Honey in the Rock

My limbs are heavy from lifting rocks all week. The weather is unusually good for early spring and I’m making the most of it, building a dry-stack wall of sedimentary stone chipped from the flanks of the Bitterroot Mountains in Montana. Its golden colors are exotic to our Northwestern landscape of gray igneous basalt. I’ve noticed there's a certain kind of honey in these rocks that attracts passersby to them like bees to nectar. In Portland, these bees are usually accompanied by dogs, pausing on their visiting routes to admire its amber and gilt-flecked hues. Last Saturday, the numbers of the curious swelled right along with the heat of late afternoon and they buzzed around me as I worked.

They stand between the unfinished wall and scattered rock piles, wanting to know among other things the origin of the rock, and to ply me with do-it-yourselfer questions. The sweaty brim of my straw hat reveals only the sneakers of the inquirers and paws on the periphery as I attempt to focus on tapping with the hammer in my left hand and checking level with my right while answering as politely as I can muster and still concentrate on the work. I stand up to wipe my brow and speak briefly with an elderly couple holding matching Shih Tzus, then turn back, intent on finishing the puzzle at hand.

I discover that in stopping to chat my attention is broken and not to mention my fragile patience. The last rock I choose to finish a row just won't seat and no matter how many ways I turn it, it wants to wobble. "Damn,” I growl in frustration, and stand again, this time to stretch imploringly toward the clear blue sky for assistance, “God help me!”
The small swarm of onlookers took a step back.

No rain for at least another week, the paper said, and it isn't lying. Not a cloud in the sky and eighty degrees, in April. In Oregon.

A black Lab stands on similarly colored asphalt, panting endlessly, overheating in its shedding winter coat. Thin strands of saliva separate from its tongue and splatter on the pavement in a random yet incessant pattern, reminding me of a wild boar fountain I saw in Rome once that salivates grossly and regularly into a grate at its feet. The dog’s owner, in pink slippers and red toenails, apparently takes no notice of her pet’s discomfort and stares disapprovingly at me through her Jackie-O’s. I can’t tell if it was my entreaty to God or the grungy cut-offs I’m wearing that disturbs her most.

I turn back to the rock pile, and ask searchingly, "Whoooo wants to go next?" "Whooo's going to be the lucky fella?" With this utterance the dry spell is broken and I spy a lone rock, sitting all by itself in the grass. Somehow I had missed it. Perhaps it rolled away from the pallet during one of my desperate and impatient siftings through the stack. I take a closer look and see how exquisite this one is, with a design like a stylized cloud, reminiscent of the 'cloud step' form in Japanese carpentry. It is as if it had drifted away from the haphazard pile on purpose, patiently waiting to be noticed for its singular beauty. I scoop it up from the grass and it floats effortlessly in my hands to the wall, finding a perfect home.

A Feminine Fire

In just one year, the blase backyard in the top picture is transformed into a magical garden space featuring a fire pit at its center, lovingly referred to as the 'Ring of Fire'. My clients Kristi Koebke and Wendy Thacher recently threw an inaugural bash to celebrate their new space and spark a little social activism by inviting partygoers to donate to Run for Congo Women www.runforcongowomen.com, an organization that provides sponsorships to Congolese women ravaged by war.

Anne Shannon, co-founder of RFCW with daughter Lisa Shannon, made an impromptu appearance at the party to enlighten participants about the struggles of women in the Congo. By firelight she told the chilling story of Congolese women's hardship: witnessing husbands and children being murdered, surviving gang-rape, torture and displacement from their homes. According to RFCW's website five and one half million people have been killed since 1998 and more continue to die every day from disease and malnutrition.

Lisa started RFCW in Portland in 2005 after watching a show on Oprah about the conflict in the Congo and decided she would raise money for the women there by drumming up support for running a marathon. Within three short years, her idea spread and fundraising runs were completed all over the country. RFCW is now a part of Women for Women International, offering 'sister' sponsorships to Congolese women, helping them to feed their families, continue their educations, start businesses and rebuild communities. Kristi and Wendy raised $250, asking for a five dollar donation. This is significant considering only $27 per month provides for one woman's needs.

In some ancient traditions, fire is a symbol of the creative acts of heart and womb, which are tended at the hearth. While working on Kristi and Wendy's garden setting stones and the steel ring for the fire pit I often thought of the Greek goddess Hestia, the keeper of the hearth and the flame. She presided over the sacred fire kept in a round, within the inner sanctum of a home or temple. When a new household was formed in ancient Greece, a torch was lit by the family hearth and taken to the couple's home to light a new fire. Likewise, when a new city was founded, the fire from the public hall was taken to light that of the new one. By these acts new homes were consecrated.

See the work these women do: Women of the Congo, Lisa, Anne, Kristi, Wendy. Women, ignite! By this light new lives, new villages, new gardens are consecrated.


The heart of the garden is the firepit, contained by a steel ring perforated with 1" holes. The ring keeps the flames in check, yet allows beams of light to ray out along the ground.



Four one-ton sections of basalt columns, arranged on the cardinal directions, act as monolithic lounge chairs. The rock is naturally concave on one side, making them perfect baskets to sit in, and are large enough to sprawl across. I saw these marketed as 'birdbaths' at stoneyards two years ago and thought immediately they had a better use as seats!


Kristi is pictured here threading a jasmine vine through the stainless steel wire fence bordering the ring of fire. The fence is designed to keep Gus, the couple's loveable yet rambunctious Viszla from terrorizing the surrounding plantings. The wires provide support for vines, while their spacing affords unobstructed views of the garden. Round fenceposts are stained grey-black so that as the plants grow the fence will recede into the landscape. Kristi and Wendy helped me assemble this experimental design over the course of (ahem) a few long summer evenings. It's amazing what three Midwestern girls can do with a pair of bolt cutters, 'warshers and dryers' and a monkey schreeching in the background 'til the sun goes down. Seriously, we suspect someone in the neighborhood has a real monkey, we just don't know who or where.

**Special thanks to Greg Thompson of Landshaper, a real earth and rock moving artiste. Also Brian, Sharon and Alex for great service at Heritage Rock, John Swanson of Manvil for brainstorms, Wright Manufacturing for fabricating the ring, Rachael at R&M Plant Procurement for the right ones at the right time and Michelle at Jockey Hill Nursery for her generosity and gorgeous plants.**