Stones
As cool teenagers in the 1970s, we carried worry rocks, oval polished stones made with a concave side to accommodate the rubbing of a restless thumb to ease an anxious adolescent mind. Before stress balls and fidget poppers, we invested our cares and pent-up energy in a shined flat bit of rock.
The habit of rubbing a worry stone, also known as palm or thumb stones, between the thumb and forefinger is almost as old as the stones themselves and stems from Greek, Irish and Tibetan cultures. With deposits dating back 600 million years, the greenish Connemara marble from Ireland adorns many cathedrals and is still available as jewelry, prayer beads and yes, worry stones.
Considering the current state of global events, a person gripping a worry stone now could develop a mean blister.
As hostilities in the Mideast spiral, we’re hourly reminded of the ongoing devastation and wretchedness in a region historically paved with blood-stained stones. Carved in the bedrock of the Middle East, the world’s three dominant faiths — Judaism, Christian and Islam — seem destined to remain eternal adversaries in their followers’ passionate beliefs. And yet, the sacred texts of all three religions — The Torah, The Bible and The Quran — tell of a prophet named Moses’ delivering stone tablets written by God’s hand.
Vast areas of northern Gaza are being reduced to rubble in Israel’s war on terrorism. The relentless deployment of guns and explosives demonstrate current weaponry’s apocalyptic power to bomb a sizable target back to The Stone Ages.
Our breathtaking capacity for widespread, far-ranging annihilation is readily seen in news coverage including visual footage, mind-numbing casualties and measures of human suffering. The defense strategy of “mutually assured destruction” may just end up carved on civilization’s headstone.
Yeah, that’ll teach ‘em.
While we think of the Stone Ages as a Flintstone cartoon or ancient bygone period, our routine reliance on the Earth’s quarried materials has never ended. Stone in its many varieties is sourced in buildings, paving, cement, mortar, industry, filtration systems, roads, asphalt, farming, manufacturing, decorating, artwork, jewelry, memorials and monuments.
Every resilient slab of stone offers “a little glimpse into deep time and the dramatic forces that shape the planet,” according to the Natural Stone Institute.
Get Kerilee Street’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Recognizing stone’s remarkable permanence as a symbol and keeper of our collective stories, we shape and sculpt, carve, collect and dedicate stone to serve durable purposes of commemoration, ceremony and demarcation. Smaller, cut stones are ideal building materials because of their strength, permanence and ability to weather the elements.
As humankind is prone to do, we have devised a broad spectrum of uses for stone spanning from apt and creative forms to those of utmost cruelty. Glistening sculptures and monuments of marble bear testament to the natural beauty and longevity of stone artistically touched and shaped across generations. We’re mystified and awestruck by the immense stone creations of The Great Sphinx of Giza, the 900+ Polynesian Moai statues (the “Easter Island Heads”) and the prehistoric Stone Circle of Stonehenge.
Throughout history, crystals and gemstones have been credited and coveted for their supposed powers of protection, good fortune and special healing properties.
Goliath was taken down by a boy with a slingstone like the ones that archaeologists have found to be among the most important weapons in an ancient army’s arsenal. Some were the size of billiard balls. In addition to weaponry, earlier civilizations used stone in olive presses, grain mills, temples, towers, pathways, markers, walls, tablets, memorials and “lapidation” which is a fancy term for public execution by stoning.
Jesus, the living stone that the builders rejected, had some memorable things to share about casting them.
Since biblical times, people have stacked stones, known as cairns, to mark trails and as memorials at gravesites. The tradition continues today in the Jewish community to symbolize the permanence of a soul’s legacy and to connote the visits of mourners.
Internally, we sometimes collect and carry other kinds of stones through life, unseen but weighty still. Perhaps the Jewish rite of leaving pebbles at a grave is not only to signify enduring legacy and remembrance, but also a way of letting go, of laying down the burden of worries, grief and regret.
In tranquil gardens of stone, burial monuments stand over hallowed ground, the splendid rising next to the simple, as the keepers of our names, our memories and the days we stood among the living. They serve as placeholders between this life and the next. Long after those who knew us have lain down at our sides, the traces of our shared pathways erased by time’s passage, the stones remember.
© All Rights Reserved
