If you visit places where people have lived for a very long time, you will find the traces they have left for you to discover just below the ground. You will find pottery, metals, household implements, and more. But delve deeper and you will reach a layer where, apart from bones and antlers, there are only tools or talismans made from stone.
There has been such speculation about these objects and what they might have been used for—their role in ritual, ceremony, or daily life. Ask your experts about their purpose and they will give you many answers. But I offer you one answer in their stead: the stones of your ancestors were the objects of their faith.
You are entering a period when you will reach for anything and everything in order to steady yourself in the face of so much uncertainty and change. But there is nothing you can reach for that will serve you better than a stone. There is no faith that will endure the chaos that is coming better than a stone. So ask yourself, ‘Where can I find such a treasure? They must lie everywhere about me. Why, then, is faith so difficult to find?’
When you understand the value that each life has in itself, you will know that the very bones within your body, the sky above your head, and the ground below your feet—these are things that no one can take away.
I have given you a world you cannot lose because I have given you TO that world—to live and to die in, and to be reborn endlessly in its embrace. But the simplest way to know this is to find a stone. Pick it up and hold it, and turn to it when all else fails. Your ancestors understood the wisdom of stones and trusted them on their long, long journey through time. You can trust that wisdom even now. Nothing has truly changed.