I like people who challenge my view of everyday things. Take this rock for example. I see cold, hard rock but the brilliant Liz Etheridge manages to paint a picture of...
deep time,
immense pressure,
unimaginable heat and
constant constant change.
Liz and I met for a chat in a local cafe and took this rock with us.
Ignoring the sideways glances from other cafe-goers, we stared at the rock, pointed at its tiny crystals and tried to figure out how it had come to be.
I left the cafe that afternoon on a journey down into the Earth's crust. I stopped to look around magma chambers; watched as millennia sped by in front of my eyes; beaches, mountains, deserts, tropical reef and cold, dark ,deep oceans.
Liz talks as if she's seen it all, and I believe her.
If you need a metaphor for coping in difficult times, look at the garnet in this photo (the red blob at the top). This is a semi-precious stone forged deep in the earth's crust. It was once a lump of clay, but it met difficult times; stress, hardship, heat and pressure. Instead of giving up, the tiny individual molecules in the clay rearranged themselves, braced themselves and adapted to cope with their new situation. The result is harder, sharper and quietly beautiful.
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