Page 24 - BSAM 2015 Q1

Tiny Giants
The Beauty of Small Stones
Text and Photos by Sam Edge, USA
22 | BCI | April/May/June 2015
It was a warm and carefree summer day. You know, one of those days when the temperature is at a perfect 72 degrees, with big white fluffy clouds, and you hear water tumbling off the stones as it meanders downstream. Then some-
thing catches your eyes. There it is, sitting amongst hundreds of other stones but for some reason it seizes your full attention. Perhaps it is the shape, the color, or the size—or in that perfect moment, all three. You bend down to gingerly pick it up with both hands, turning it 360 degrees while simultaneously exhaling your breath and quietly saying to yourself, “This one is going home with me!”
It is my hope at this point in the story we are sharing very similar memories. My experience was at around seven years old. It was the “perfect” stone—beautifully round, smooth to the touch as an old worn out coin, and the color, black as only black can be on a moon- less night. A collector’s passion was started that day but whose real fulfillment came some 50 years later when I discovered that adults really do collect stones! I remember taking that first stone home and proudly showing it to anyone who was interested. At night it was safely placed on my small, somewhat decrepit, nightstand where I could reach out to make sure it was still there. That first stone accompanied me ev- erywhere, tightly tucked away in my Levi blue jean’s front pocket where it could be retrieved at a moment’s
notice. I marveled at the beauty of this creation and my fortune at having been at the right place at the right time.
Collecting often goes hand-in-hand with a growing passion for knowledge. It can be the source of creative expression. We enjoy the social camaraderie and ex- citement when engaged in the stone hunt or just the simple pleasure of sharing our collection with those who have a mutual love of what we collect.
As humans, we love to collect things! There is an excellent article by Stacey Baker and James Gentry entitled Kids as Collectors: A Phenomenological Study of First and Fifth Graders. In their paper, they inter- viewed 79 children, 72 of whom had a collection of one kind or another. Many of them started their col- lection with small stones. It is certainly how I started collecting so many years ago.
My very first stone was actually quite small. Certainly small enough to go into a seven-year-old’s pants pocket. The smallness was attractive because it was easy to hold in my hands. The hands are often associated with intimacy. Holding and feeling that beautiful stone in the solitude of being alone in my room reinforced the intimacy of quietly studying this centuries-old creation. Where did it come from, what was it made of, how did it get such a glow, or what I now know as patina? It was the beginning of a love for understanding and appreciating this ancient art