I have a thing for rocks. I like to photograph them, I like to throw water on them in the sauna and feel a blast of invigorating steam. I like leaning my back up against them on chilly sunny mountain day hikes. I like picking up rocks with odd shapes and colors from an ocean beach or the banks of a mountain stream. I like to pluck rocks from magical places, like the slopes of Mt. Kailash, the Tibetan holy mountain, and make presents out of them for my friends.

 

Two of my favorite books are Megaliths by Paul Caponigro, and Within the Stone by Bill Atkinson. Linda Connor's 2018 exhibit at the Haines Gallery Speak to the Stones, and the Stars Answer took my breath away. (A selection of Linda's work was also exhibited last May at the  Nordic Light Festival of Photography in Norway.)

What is it about rocks? 

I found this rock rack on a walk around our neighborhood. Remember when "pet rocks" were so popular in the mid 70s?

 

In 1978, in my book Sweat , I wrote:

 

Many sweat bath cultures discovered that rocks could absorb the power of fire, and thereby acquired spiritual significance.The Omaha Indians, for example, referred to the rocks as Grandfather, symbol of earthly endurance, and moved them from the fire into the revered sweatlodge. When water was splashed over the rocks, the vapor produced became another medium for the transfer of heat and another object of worship. The Finns named this vapor löyly, spirit of life. The Fox, another American Indian tribe, believed that Manitou, a friendly spirit, dwelled inside the rocks and was released through the vapor to penetrate the skin of the bathers and drive out sickness. 

 

The best sweat bath rocks are those least exposed to weather. Certain quarried rocks are therefore the strongest. Peridotite from Finland is very popular but Norway has its own sweat bath rocks as well!

In the early 80s I was drawn into a mysterious project originating in Japan with a group of Shinto priests that challenged my western Judo/Christian beliefs. They worshipped nature and ancestors, and believed trees and waterfalls, and even rocks, can have a spirit. They called these spirits kamis. I spent a good part of the 80s connected to this group, traveling all over the world, dropping off kamis they believed would protect the world from nuclear destruction. (My adventure is chronicled in The Sword of Heaven, Travelers Tales, 1999.)

 

My father was a scientist at a nuclear research facility and I was heavily influenced by his rational approach to life. My experience with Shintoists (and Native Americans) opened my eyes to a more inclusive approach. The question is, how do I reconcile the two? 

 

Vibrating Rocks

 

A few weeks ago I came across an article titled  Could consciousness all come down to the way things vibrate? It's from a web site called the Conversation and I think it  provides a bridge I've been looking for between science and kamis.

Here are some of the key points from the article:

 

"All things in our universe are constantly in motion, vibrating. Even objects that appear to be stationary are in fact vibrating, oscillating, resonating, at various frequencies."

 

"Based on the observed behavior of the entities that surround us, from electrons to atoms to molecules, to bacteria to mice, bats, rats, and on, we suggest that all things may be viewed as at least a little conscious. This sounds strange at first blush, but "panpsychism" - the view that all matter has some associated consciousness - is an  increasingly accepted position with respect to the nature of consciousness." 

 

"The panpsychist argues that consciousness did not emerge at some point during evolution. Rather, it's always associated with matter and vice versa - they're two sides of the same coin. But the large majority of the mind associated with the various types of matter in our universe is extremely rudimentary. An electron or an atom, for example, enjoys just a tiny amount of consciousness. But as matter becomes more interconnected and rich, so does the mind, and vice versa, according to this way of thinking."

 

I highly recommend reading the rest of the article . Let me know what you think.

This is one of a series of photos I took to illustrate The Sword of Heaven, inspired by a style of Japanese black ink drawing called sumi-e.