Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Secret Landscapes Face Lift


A face pasted onto a photo lifted from:
The original - before I defaced(?) it (face-lifted it?):

There is no cure for this...

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Turtlevision with apologies to C. Pittman

The first stone construction I was ever felt was with-out-a-doubt Native American in origin was the above quartzite stone bear's head ( http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2007/06/old-friend.html  & seen here in action: http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2009/04/bear-stone-rocking.html), so my first impression of this photo I saw this morning at Rock Piles was, "There's a bear on that Stone Row!"

 

A "construction in this otherwise entirely ordinary wall..."
Original Chris Pittman photos from:
And here's a Turtle Vision after a closer look:

And there's the Bear's Eye outlined above too because sometimes a stone can be both a bear and a turtle:







Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Boulder 7

I am really only guessing that Abvhiael Crowley's photos are in this sort of order as he walked from what he has named Propped Boulder 5, past some boulder and cobble rows, walking to Boulder 6, and then Propped Boulder 7, a sort of the middle of the walk he took in this place.
This is #5:
These three are in the same bunch of photos with #5, and I don't know how they fit into the over-all bigger picture of the place:


The next three are marked as #6:


The next series shows a cobble line that leads to #7:




And this is marked as Propped Boulder 7:
I'll ask AC if this impression is even close to the Stone Reality and will update this post with his comments...

Thursday, January 10, 2013

My Great Grandfather Rinaldi’s Stone Work 2

At his house in Woodbury CT:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXoYjcF-8EExLChs6Abk1fdQHDRRySzJnzc0FgYAPo9kxc26v_zPnbvta_jELTIcTV-XUEb_ikleCHp6u4A4GG8HfPBvhKewQlPfNlCeWtw3RYOZa-4MWKrlYFCLeYifazSdV8dw/s1600/IMG_0067.JPG


1934 – his house is encircled on the right. His work interrupts a zigzag stone row on one side of an Indian Trail. Both sides of the Trail are bounded by zigzag stone rows and I would guess burned very often to keep them clear, the stone rows directing the burn, protecting other places. The path leads to Lake Quassapaug.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsxyKUFQiLWV3h7hIOy8Slnu0lTOiMNP_YyBHXXkdYSdQfwDXojSVse5-2fAWMJqL9iKAKU7lgfJzZmK2w9MMJdBooyGwB4ygx0wRCogeyKLI8s20k-xI6Bs2WF1MkNmZ7vo2CTQ/s1600/detail+07541with+circles.JPG

The famous Whittemore Stone Walls that Giovanni Rinaldi and his brother Raphael built, probably using stone from the ancient Indian stone rows and stone mounds.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/billhass/6988105088/
http://www.gardentyrant.com/2010_12_01_archive.html
http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/small/43987086.jpg

An ironic statement: “Bulky stone walls, their tops jagged rows of oversized fieldstones, line the roads and crisscross the fields. The estate was designed for pleasure, with viewpoints and carefully sited specimen trees. It was also designed for usefulness, with fields for crops or grazing, and woods for managed timbering, accessed by roads that could serve both recreational riders and lumberjacks' wagons. Other tracts were designated as forest preserves. Eliot and the Olmsted firm were instrumental in introducing German advances in scientific landscape and forest management to the United States… The landscape and buildings were considered as a single design unit, with human-made features designed to harmonize with the existing landscape. Buildings are carefully sited. Roads follow the contours of the land and are lined with walls or trees or slightly sunk so as not to be visible from important vantage points. Telephone and electric lines are buried. The result is a harmonious, peaceful setting of extraordinary beauty.”

I see it as “straightened out zigzags.” The present road is the old Indian trail. Those stones weren’t moved very far, human nature being what it is…
http://www.connecticutbarns.org/index.cgi/4035
http://sugarbeardesigns.blogspot.com/2007/06/made-in-connecticut.html

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

My Great Grandfather Rinaldi’s Stone Work

My Great Grandfather Rinaldi’s stone work


At his house:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBdNEGCL8hhW4usIWj32ZpBrOuHTkiWXKKZdVgzS2dybALytUcMqNxwl0CVRFO1KHbPD9HCWTg63vA6xDFnzURQkD8grCpanycS9s_WBNR2bA3VgKyKxZNDSkQcFfF8JqZC2Norg/s1600/IMG_0066.JPG
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXoYjcF-8EExLChs6Abk1fdQHDRRySzJnzc0FgYAPo9kxc26v_zPnbvta_jELTIcTV-XUEb_ikleCHp6u4A4GG8HfPBvhKewQlPfNlCeWtw3RYOZa-4MWKrlYFCLeYifazSdV8dw/s1600/IMG_0067.JPG


1934 – his house is encircled on the right. His work interrupts a zigzag stone row on one side of an Indian Trail. Both sides of the Trail are bounded by zigzag stone rows and I would guess burned very often to keep them clear, the stone rows directing the burn, protecting other places. The path leads to Lake Quassapaug.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsxyKUFQiLWV3h7hIOy8Slnu0lTOiMNP_YyBHXXkdYSdQfwDXojSVse5-2fAWMJqL9iKAKU7lgfJzZmK2w9MMJdBooyGwB4ygx0wRCogeyKLI8s20k-xI6Bs2WF1MkNmZ7vo2CTQ/s1600/detail+07541with+circles.JPG

The famous Whittemore Stone Walls that Giovanni Rinaldi and his brother Raphael built, probably using stone from the ancient Indian stone rows and stone mounds.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/billhass/6988105088/
http://www.gardentyrant.com/2010_12_01_archive.html
http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/small/43987086.jpg

An ironic statement: “Bulky stone walls, their tops jagged rows of oversized fieldstones, line the roads and crisscross the fields. The estate was designed for pleasure, with viewpoints and carefully sited specimen trees. It was also designed for usefulness, with fields for crops or grazing, and woods for managed timbering, accessed by roads that could serve both recreational riders and lumberjacks' wagons. Other tracts were designated as forest preserves. Eliot and the Olmsted firm were instrumental in introducing German advances in scientific landscape and forest management to the United States… The landscape and buildings were considered as a single design unit, with human-made features designed to harmonize with the existing landscape. Buildings are carefully sited. Roads follow the contours of the land and are lined with walls or trees or slightly sunk so as not to be visible from important vantage points. Telephone and electric lines are buried. The result is a harmonious, peaceful setting of extraordinary beauty.”

I see it as “straightened out zigzags.” The present road is the old Indian trail. Those stones weren’t moved very far, human nature being what it is…
http://www.connecticutbarns.org/index.cgi/4035
http://sugarbeardesigns.blogspot.com/2007/06/made-in-connecticut.html

Thursday, January 03, 2013

Solstice 2012


Somebody left a comment on an old post (http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2006/09/mesingwe-hunter-spirit.html )that asked:
"do you have any information on NE native celebrations traditions for winter solstice(?)"
I lamely replied thus:
""Another feast occured "especially" in the winter "for then (as the Turke saith of the Christian, rather than the Antichristian, they run mad once a yeare) in their kind of Christmas feasting" (Roger Williams 1936: 127)," writes Kathleen Bragdon in Native People of Southern New England, 1500-1650. She says "public and calendrical" rituals were "cosmological principles of the cycle of renewal."

I should have added that Old Roger wrote that he never personally attended any rituals or ceremonies because he didn't want to be contaminated by the devil (or burned at a stake by other Christians).

A friend of mine, Gale Courey Toensing, just wrote this story: "Haudenosaunee Hold Idle No More Round Dance in Syracuse" - January 01, 2013 and it makes mention of a comment reportedly made by the Canadian Prime Minister on the Winter Solstice of 2012:

"...The Round Dance event was organized by members of the Onondaga Nation and drew upwards of 300 people from all of the nations and the surrounding communities. The Syracuse gathering was one of hundreds of Round Dance events and other actions that have spread across Canada, the United States and even beyond to Europe and the Middle East since four First Nations women – Sheelah McLean, Nina Wilson, Sylvia McAdam, and Jessica Gordon – launched the Idle No More movement in mid-December. The movement originally protested the passage by the Canadian legislature of a draconian law that violates treaties and makes it easier for multinational corporations to purchase, exploit and degrade indigenous lands without any consultation, let alone the “free, prior and informed consent” and other requirements of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But since then it has grown into a peaceful grassroots social justice movement that aims to raise consciousness and understanding of indigenous sovereignty and the urgent need to protect the environment. The movement ultimately seeks to bring about profound social, political and economic change locally and globally.


Idle No More is symbolized by Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence who is on a hunger strike she began on December 10 and has pledged to continue until Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper agrees to meet with her and other indigenous leaders. The Idle No More website reports that Harper posted a tweet saying “mmm. . . bacon” on December 21 when Spence was on the 11th day of her hunger strike.


Facebook, Twitter and other social media are playing a crucial role in spreading the word about Idle No More just as they did in sparking the Arab Spring across certain Middle East countries."

“We are looking for a resolution, not a revolution,” Rob Benedict, a member of the Turtle Clan of the Mohawk Nation who attended the Syracuse Round Dance, told the Post-Standard “The Natives in Canada have laid low and have been kicked around for too long,” Benedict said. ”This movement has lit a fire. We are standing up and saying no more.”

You can find Gale's story here: