietly hid behind a tree. Momma dog came down and grabbed her puppy and back up the hill she went. I was happy, momma dog was happy, I am betting puppy dog was happy.
I walked no more than 50 more yards and a baseball sized rock rolled down the hill, almost to my feet. I am fairly certain it is a chunk of some sort of petrified wood. Was it a gift ? You can bet I have it at home now.
ChuckC
Chuck,
it a LOOOOONG while but i have come to accept things like that ARE DEFINITLY NOT coencidence. once you can look past what %99 of people say is coencidence you will discover beauty, magic and a whole new world, the old ways, the way it once was.
I have a rock ring around a cherry tree in my back yard. The rock ring is made from rocks I have picked up from hunting trips. The past couple of years I have had my son collect the rocks and place them around the tree for his special memories.
The cherry tree sits next to our archery range.
Stones, earth, wood, fire, the water breathes out from the wood as fragrant steam and smoke. The years of stored sunlight are released and their myriad stories warm our bodies and hearts. The beginning and the end of time merge and form a great circle, and we are included. Watch the glow move from place to place in the coals. We move through our lives, geese migrate following the winds of God's wave, water moves through the earth, sky and us, rocks move throughout the world.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v249/Killdeer/TG%20Uploads/Hunting/2005campfire.jpg)
How can people throw styrofoam plates into such magic?
Killdeer :scared:
Miss Killdeer,once again you bring a tear to my eye and the longing for wild places to my heart.I also have always caried home firering stones from the areas I've hunted.When I place a hand on their blackend surface,it brings the scent of unfamilar woodsmoke,the conversation of friends,and the sounds of faraway nights.This is a much needed topic as we sit out the summer heat and long for the first hint of fall.
she does have a way with words and a camera don't she!!
It's nice to finally share a campfire with you Killdeer :campfire:
B.Glass,
i hear ya on the sea shells as i just brought some back from Maine. got a couple nice ones to burn sage in.
I have several rocks I have picked up on hunting/fishing/hiking trips. From the Blue Ridge mts in Virginia, to the scrub brush of South Texas, to Kodiak Island. Most people kind of look at me like...."why".... when they ask about them. Glad to see I'm not alone!