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About A Stone

Stpauli9

Stpauli9

Junior Acolyte
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Messages
68
I should start by clarifying that Asperger's syndrome (which I have) can lead to a lot of focus on ritual and pattern. Changes to schedule and unpleasant surprises can be quite powerful.
The thing in particular was a round stone I found on a walk, smooth and covered in little spots. After I brought it in, I found that none of my good luck things were working. I would put my thumb onto a picture of Bruce Lee and would always read the same passage from a book. All of a sudden, these rituals had no effect. Surely, I had convinced myself that these meaningless were good for me. But one night, I took the rock and hurled it into the darkness (didn't hit anything or anyone). The next day was a vast improvement and continued until I could no longer maintain the picture (it rotted and had to go). Something good was happening about those pictures, and that stone had turned things around.
 
I glad things improved for you. Maybe it's enough to have something tangible to focus your intention on to get a boost toward acheiving an aim. Something could have shifted within yourself which made the prior ritual--your thumb on Bruce Lee's picture and reading the same passage from a book--ineffective for you. Maybe our minds need a tangible focal point or maybe we actually make a connection with some web of energy--I say, who cares, as long as it works for you!
I love finding stones and staring at them. The most ordinary ones can be incredibly beautiful if you look at them carefully enough.
 
*autistic waving at you*

I get very attached to rituals and physical objects. I have a stone in the garden that I can't now find (30 years of growth!) and knowing it's there is very pleasing. A friend from this place sent me some hag stones - have you seen those? They have a natural hole through them.
 
Frideswide said:
*autistic waving at you*

I get very attached to rituals and physical objects. I have a stone in the garden that I can't now find (30 years of growth!) and knowing it's there is very pleasing. A friend from this place sent me some hag stones - have you seen those? They have a natural hole through them.
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I would be happy to mail a hag stone to Alexe :) .. my nephew is also autistic, my big Sister asked me to mail one or two to him because she feels he'd find a connection with them. They're beautiful things, you can also use them to hold incense sticks.
 
Ah yes. Son with autism was really taken by an idea someone gave me, who said when he goes to places, he doesn't buy a memento but finds a small pebble or stone and brings it home. He now has a load of them, but they're all happy memories of days out, etc - he'd been doing this for years. So we decided to do the same.

We have one stone with a hole in. Some random bits of masoned stone that look to be fragments of something, once, and then just pebbles and smooth small-ish stones. I have this really cool big pebble I found on Whitby beach once, that is plain grey but divided into quadrants with what looks like a vein of rose quartz - probably isn't but just the fact it's divided into four, meant I had to have it. Have taken a few witch stones at the seaside as well - them with holes in - but for a practical purpose: I use them to diz wool when spinning (don't ask).

Went to Mother Shipton's cave yesterday and son couldn't resist a crystal from the shop. I haven't bought any for many years because the ethical thing but still have some old ones, which I often put in pot plants' pots just to catch the light and look pretty.

Another son has dyspraxia and can't stand the feeling of stones - particularly smooth pebbles. Sweets that are smooth like M & Ms make him barf. He loathes the texture of em. Very odd. I could live on Mini Eggs - he wants to hurl just looking at em.
 
Don't we have a thread on taking stones? It's widely believed to be unlucky to remove stones, especially from holy sites. People have posted stones back to where they found them, sometimes with detailed directions to the exact spot, after blaming a run of trouble on them.

Hag stones - with a hole through - are supposed to be a bit magic. I was told one will keep nightmares away if you display above your bed. Had one like that as a teenager and I bet it's still around somewhere.
 
escargot said:
Don't we have a thread on taking stones? It's widely believed to be unlucky to remove stones, especially from holy sites. People have posted stones back to where they found them, sometimes with detailed directions to the exact spot, after blaming a run of trouble on them.
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Ooh er, I 'ope not... me and Mr Zebra have, over the last couple of decades, often taken one or two nice pebbles or shells from beaches that we visit. Little mementoes, you know.

Not to mention the pile of sand we inadvertently took home from Hoylake beach from a particularly windswept trip not too long ago. Still haven't got it all out of the back of the car.
 
escargot said:
Don't we have a thread on taking stones? It's widely believed to be unlucky to remove stones, especially from holy sites. People have posted stones back to where they foun:oops:d them, sometimes with detailed directions to the exact spot, after blaming a run of trouble on them.

Hag stones - with a hole through - are supposed to be a bit magic. I was told one will keep nightmares away if you display above your bed. Had one like that as a teenager and I bet it's still around somewhere.
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I take stones home, but I am always acquainted with them and feel they are happy to come with me. There are decorative piles of little stones around my house, and sometimes I let them run free in my garden.

But I have an awful lot of bad luck so perhaps I should stopo_O
 
escargot said:
Don't we have a thread on taking stones? It's widely believed to be unlucky to remove stones, especially from holy sites. People have posted stones back to where they found them, sometimes with detailed directions to the exact spot, after blaming a run of trouble on them.
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I've always subscribed to the idea of taking little mementos to remember a pleasant day, I even like geocaching and mudlarking for the same reasons! I'll often take a stone or a shell or even a cutting from a plant or the seed from a tree. I think I mentioned on another thread (and please don't judge me too harshly!) that I took a medieval finger bone from a neglected spoil heap in France a couple of years ago. I don't know why I did it, it's not the kind of thing I would normally do, being terribly superstitious. It's presence weighed so heavily in my pocket (and heart!) as I walked away that I was already considering the possibility of mailing it back with a note of apology. But (touch wood!) it's had no ill effects and is much revered as a relic, in a little display box. I love imagining what that finger created, or what other hand it held. Although if the Egyptians are to be believed then there's a spirit somewhere missing part of a finger and feeling thoroughly fed up with my disgraceful conduct! Apologies if anyone is offended, the large bones from a mass burial were being removed and communally bagged but the small ones were being discarded and falling into areas where they were being trampled into the gravel by tourists - still no excuse for theft, but there we go!
 
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I visited the excavated Market and Theatre site near St Albans Museum and picked up a stone-size piece of Roman brick in the spoil outside one of the numerous rabbit holes. 'How do you know it's Roman ?' asked my nephew and niece without looking up from their phones (whilst standing in the 2000 year old ruins of Verulanium).
 
My brother (and this will out me massively if he's on here) takes 'dirt rubbings'.

He has a veritable scrapbook of 'dirt rubbings' taken from various locations, just smears of dirt rubbed onto whatever paper is in his pocket. He has a particularly impressive one (with paint flakes) from the Forth Road Bridge, the Flying Scotsman locomotive, all sorts of places. They are labelled too.

It serves the 'memento' purpose, without the possible horrors of taking stones'.

We are a bit of an odd family.
 
catseye said:
My brother (and this will out me massively if he's on here) takes 'dirt rubbings'.

He has a veritable scrapbook of 'dirt rubbings' taken from various locations, just smears of dirt rubbed onto whatever paper is in his pocket. He has a particularly impressive one (with paint flakes) from the Forth Road Bridge, the Flying Scotsman locomotive, all sorts of places. They are labelled too.

It serves the 'memento' purpose, without the possible horrors of taking stones'.

We are a bit of an odd family.
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Actually that sounds quite cool, I'm only a bit worried I might start doing this myself now.

I have started taking cuttings from garden centre plants but that's not my Apspergers it's my current obsession with low-cost gardening. And I haven't figured out if it is technically theft yet
 
drbastard said:
Actually that sounds quite cool, I'm only a bit worried I might start doing this myself now.

I have started taking cuttings from garden centre plants but that's not my Apspergers it's my current obsession with low-cost gardening. And I haven't figured out if it is technically theft yet
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Our first (council) house had a huge garden and not a single cultivated plant in it. And we were in Maggie's Millions, so broke. We ended up living there 9 years and I built that garden mainly from cuttings, plants found in cracks in paving stones, and interesting things grown from seed. By the time we left it was a beautiful garden, and had cost me almost nothing.

I got a lot of my garden from various parks and gardens that came right out onto the road...

I used to carry a little freezer bag in my pocket, so my liberated plants got home alive.
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
Our first (council) house had a huge garden and not a single cultivated plant in it. And we were in Maggie's Millions, so broke. We ended up living there 9 years and I built that garden mainly from cuttings, plants found in cracks in paving stones, and interesting things grown from seed. By the time we left it was a beautiful garden, and had cost me almost nothing.

I got a lot of my garden from various parks and gardens that came right out onto the road...

I used to carry a little freezer bag in my pocket, so my liberated plants got home alive.
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My Mum did the same over 50 years. Almost all the plants in it are from cuttings or plants that were received as gifts.
 
Rabbit Will Run said:
I've always subscribed to the idea of taking little mementos to remember a pleasant day, I even like geocaching and mudlarking for the same reasons! I'll often take a stone or a shell or even a cutting from a plant or the seed from a tree. I think I mentioned on another thread (and please don't judge me too harshly!) that I took a medieval finger bone from a neglected spoil heap in France a couple of years ago. I don't know why I did it, it's not the kind of thing I would normally do, being terribly superstitious. It's presence weighed so heavily in my pocket (and heart!) as I walked away that I was already considering the possibility of mailing it back with a note of apology. But (touch wood!) it's had no ill effects and is much revered as a relic, in a little display box. I love imagining what that finger created, or what other hand it held. Although if the Egyptians are to be believed then there's a spirit somewhere missing part of a finger and feeling thoroughly fed up with my disgraceful conduct! Apologies if anyone is offended, the large bones from a mass burial were being removed and communally bagged but the small ones were being discarded and falling into areas where they were being trampled into the gravel by tourists - still no excuse for theft, but there we go!
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I've got a small piece of bone from Lindisfarne, very worn, possibly smoothed by the sea. Always thought of it as animal bone though. I keep it in a little pouch with some other little objects taken from happy times.

It's a very pagan thing, taking stones and bones and such to keep. Our ancestors would've decorated their homes and villages with local "things" and I dare say brought "things" back from their travels. It's instinctive for some reason. And as we know, our ancestors were not squeamish about bones, keeping them in barrows to go and commune with on special occasions.
 
Scribbles said:
I've got a small piece of bone from Lindisfarne, very worn, possibly smoothed by the sea. Always thought of it as animal bone though. I keep it in a little pouch with some other little objects taken from happy times.

It's a very pagan thing, taking stones and bones and such to keep. Our ancestors would've decorated their homes and villages with local "things" and I dare say brought "things" back from their travels. It's instinctive for some reason. And as we know, our ancestors were not squeamish about bones, keeping them in barrows to go and commune with on special occasions.
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You have what the druids called a 'crane bag'. Instinctive. I guess it's like a native American medicine pouch..?
 
drbastard said:
I have started taking cuttings from garden centre plants but that's not my Apspergers it's my current obsession with low-cost gardening. And I haven't figured out if it is technically theft yet
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escargot said:
Yup, it's theft, and if you're caught the staff won't be pleased.
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gordonrutter said:
No technically about it, of course it’s theft!
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Tempest63 said:
And potentially criminal damage...if it was my own garden centre!
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Should keep it in perspective though. It is theft but plants grow back and very few plants can be harmed by having a small amount of material removed. It is not something I would do either but others on this thread have admitted to things that sound more serious to me.

A lot of plants are now protected by plant patents making it a civil offence to take cuttings from them. To me that seems much more wrong than drbastards minor transgressions.
 
Gloucestrian said:
Should keep it in perspective though. It is theft but plants grow back and very few plants can be harmed by having a small amount of material removed. It is not something I would do either but others on this thread have admitted to things that sound more serious to me.
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The trouble comes where lots of people are taking a little bit of a plant. This is a big problem for the National Trust whose customers seem to want to take cuttings home as souvenirs, presumably to grow a plant like the one they saw next to their favourite author's cottage.

What's wrong with looking up the plant and buying one from your local garden centre? Not the big chain one, the little place off the main road where real gardeners raise them and can tell you all about them.
 
Scribbles said:
I've got a small piece of bone from Lindisfarne, very worn, possibly smoothed by the sea. Always thought of it as animal bone though. I keep it in a little pouch with some other little objects taken from happy times.

It's a very pagan thing, taking stones and bones and such to keep. Our ancestors would've decorated their homes and villages with local "things" and I dare say brought "things" back from their travels. It's instinctive for some reason. And as we know, our ancestors were not squeamish about bones, keeping them in barrows to go and commune with on special occasions.
Click to expand...

They didn't just keep bones in barrows either, sometimes they buried people under the bed or elsewhere in the house. A way of keeping the dead and their wisdom close, I'd have thought.
 
I remember when a few of us went to Manchester on a pilgrimage of sorts because our mate was a huge fan of Morrisey and The Smiths .. to skip to the relevant part, we also went to Morrisey's childhood home and he couldn't help himself but to dart into the front garden and nick some garden soil so he could grow a flower later on. I asked him later how the flower was doing and he told me it had died and that the irony of that hadn't been lost on him.
 
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