Author: Tenneson Woolf

The stones come from a beach in Napier, New Zealand. The candle, as you can see, is a simple tea candle. It burns for about five hours. The piece of wood is drift wood, from an 2010 trip to Kaikoura on NZ’s South Island west coast.

This morning, they are placed on my kitchen counter. The backdrop is regular life. Car keys. Dish towels hanging form the oven handle. A package of buns for sandwiches later today. Regular life meets symbolic artifacts.

There are times when I, and I believe most of us, need fewer words and more ritual energy. I’m in one of those times. Yes, the stones are Zen like. I have a set. My son has a similar set to mark our New Zealand trip together. We collected them from the beach. The candle is stilling to me. A simple fire to gather around, and act that feels very instinctive. It is a call to stillness. To the integration of memory, current experience, and perhaps some future intent.

For the moment, however, this combination is enough to remind me of, and enjoy, a stillness as I weave my way through many emails, projects, and commitments that could occupy many uninterrupted days. That’s what happens after long trips. Stones and candles often help me to do just this.

 

 

I suppose this is a good followup to yesterday’s picture of balanced stones. This is a larger stone I balanced this week, maybe 12 inches tall on an outcropping of rocks at Scorching Bay, looking into the Wellington Harbour.

It’s great to balance these rocks. Perhaps because to balance the outer requires a balance on the inner. I enjoy this as a kind of practice. Artful, and centering.

And, then again, balance can be a bit over-rated also. Perhaps over-used. Over-valued. Balance often shows up as an invocation to restore right relations between work and life. Good. Without being too cute about it, it is the out of balance that is often the edges that are most fruitful for many of us. Not necessarily in the moment. But with the help of some friends, or even, dare I say, alone, that our personages evolve. We grow. We learn not to fear. We learn to adapt a perspective of continually sensing and reorienting.

Regardless, it is good to keep it open, eh. Not to fixed in any one place. I find this to be true.

 

It was Chris Corrigan that first got me into balancing stones. Probably seven years ago. Finding ways for the seemingly tiniest point of a stone to balance in the most unsuspecting of places. What was most fun about it was the gleam in Chris’ eye. He was having fun. He was creating art. He was offering art.

I’ve been doing a lot of balancing stones since then. The neighbor kids sometimes ask if I’ll do more in the front parking lot. My kids expect me to do it whether on a beach or on a hike. Like, Chris, I too, love the art.

This particular pictures is from a beach in Napier, on New Zealand’s east coast. It was a sunny day, earlier this week. My son and I had 45 minutes on this beach, waiting for an appointment. It’s a bit hard to tell the scale of this. Most of the stones were 5-8 inches tall. I mixed in a few shells and driftwood. That’s the Pacific in the background. Glorious and beautiful white crested turquoise waves.

I suppose if I wanted to extract principle, one that would be important to me is using what is in front of me. This was not a difficult collection of stones to find. They were everywhere. The log was placed there and, who knows, might be removed by the coming tide. That points to a second principle. Be willing to let it go. I must admit that I hoped it would remain for a long time, but I don’t really know that. Maybe it brought a momentary appreciation from a passer by — “well, look at that!”

The gleam, whether from the observer or the creator, makes the moment.

 

 

Given that I am in the last few days of a trip to New Zealand, I have the feeling that many of my next posts will have something to do with this land and this trip. Sense-making may take a while. My 18 year-old son and I have been on a Dad / Son trip, which has been utter privilege. Friend and colleague Glen Lauder has been our wonderful host.

This photo includes Kapiti Island as seen from a beach in Paekakariki, about an hour north of Wellington. The body of water is the Tasman Sea. I drew the spiral, the koru in Maori, because I like the shape. It symbolizes among other things, new life with attention to both the center and the unfolding. And for this day, some simple fun with my son Isaac.

Kapiti is a kind of preserve of NZ’s habitat, which we have seen many of during this trip. I appreciate the noticeable commitment and care in this island country to quality of life, including its preserves.

This Dad / Son journey punctuates a shift from my son’s youth to his adulthood. It’s not so clean, of course. But it is a deliberate trip that also has unfolding and center. For him, and for me.