I recently took a break during a long hike and dipped my feet into a freezing stream, only able to stand on the sharp rocky bed for seconds at a time. I decided to try my hand at a prayer stack and all of a sudden I had been standing in the water for 10 minutes. Surprisingly, after realizing how long I had been wading in the stream, I also noticed that my feet were not hypothermic, but actually warm and tingling. There was a serine feeling that had come over me and I saw my surroundings with a new intimacy and presence. 

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Stacked stones or cairns have many strikingly similar meanings in cultures around the world. At the most basic level they are hopeful, intentional, and sacred. For when one sets out to create a rock cairn the selection of stones, placement, and the process of balancing them requires the utmost care and attention. Creating them can be a meditative practice that clears and focuses the mind.

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In addition to offering memorial and solace both to the spirit realm and to those in mourning, prayer stacks represent balance and harmony bringing the mind and body into alignment and inner peace. Finally, cairns have also been used as ancient navigational markers, guiding travelers and pilgrims in otherwise unfamiliar terrain. 

 

It is with these concepts in mind that I offer this set of three Prayer Stack sculptures with the hope that they will serve, at least, as monuments of meditation and compassion in challenging life moments, and at best as guideposts for those searching for optimism and empowerment.