Oley Hills has rock piles, rock piles of many shapes, sizes and probably ages. Here are some of the notable ones.
Notice the wall behind this low flat rock pile. I'll post some wall pictures, maybe tomorrow.
The boulders on which some of the rock piles are built show intriguing forms of their own. Before I went there, I wasn't one for seeing creatures in stones, but as I will show in a later post, either some boulders were chosen for their likeness to faces and living things, or the whole place had a vague hallucinatory effect. Want to talk about that?
Here's a pile only a rock head could love. There are probably more small piles there. I would look more carefully if I got there again. There's so much big stuff to look at, I didn't scan the forest floor carefully.
Some things are just beautiful, and to me this small but graceful rock pile with its lichen growth was one of them. Is this one older than many others? Was the site built in stages over centuries? Or was this just a lichen-friendly spot? Note that the lichen has broken the stone down enough for it to support mosses, which need more of a foothold.
This huge platform rock pile includes some pieces of quartz that had to have been brought up from the valley, on the side not visible here. Behind this pile, or from on top of it, you can see across a broad expanse of landscape. You may recognise this one--I was surprised to see a similar picture of it on the cover of Ancient American a few years ago.
Want to talk about the hallucinatory affect of certain locations? You bet. Tell us what you can. At the last NEARA conference, eating breakfast with Jim Mavor, he brought up the question: what mystical experiences are experienced at certain sites. I cannot remember his story had something to do with a tree. Me, I just get an occasional shiver - dead to that sort of the thing, you know.
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