MATRIX

The sea, turned to stone, is laughing
a last laugh made of waves.
— Federico García Lorca

TUFA. Tufa boulder formed under the waters of a pluvial lake in northwest Nevada; these deeply carved petroglyphs undated.

SERPENTINE. Coastal boulder in Oregon; various deep carvings.

SCHIST. Deep groves forming ovals and circles on schist boulders embedded in the rolling hills east of the Russian River CA. 

SANDSTONE. Deep cups and carvings on boulder once along lower Rogue River; twice removed, now in a park.

MARBLE.  Golden sun softened by the sand of time, eastern California.

GRANITE.  Cupped and carved boulder near the Pacific ocean, California.

FELDSPAR.  Crystals embedded in an igneous matrix with swirling carvings, on a wave-worn boulder, edge of a desiccating pluvial lake in Oregon. 

BASALT.  Completely patinaed carvings on this chocolate boulder in eastern Oregon.

ANDESITE.  A massive andesite glacial erratic in NW Washington, carvings obscured by mosses and leaves. 

TUFF. Carvings on face of cliff of welded tuff in eastern California.

In the beginning all was Molten. Caressing, congealing Creation arrives. Stone appears, birthing Earth. Restless Movement brings Life to all things. Beings wake, blink, consent. Carrying stone, placing stone, carving rock in the Telling time of prayer. The carving of the petroglyph, a fleeting phase in the life of the stone. Yes, the stone, alive. Actor and witness. Change, the constant forgiving. In the faraway end… all is Molten.   

NOTES
— Federico García Lorca (Spanish, 1898-1936) from the poem Moonbow.
— Photos by DB. Future posts on this blog will be devoted to each of these petroglyph, emphasizing eco-context, silences, and duration through time and beyond.  With gratitude to the unknown carvers.

CODA
Is life immortal? Don't ask life,
for it doesn't even know what life is.
We are the ones who know
that one day it too must die and return
to the beginning, the inertia of the origin.
The end of yesterday, today, and tomorrow,
the dissipation of time
and of nothing, its opposite.
Then will there be a then?
will the primigenius spark
light the matrix of the worlds,
a perpetual re-beginning of a senseless whirling?
No one answers, no one knows.
We only know that to live is to live for.

    — Octavio Paz (Mexican 1914-1998)
        from the long poem Response and Reconciliation
        (trans Eliot Weinberger)