Listening to Stones

Thought leader Don Hill and renowned Blackfoot elder and scholar Leroy Little Bear explore “different visions of reality” on their hike to the archaeological site, Writing-on-Stone, in Alberta, Canada. They conversed with one another, but also with wind, hoodoos, petroglyphs, local birds, insects and surroundings exploring “ways of knowing.” Little Bear explained that life is in “constant motion or constant flux.” Through culture and worldviews, we attempt to “put order into what seemingly looks like flux and [is] forever changing.” “Everything consists of energy waves,” and “energy waves are really the spirit.” Our surroundings have “knowledge that is beyond our frequency range.” The sentient nature of all proposes a different relationship. For instance, a conversation between humans and wind provides information “outside of the ordinary.” Special places, such as Writing-on-Stone, “might function and act like an amplifier” of human perception. After their conversation, Don realized that, rather than viewing special sites as rock art, “it was the place that was more important because it created the conditions that gave rise to the phenomena represented by the petroglyphs. The artifacts were the outcome of an experience; they weren’t the experience itself.”

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