Page 187 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

Listening to Ancient Stones

We are not talking to the river; we are not listening to

the winds and stars;

we have broken the great conversation.

And by breaking that conversation we have shattered the universe.

We have to learn again how to listen to the earth,

how to open the ear of the heart.

Thomas Berry

Every summer, my artist friends Ed Bartram and his wife Mary Bromley move up to an island

in Georgian Bay where they live for four months in a very beautiful and rustic setting,

painting, gardening, and entertaining friends and family. The remarkable striped stones in this

area of Ontario are a geologist’s treasure-map, revealing stories about the earth’s formative

shifts millions of years ago. I’ve enjoyed visiting Ed and Mary on their island for the past

twenty summers. While they paint and tend other projects, I head out with my journal to

commune with the ancient stones.

Listening in this landscape is very different than in my suburban garden. In my experience,

while flowers tend to mirror our human personalities, ancient stones offer us entry into a

deeper earth-story. Whenever I visit this island, I feel powerfully connected to the anima

mundi, the Soul of the World. It usually takes me several days to settle into coherent

resonance with this wild place before I feel sufficiently tuned and ready to receive the slowed

wisdom of the stones.

Knowing how ancient and articulate this landscape is, when I approached the land in 2013, I

paid particular attention when I heard ‘The things that are broken apart are still connected.’

The huge broken stones, split open by ice or major earth upheavals had captured my

attention and this phrase became the focus for our annual conversation.