The Shape-shifting Turtle (and Wogey)

     Or the turtle petroform on an outcrop that isn't there when you get there, and a Wogey or Wogas who does the same 3 thousand miles away...

Cell-phone photo before the rain began again, apparently a Testudinate Petroform perched upon an outcrop of bedrock.

Interesting enough to go back to and investigate further, I thought at the time...

When I went back, the Turtle was still there perched on that big piece of stone above a well-used State Trail, and as I got closer, I could see it wasn't going anywhere fast, just like a turtle...

But before I go further, let me step back. Over by the roadside, as I checked a row of boulders (mostly) that I assumed was the bulldozer work of the CHD or DOT, I had said (aloud), that's a Turtle:

And my "Doodle," just in case you can't see it:

And just maybe, this Turtle is also a type of metate called a Grinding Slick, with that "mano" or "hand" stone still just resting upon it along this road I've traveled along since I was a little boy...

I cleaned up a little and stepped back:

(If you can't see now how this boulder has been split up etc. please leave this page and go Google search for some Cat pictures now instead...)

(Above, some interesting stones by my feet,

and below, possibly a small turtle...)

I was starting to think that there were definitely arranged stones everywhere on this hillside:

And I crossed a big gravel path (probably a material source for a big dam across the highway) and started getting closer to the Turtle on the Outcrop:

There were still signs of placed stones all around as I got closer:

But the stones began to look nothing like a Turtle as I walked around it:

(Well, that's not entirely true; this detail...)

 

(...could be a little bit "sculpted into a turtle form - a "doodle:")

Walking around the outcrop:

(That Rhomboid Shape?) 

There were possible Turtles and Stone Piles ahead of me:

And Turtles in the stone piles often enough:

And I shall show you more, I promise, but first 3 thousand miles away more or less, there's a figure that looks out across the landscape from one of many High Places near Mt. Shasta:

My friend Alyssa Alexandria Runs with Wolves took that photo while following stone rows up to a High Place. She's says you can see it from a distance, but she writes that "The light and shadow play is what "makes" him look like a man for sure. Up close, you wouldn't notice him. So, it's either altered to be seen from a distance by primitive peoples or it's a natural formation. Still, it's magnificent and a very spiritual location for somebody. The(re is a possible) burial cairn is nearby." She adds, "He overlooks the valley and small lakes. Not facing Shasta but the open valley where (Indigenous) People lived - (and, I would add, Tended the Ancient Cultural Landscape).