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Shapeshifter transforms
Immobile silent presence
Constantly changing
Whispering ancestral songs
Time shifts beyond consciousness
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The photo for this week’s prompt shows the Gardom Stone, on Gardom’s Edge in Derbyshire. It is curious how many people wrote pieces this week that seemed to include some of the qualities of this particular stone.
Even for a standing stone, it is remarkable. It is a shapeshifter, changing form with every step you take around it. Not just revealing other perspectives, but seeming to reveal different aspects of an inner nature hidden from the conscious mind. We found that it invites you to step back through time… and time is essential to its positioning.
Even the scientists agree that it was deliberately and precisely erected to function as a seasonal gnomon. It stands within the greater prehistoric andscape. Within a few yards you will find a huge enclosure, a fabulously carved stone, hut circles, pits, cairns and alignments, as well as a site we believe was for the preparation of the ancestral bones. Witin a mile as the crow flies, there are stone circles galore, a massive prehistoric settlement site and a prehistoric necropolis.
One of the stories we do not usually share, for fear of being carted off in straitjackets, is that this site is one of the places where we have encountered temporal anomalies. There have been other, less straightforward shifts in temporal perception, but this was the only occasion when we had actual, if subjective, proof that someting weird was going on.
When we are out exploring, I take a lot of photographs to record the sites and pick up any details we may have missed. The images are time-stamped, so we knew exactly when we had left the carved stone. We were also keeping a close eye on the time, as we were waiting for a pub to open for lunch, as we were cold and damp. So, we noticed before we left the moor and it really threw us. Between one stone and the next, no matter how we tried to explain it…and believe me, we tried… we had unaccountably ‘lost’ at least twenty minutes…
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Thank you so much to everyone who took part this week…even sharing ‘extra’ poss, there was no way to reblog them all! I wish there was space to share all the contributions, as there are some beautiful pieces every week that I would love to reblog, but which come in after I have filled all the allocated slots.
All the posts are listed below, so please click on the links to read them and leave a comment for the author. Thank you too, to everyone who reblogged the prompt, round up and the individual resposes.
A new prompt will be published later today. I will reblog as many contributions as space and time allows, as they come in… and all of them will be featured in the round-up on Thursday.
Pingbacks do not always come through… and I can miss things too, so if you have written a post for this challenge and it does not appear in the round-up, please leave a link to your post in the comments and I will add it to the list.
A Reminder and an invitation
As there are usually too many contributions to reblog all of them every week, and so that we can get to know their writers, I would like to invite all writephoto regulars to come and introduce themselves on the blog as my guest! ‘Regulars’ does not mean you have to take part every week… Click here for details
Come and join in!
Many thanks to this weeks contributors:
Daisybala at freshdaisiesdotme
Dorinda Duclos at Night Owl Poetry
Michele Jones at Out of the Shadows
Kerfe Roig at methodtwomadness
Roberta Eaton at Roberta Writes
Hélène Vaillant at Willow Poetry
Anita from Anita Dawes and Jaye Marie
Christine Bolton at Poetry for Healing
Janette Bendle at What She Wrote
Balroop Singh at Emotional Shadows
Kim M. Russell at Writing in North Norfolk
Kate at Everywhere and Nowhere
Anurag Bakhshi at Jagahdilmein
Anjali Sharma at Positive Side Of The Coin
Bladud Fleas at The Moon is Rising
Sisyphus at Of Glass and Paper
Trent P. McDonald at Trent’s World
and a second take from Trent
Hayley R. Hardman at The Story Files
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
Reblogged this on anita dawes and jaye marie.
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Thanks for reblogging, Jaye x
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Fascinating history Sue.
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The stone is a particularly intersting one…and the landscape is heaving with archaeology here.
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There are more things in heaven and earth …….
Not many could of had any idea of the provenance of this stone yet somehome we all touched on it. ❤
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It does seem to have ‘got through’ to people…. 😉 x
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yes indeed, ❤
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An epic amount of entries!
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Wonderful to see 🙂
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Truly!
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Well, that is an interesting story Sue. Thanks for sharing. Now it is looking spooky to me!
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I just find these old places welcoming and fascinating 🙂
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So many lovely responses, Sue, and per week. I have renewed respect for how much work it is. But what a treat to read them (as many as I can). 🙂
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I know… I read all the writephoto entries, and as many other prompt entries as I can…but time is finite, sadly.
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Fascinating story. I haven’t been through all the responses (and the list seems to get longer each week…), but the one’s I’ve read shine so many different lights. Thanks, as always, for the inspiration and stories, Sue. (K)
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There were some remarkable takes on this one, especially as they picked up on what the stone does seem to represent.
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Really fascinating. I love things like this as you know 🙂
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I know, Peter… this area is littered with stuff you would love 🙂
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Interestingly I am moving to just north of Leeds so will be much nearer Yorkshire’s great landscape 🙂
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This is just outside Sheffield across the border into Derbyshire. But you know Yorkshire is my home county…and not for nothing do we call it God’s Own 😉
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