I have a weakness for small stones. Attracted by a singular shape, colour, sparkle, texture, or an aura I can’t define, I pick up stones for keeps, like I did as a child when crossing mountain streams and climbing rocks. A stone may catch my eye when it sits seemingly forlorn on a sidewalk, embedded in pine needles in a forest, or on a pebble beach, by the way it stands out.
Once I hold a stone, bonding begins. My fingers trace the outline, weigh, rub, listen. I sometimes even run my tongue over its smooth or rough face before the treasure lands in 
my pocket to later join my collection. I imagine another journey, another story through time.
Stones become markers of experience, of a place and a location. It’s a marvel that no two pebbles are ever the same. Just like people, crystals, or snowflakes never turn out the same.
The protagonist in my novel, ‘Course of Mirrors,’ finds a shiny black stone with special powers, invested so by a spirit being she encounters, or by her own strong conviction, who can say. Touching the stone her 
mind slows down, she feels clarity, warmth, and a sense of protection. The stone becomes a medium for scrying and guides my protagonist on her journey. When she remembers her talisman the magic works, which is the point. The remembrance reconnects and recollects her to the encounter with the spirit being, a moment of timelessness – the infinite.
This is the magic of remembrance of the Self.
Course of Mirrors 
i’m also an inveterate stone collector… AND keep ’em in wide basins like you do 🙂 the tale i want to tell, though, is the following: you might call it ‘deadline’
one day
in his plump four years
my son stomped in,
banged down a handful of stones down on my desk
and said, “translate these”.
he’s full grown now,
the years flown by.
runs his own school with neither classes nor teachers
and i
an old man
still have them
still sitting here,
still silent,
still untranslated
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damn! – a parasitic second ‘down’ after ‘stones’… my bad
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My blog is littered with small grammatical parasites. I console myself in believing they’re the endearing aspects of spontaneous posts.
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🙂 Go on then, translate the handful of stones into a story. Great title.
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Dear Ashen, thank you for this post which i completely relate to. Each stone in my collections (there are many!) have a powerful atraction and then meaning and all more wonderful than diamonds.
Also one of my garden walls has china, pottery,glass, anything that has been found whilst digging the garden. Each piece has first been in my pocket or even glove and has been lovingly cherished way beyond magic.
With Love, Alice
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You’re a kindred soul, Alice. It’s a mystery how we animate the spirit of objects that have gone through buried cycles. It’s sad that the symbolic connection of energy exchange with nature has largely been lost.
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I love stones too – and have them here there and everywhere meaningfully placed, remembering where they came from – and more. Each different to the other – unique. Thanks Ashen.
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And they’ll endure for a long, long time, gathering information in their slow way, but surviving our fleeting shapes.
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This resonates, Ashen, rippling out. Thank you.
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Dropping a pebble into the universe of hidden forest ponds 🙂
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Loving those ripples!! Pebbles are so tactile and wonderful – and your thoughts are articulated beautifully.
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Thank you Anne. I just visited your site again and fell in love with the lovely books your create, inspired by Joseph Cornell’s shadow boxes.
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I am the same with stones. To quote from “Labyrinth”, “Rocks friends!”
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Beautiful post. I found a necklace in a parking lot, and that necklace quickly became the source of inspiration for a novel. Now my children collect and gather anything that interests them: stones, woodchips, nutshells, you name it. And everything spawns a story. 🙂
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Thank you, Jean.
So true, objects treasured as remembrance can become the golden thread of a story, providing the pleasure of repetition, rhyme and meaning.
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