as a weatherproof art piece, and the best part is that visitors are encouraged to touch them!
Today, viewing stones have fans in the United States. In California, for instance, the natural stones run larger than the suiseki in Japan and can be dramatically colored. Many are prized by Japanese collectors. You can find more information from the website www.suiseki.com.
Eroded by water over eons, this black rock looks like a sensuous abstract sculpture. Viewing stones are carefully set on a constructed base, as shown here, and can be placed throughout a garden.
Split Rocks — Intriguing Native Stones
On a walk in the woods, you may find a large boulder or bedrock with a natural split in it. It may appear as if it is cleaved in two parts. These long crevices, extending the length of the boulder, were considered doorways to the underworld by Native Americans. Although too small for a person to physically enter, it was believed that spirits from beneath the surface travelled upward and passed through these narrow openings into the light. To appease the spirits, a single stone or carefully placed smaller stones would often be wedged into the split. In certain wooded parts of the U.S., you can still come across these stones.
The large split rock shares the spotlight with the summer grasses and blooming perennials at the Native Garden at the New York Botanical Garden: native plants such as prairie dropseed (Sporobulus heterolepsis), yellow flowering Coreopsis, fall asters.
I saw this boulder sitting along a country driveway as I drove by. I quickly turned back to take this photo. Notice the smaller stones wedged in the cleft – a Native American tradition.
You can see the dramatic large Split Rock at the New York Botanical Garden where it is one of the defining features of the Native Plant Garden. Divided by glacial movement eons ago, Split Rock remains unmovable and static as the luminous meadow grasses dance in the breeze. Its crevice is like a doorway for unseen visitors to emerge amidst the eye-catching foliage and blooming asters. This beautiful garden scene would not be the same without the punctuation of an enigmatic split rock.
Stone Circles
Our ancestors often set specific rocks in a circular arrangement to define special gathering places or to act as astronomical calendars. While some of these constructions are beyond the practical scope for most of us, you can easily make a circle of stones, patterned after the Native American council ring, in your backyard.
A stone circle can be made using upright slabs or large rocks that you can sit on. Whichever shape rocks you choose, try to find stones that contain a high percentage of quartz crystal embedded in them. This is because quartz is a conductor of energy that some of us can feel. It is piezo-electric and resonates in frequency fairly closely to our bones – because our bones respond in the same way a tuning fork hums to certain sounds.
Some stones exhibit stripes of white quartz crystal encased in the body of the rock. Quartz is a conductor of energy that some of us can feel.
The “bluestone” granite of Stonehenge, the most famous stone arrangement in the world, contains a high quantity of quartz and feldspar. Many prehistoric natural stone monuments seem to share the characteristic of containing large amounts of quartz.
Three Tips for Making Your Stone Circle
1. If you create a stone circle, make sure the diameter is the right size. Don’t place them so far apart that you have to shout to each other while sitting on the stones. Paint the points on level ground where you plan to set the stones and stand on those points before you put any rocks in place.
2. Consider how many stones you want. Some people have four stones and place one in each of the four cardinal directions. Others use eight for the eight points on the compass such as northwest, southeast, etc. And some prefer odd numbers and will use five stones, spaced evenly.
3. “Settle the stones” into the earth by digging a slight depression and then setting the rock within it. It is like planting a rock. You can plant a carpet of green Scotch moss and Irish moss around them, or you can also tuck different kinds of thyme at the base — their leaves will release a delightful aroma when you brush against them.
The Plimouth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, has replicated a Native American “gathering circle” made of sitting stones. One is a large stone of white quartz that faces east to greet the first light of day. The explanatory sign next to the circle says, “…feel free to sit on any stone…the rocks offer an ancient story of their own. They point to the four directions which indigenous people understand as elements of Creation carrying meaning and power.”
The material of the stones corresponds to the qualities of the four cardinal directions. The sign explains the specific stone layout saying, “a granite stone bears a natural stripe pointing directly south…the west-facing granite, rust-colored with its iron content…another granite stone points a vein of green quartz directly north…”
Quartz was an important part of a Native American stone circle. One reason that Native Americans valued milky or clear quartz crystals is their belief that quartz contained supernatural power that could be used for various purposes. Quartz was considered solid light and was seen as being connected symbolically to the sun. This belief probably came from the practice of forcefully rubbing two quartz pieces together or striking a small stone against a piece of quartz crystal. The friction causes the quartz to emit white light. This is called triboluminescence and is not a spark but essentially pure light. The mechanical action causes the electrons in the atoms to absorb energy. When the electrons return to their usual state, the energy is released in the form of light coming from the interior of the crystal.
A stripe of quartz crystal makes this stone stand out among others.
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The spirit of stone can be found in the stones we use in our landscapes and those that sit alone on the beaches, in the woodland, in the prairies and rocky cliffs. Their silent song is the one we celebrate in our rock gardens. The next chapter focuses upon rock gardens and explores how we can work with stones to create outstanding landscapes.
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In Praise of Rock Gardens
As a rule a rock garden should not be near the house; it is something savoring of the wild that does not fit in with most architecture.
~ Henry S. Adams
In
