December, 2007

Calanais Standing Stones Site I,
Lewis, Western Isles

This final musing on TOUCHSTONES is the end of a journey, one both spiritual and physical. I, like you, look for guideposts in life, seeking a polestar, a source of reassurance that I am on the right track. Were the many standing stones in Scotland Neolithic guideposts, pointing the questing individuals towards a particular location? Were they boundary markers for tribes or clans?

This book presents some of the small, often over-looked glances at places and things I found interesting in Scotland. It also has images from locations I set out with great deliberation to find because of their uniqueness. In earlier writings about Calanais (Site I) I wrote about the location, type of stones, and the particular layout in which they are found. It is a good physical and technical description of the place and the stones themselves but the images in TOUCHSTONES are about more than physical locations. As I write each Musing, I return to the book and reexamine it, looking at the image with new eyes. Each time I sit down to write I am in a different place emotionally and spiritually. I am continually finding new meaning, new reasons for each image.

When I first put these images together I was reacting with one level of consciousness. Using the logic of sequence and tonality, composition and design, I was trying to organize this experience in a way that made sense to others. Now after two and a half years of reviewing, renewing and writing about these images I often see them completely different from my earlier impressions. The images continue to speak to me in different ways each time I sit down to write about them and I almost always learn or see something new.

When first laying out the book, I interpreted Plate 29 as representing a time at sunset. The sun is still well about the horizon, but the sky is much brighter than the foreground. The ground at the base of the stones is visible but not easily seen. Each stone breaks the horizon line puncturing the light gray of the skyline. As a sunset, the end of the metaphorical day, this image made sense coming at the end of the book. It is not the last image (the last image returns us to the beginning point) but the next-to-last image indicating that the day is dying and it is time to return to the safety of home. Yet now as I look at this image I realize that it may also be interpreted as a rising sun - a sun that promises to bring light, a new day, and perhaps a new journey or adventure.

I will never forget the woman in a red shirt that so reverently approached these stones one of the days I was photographing. Her behavior gave me the impression that she was on a pilgrimage to this specific site. They held a power and meaning for her that I can only begin to guess at. What took me by surprise was that she was only at the site for a few minutes. Only for a very brief moment was she in touch with her destination. I hope her experience was everything she dreamed of. More importantly, I hope she got what she needed from her journey. Was she so focused on her destination that she forgot the beauty in her journey? Maybe that is what this last image and TOUCHSTONES is all about for me, the importance of the journey and not the destination.

Perhaps Plate 29 is a rising sun, inviting me to continue my quest for self-understanding. I am going to continue this quest and I encourage you to do the same. Listen to your own quiet inner voice and go wherever it leads. As we go on this quest looking for powerful places we should be mindful not to overlook the small and unexpected places. Beauty and power can be found wherever we are ready to receive it. Turn around and go back to a bend in the road, try to find what is speaking to you. Step outside the place you intended to see, sit on the ground and watch the light cascade down a set of steps, and recognize the beauty of stone wall running up a hillside to a row of trees as every bit as wonderful as a 5000 year-old ring of standing stones.