This IS NOT A Stone (#68)

The long road, winding its way to foreign lands, almost to infinity, often resembled the farmer's ways to the fields or to the paths of the cattle to the meadows.

How did they find the way to Rome and Compostela between all the paths that meandered through the European country, before Etzkaub printed his maps and there were signposts?

The stories about medieval pilgrims give us an idea.

There we encounter a special phenomenon: small piles of stones, cairns or pyramids of pebbles, which seem to have marked all major routes through the countries.

The French called these 'Joy Mountains', 'Montjoies', or 'Mont Joiez'. In Latin: 'Mons Gaudii', in the language of the Franks: 'Mund gawi.'

You were happy when you saw them, because you knew that you were not lost – that's how the name was interpreted.

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Number 68 in the continuous series "This IS NOT A Stone"

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To watch the previous post in this series follow this link to: 'This IS NOT A Stone #67'

Or start at the beginning: 'Everything In One Stone'

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Choosing this simple, mediocre sand stone in 1986 to be his focal point for meditation and thoughts, artist Jan van Krieken doesn't need much more; a symbol for the slipping of time, a bit of eternity amidst an ever faster moving and changing world.

While investigating and researching the artist automatically arrived at "The Philosopher's Stone", the mysterious substance that alchemists had sought for centuries. Van Krieken found out that they were essentially looking for the same thing as he was looking for by means of the stone in his pond; the pure and the everlasting.

Almost 32 years of observing and photographing that one sand stone. Sometimes covered with snow, sometimes occupied by a bird, or hidden by fallen leaves, protected by ice or serving as a warm bed for a salamander this cycle of change became a metaphore for life itself.