There is a place in the woods in Massachusetts that I have been building/ salvaging stoneworks for the past week. It is on top of a moderate rock ledge with a great vast over-look and open sky both day and night in a heavily wooded area. This rock ledge was partly quarried in the late 19th- mid 20th centuries by quarry-men. You might say I am re-beautifying or re-doctoring the site. I feel strongly about this site that I should contribute something to the stone-building tradition and bring balance back to the site. On a sloping hill down the ledge there are deep gouges of earth left behind by quarrymen next to native stoneworks- I know for sure they must have messed alot of things up. The ledge itself was partly blasted/ drilled by the quarrymen and left bare. But amazingly the ledge still holds much natural beauty.
Oh, and it is hard to find. You must go up another rock ledge with no marked trail, than pick up a small overgrown footpath to get to the spot.
What I have built so far on the ledge-
A stone enclosure, walled on three sides with an open entrance. A sort of "vision quest" seat. When I am not at the site I place a rounded stone in the middle of the enclosure, in abscence of someone sitting there.
A stone cairn pile with a standing stone placed in the middle. The standing stone I found maybe an 1/8 of a mile away from the ledge, and is shoulder/ neck height, so it is a large stone. It was lying face down on the ground, again, amidst destruction from quarrymen- but this standing stone is not the result of quarrying and is very old. I decided to slavage it so I picked it up and hauled it to the special rock ledge, which was hard to do, especially having to walk up a ledge, worry about roots carrying the sacred object. I made a cairn at a nice elevated spot to place the Standing Stone on top of, placing more stones around it's base. I decorated it with a dead tree branch and tied colored string around it- the string closest to the stone is magnetically attracted to the standing stone and will move by itself to the stone.
A circular stone cairn that is hollow/ devoid of stones in the center. This is basically an expression of dualism, or the yin to the above standing stones' yang energy, creating a vortex of energy.
A stone altar at the center of the ledge. (Since this ledge was drilled/ blasted in parts, there are some flat areas, like a terrace, as well as areas that avoided the blasting retaining it's natural roundness of the rock formation.) The design for this altar is like a chamber, with a roof slab placed on top, two sides, a back and an open entrance but is only waist/stomach high and slightly wider than shoulder width.
A fireplace with 2 stones resembling turtle heads on either side sticking out from the stone circle.
Two stone rows. The outer stone row is going to have a standing stone on the end, which is really a large flake from the quarrymen blasting the ledge but is perfectly standing-stone shaped. I rolled it into place using my legs, but the problem is I cannot prop it up alone so far, it is taller than a person and very heavy. I don't know who might want to help me put it into place. The second stone row is closer to the "campfire" and is a serpent row- the first stone is the head of the serpent, clearly, the last stone is it's tail. This stone row also functions as benches around the fire-place and forms a crescent shape around the fire.
There is also other small things such as a blasted stone that looks like a profile of a face. So I placed this on top of another rock. Actually, the face looks different from 3 different angles but always looks like a face- head/neck.
Every day that I have made it up to the ledge I am spontaeniously inspired to create something new, without planning anything before-hand.
After going to site after site, learning deeply about this matter I have decided to make a contribution, in a place that needs the healing that I feel strongly about (the locality of the ledge).
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Originally Posted by MarathonTmatt
