Friday, May 16, 2014

A Stone Dell (and more Shape-shifting)


    I wanted to call this spot a “Dell” because that’s the first word that came to mind when I first saw it. And it sounds more romantic and picturesque than “small sort of natural amphitheater." I looked “dell” up just to make sure and not look anymore foolish than I already do. I found that a “dell” is:
-      a small valley with trees and grass growing in it
-       a secluded hollow or small valley usually covered with trees or turf
-      A small secluded wooded valley.
-       (Physical Geography) a small, esp. wooded hollow
-      a small wooded hollow
-      dingle
-      holler, hollow - a small valley between mountains; "he built himself a cabin in a hollow high up in the Appalachians"
[Old English; related to Middle Low German delle valley; compare dale]

     None of these definitions adds stones in there as a requirement, so I’ll temporarily name this the Stone Dell at the Shape-shifter Turtle High Place, wishing I knew how to say that in that Algonquin-r or Quiripi dialect so it sounded more romantic and picturesque.

I came across this dell after climbing to the high place and while returning to my car along the lower slope of the foot of the hill:
 I don’t know this place very well yet, but it seems as if everywhere you look, there’s stone manipulation and artistic design going on. On the left of me was a testudinate boulder:

 I wasn’t sure if I was seeing a rectangle or zigzags or both or what. There’s definitely one serpent (definitely one possible serpent?), possibly two possible (definitely probably possible?) serpents, and one stretching out of the possible rectangle. Difficult to photograph, as zigzag rows of stones sometimes are, there is a carefully constructed stone zigzag row, possibly the body or tail to this possible Serpent:
(Is the head a sort of a grinding slick???)
(The other Snaky Side:) 
Closer – looking toward the hilltop, the High Place, standing in a little bowl down where the terrain in more gentle. Open this in a full size window of its own and you may see the cobbles on the boulders up above some boulders – and a split boulder right in the middle, looking very possibly like a crow, perhaps:
As I got closer to the south end of the boulder, I changed my mind, it was still sort of a bird. But it was also something else: - and something else besides. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something else besides that too:
But I was not un-surprised, but maybe I was a little bit as I walked around to the opposite end and up close it wasn’t a bird anymore. It was something possibly else besides, also, too:
And then the stacked stones on the boulders got me – I never looked at the fourth side:


The entire series of photos is up on a Flickr page I occasionally remember I have:

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