We went to Ireland for a birthday trip last month. Traveling in places that have so much history always gives me pause.  I was particularly intrigued with the Neolithic site at New Grange.  It was fascinating that over 5,000 years ago, before the invention of the wheel, the Neolithic people transported upwards of 200,000 tons of rock for their construction site from many miles away.  They carried white quartz from the Wicklow Mountains 65 miles south, greywacke from the coast 15 miles east and granodiorite from the Mourne Mountains 40 miles northeast. Clearly not just any rock would do!

But why these particular rocks? They must have held serious significance whether it was the color contrast of the quartz, the softness of the sandstone for carving, or other more spiritual qualities.  New Grange, after all, was a burial tomb, and it housed the spirits of ancient ancestors according to archaeologists. Although I do not usually indulge in much Halloween-related thinking, these ponderings have led me down a rather supernatural path.  So humor me for a moment while I consider some less concrete ideas about stone…

Some parapsychologists believe in the concept of “place memory” which proposes that locations can hold onto the emotional energy of events that occurred in these places and certain people can sense these emotions when they come to these locations.  Like actual fossils imprinted in mudstone, these less concrete relics are imprinted into a location.  But how?

The “stone tape theory” goes further and suggests that it is the stone in buildings that acts as a tape recorder, logging the lingering energy of a historical event into the fabric of the stone and replaying it later as paranormal phenomena. Apparently, it is not just any stone that has this ability.  Limestone, quartz and magnetite are particularly adept at “remembering.”

To get into the spirit of this topic, I broke down and watched the 1972 British horror film titled, “The Stone Tape.” What starts out as a scientific investigation of a ghost sighting in an old castle quickly degrades into a mixture of clashing personalities and conjecture.  The lead investigator finally decides that what is recording the ghost’s story is the very building stone of the castle itself -Kentish Ragstone (limestone). But after they purge the ghost’s energy with a cacophony of electronic equipment, an even deeper layer of paranormal activity emerges, possibly going back to the castle’s origin in Saxon times. These historical recollections, like the rock that stored them, were believed to be in layers going back in time.

The potential of a geologic location to hold the memories of its past is quite farfetched but that has not kept researchers from trying to give it traction.  In 2014, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, compared sites in the continental U.S. with high paranormal activity with their geological and hydrological features.  It turned out that there is more than some credence to these correlations as they are especially linked in areas close to faults and rocks containing quartz.

But quartz-rich rocks were not what was on my shopping list in Ireland.  It was Connemara marble I was after.  While I would have liked to come home with a few tons of it, I was only able to squeeze a Connemara “worry stone” into my suitcase. Although worry stones have been used throughout history – by indigenous people, the Greeks, and Tibetans to name a few – they have a special relationship to Ireland where their rare lime green color, like the Emerald Isle itself, has been considered healing and lucky since Celtic times. Studies have shown that repeatedly rubbing a worry stone calms people, relieves muscle tension, and reduces unhealthy cravings. Rubbing a worry stone over and over may take away your worries, but if there is any validity to the Stone Tape theory where do the worries go?  Do they pass into the stone only to reappear later? Most importantly: Is that something I should be worrying about?  HA!

Part of any trip for us always includes visiting geologic wonders and so we were thrilled to be able see a few in Ireland.  Starting with the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland, migrating southwest to hike the “Stairway to Heaven” in County Fermanagh, and then exploring the Burren along the southwest coast.  To say that I am enraptured with the Burren and its glacio-karst landscape is a gross underestimate! Of course there were also trips to abbeys, fairy gardens, standing stones, caves, distilleries and pubs. We even stayed in a castle which was a highlight of the trip. 

In December I will be at the American Exploration and Mining Association meeting in Sparks, Nevada. We have a premium booth location on the main thoroughfare.  Please join us!

www.stonequiltdesign.com
720.340.2132

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list