The first stone was what you would call a legitimate, natural outcropping of rock – (“natural,” though I was later to find, on a placard attached to its back, that it had been dedicated to a retired school bus driver.)
The second had been provided by one of The Guides and I actually had to carry it to the site myself, which is a story in its own right, for it was very heavy — how I had wanted to use a wheel barrow or handtruck to bring the rock to the site but The Guide told me no, I must do it by hand; for the energy I expended as I hefted it was energy of the wrong sort, leaving me, and the energy that entered me as I set it back down was energy of the right sort, returning to me. So said The Guide.
The third rock seemed to be the remains of someone’s chimney or barbecue pit, and possibly it had been used rather recently, for it was still a bit warm to the touch.
Objective: all my life I had been the same person, from the time I was twelve to thirty years later — the same faults, quirks, virtues, preferences, biases… I liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches then, I liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches now. I was the exact same person and wanted to somehow set that aside, not that I hated myself exactly but it was all so tiresome. I’d tried prayer, herbal potions, therapy, a regimen of exercises and stretches, all kinds of things to get out of this rut, and now I was exploring the energy potential of stones.
“Oh please let me be without myself, Stones!” I cried,” Get me off this one way track! I’m just so damn off topic and beside the point!” (My Guides encouraged me to make declarations of this sort at the site, but it was highly uncharacteristic of me to be so demonstrative and exclamatory, which may have been part of the point. It could be difficult to know with The Guides.)
Well, no sooner had I set the stone down in the appointed spot and moved the allotted number of steps to the East than I felt something had decidedly changed. Something was very definitely different. I dropped to my side hard on the bare ground and started shaking. There was the feeling of something leaving me. It was myself that was leaving me! I didn’t see the stones glowing but it was as if they glowed or throbbed; they seemed to grow larger then smaller. I was amazed by the energies they contained – that I contained. In all of these energies and in the true properties of stones I do now most assuredly believe.
Unfortunately at a crucial moment, I lost concentration and my so-called self came shooting back into me, snapping back elastically so that I gave out a muffled cry — and I became myself — but that was no fault of the stones.
.i`` * ^ / . . . . . ` `~ 
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