I’ll put a pebble in my shoe, And watch me walk, I can walk and walk.
I shall call the pebble “Dare”, We will talk, We will talk together about walking.
Dare shall be carried, And when we both have had enough,
I will take him from my shoe, singing “Meet your new road!”
A polished andesite stone, from a Riverton beach… Of this earth but other-worldly…
Runrig is a recently-retired Scottish Celtic rock band formed on the Isle of Skye in 1973. Their name is taken from a historic furrow-and-ridge system of farming that was used for hundreds of years in the Highlands and Islands. The land was divided into towns or townships, comprising an area of cultivable “in-bye” land and a larger area of pasture and rough grazing. The in-bye was divided into long narrow strips – “rigs” – which were periodically reassigned among the tenants of the township so that no individual had continuous use of the best land. The music of Runrig is often described as a blend of folk and rock music, with lyrics often focusing upon the locations, history, politics, and people that are unique to Scotland. They are one of the few rock bands whose songs have often included Gaelic. They disbanded in 2018.
On sun soaked seas
Baiting the hand lines
Neoscan at the oars
Turning the bows into the Morea wake
For the thrill of it all
Across the middle of the bay
A line of faces in the waiting hour
And I could see
The other world was here
Can you hear it now?
We’re just on the brink
Returning homewards
Together on
Alone
O mollaidh sinn
An gaol ‘s an gras
A thug dhuinn bith
Cho umhail fo ghrein
‘S i dealradh sios
Air reultan cein
It was all there waiting
Just as we reached the door
Just as we reached the door
“Day in a Boat” by Runrig
NASA astronaut Laurel Clark, who died in the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003, came across Runrig’s music while stationed at Holy Loch on the Firth of Clyde. While she was in space, a Runrig song called “Running to the Light” from the Album “The Stamping Ground” was played as a wake-up call. She told Mission Control in Houston that it reminded her of her husband Jon and her time in Scotland. Columbia broke up as it returned to Earth, killing Clark and her six fellow astronauts on board. The two Runrig CDs she had brought with her into space, “The Stamping Ground” and “The Cutter and the Clan”, were found afterwards in different parts of the wreckage and later presented to the band by her husband and son.
This stone reminds me of the rough tough skin of the crocodile.
This is a song by the Australian group Yothu Yindi , most well-known for “Treaty”. Their influential lead singer Mandawuy Yunupingu sadly died in 2013. I used to play Treaty in a lecture on using research to understand other cultures than our own. “Maralitja” is a creative blend of western and aboriginal music styles. I have not yet found a translation of the lyrics, but the saltwater crocodile was the totem of Mandawuy Yunupingu. A comment on the significance of the Album from which the song comes, “Tribal Voice”, states that the song “establishes the Gumatj clan’s descent from Maralitja, the Saltwater Crocodile ancestor”.
“Maralitja”(Crocodile Man)
Nhina ngilimurru yolngu maralitja wanga lamiwuy
Gudurru mulka nawayngu bulupinydjin manggurrtji biliwili
Marrkapmirri wanga dhuwala ngilimurrunggu
Nhungu ga ngarraku
Ngilimurru nhina wangganyngurana dhiyala bayma
Maranydja Yothu Yindina
Maralitja galimindirrk
Gokarrngu lamiwuy
Ga ngunhi ngandi wulma murryun yambatthun djarimi
Ga murryun wngangupann ngatha lakarama miltjuntjun
Dhakay ngatha ngunhinydja lami warray dhiyakuwuy nglimurrunggu
Ngilimurr wangganyngurana dhiyalana bayma
miyaman manikay ga bunggul giritjirri
Maralitja galimindirrk
Gokarrngu lamiwuy
Way maralitja dhukulul dharyuna ngunbungunbu
Nhina ngilimurru yolngu maralitja wanga lamiwuy
Gudurru mulka nawayngu bulupinydjin manggurrtji biliwili
Marrkapmirri wanga dhuwala ngilimurrunggu
Nhungu ga ngarraku
Ngilimurru nhina wangganyngurana dhiyala bayma
Maranydja Yothu Yindina
Maralitja galimindirrk
Gokarrngu lamiwuy
I picked up these stones from Riverton. This is the end of the five week tumbling and sorting process. This first batch contained 60 stones.
A polished stone from Riverton beach, from my wife’s second batch, iron-stained quartzite, yellow and brown throughout:
“June Hymn” by the Decemberists
Here’s a hymn to welcome in the day
Heralding a summer’s early sway
And all the bulbs all coming in
To begin
The thrushes’ bleeding battle with the wrens
Disrupts my reverie again
Pegging clothing on the line
Training jasmine how to vine
Up the arbor to your door
And more
Standing on the landing with the war
You shouldered all the night before
Once upon it
Yellow bonnets
Garland all the lawn
You were waking
Day was breaking
A panoply of song
And summer comes to Springville Hill
A barony of ivy in the trees
Expanding out its empire by degrees
And all the branches burst abloom
In the boom
Heaven sent this cardinal maroon
To decorate our living room
Once upon it
Yellow bonnets
Garland all the lawn
You were waking
Day was breaking
A panoply of song
And summer comes to Springville Hill
And years from now when this old light
Isn’t ambling anymore
Will I bring myself to write
“I give my best to Springville Hill”
Once upon it
Yellow bonnets
Garland all the lawn
You were waking
Day was breaking
A panoply of song
And summer comes to Springville Hill
A polished stone, picked up from a Riverton beach, from my wife’s second batch of tumble polishing – the colours remind me of the Australian Outback and of Aboriginal art:
“Raining on the Rock”
by John Williamson
Pastel red to burgundy and spinifex to gold,
We’ve just come out of the Mulga where the plains forever roll.
And Albert Namatjira has painted all the scenes,
And a shower has changed the lustre of his land.
And it’s raining on the Rock,
In a beautiful country,
And I’m proud to travel this big land
Like an Aborigine.
And it’s raining on the Rock.
What an almighty sight to see!
And I’m wishing on a postcard that you were here with me.
Everlasting daisies and the beautiful desert rose –
Where does their beauty come from heaven knows.
I could ask the wedge-tail but he’s away too high,
I wonder if he understands it’s wonderful to fly.
And it’s raining on the Rock,
In a beautiful country,
And I’m proud to travel this big land
Like an Aborigine.
And it’s raining on the Rock.
What an almighty sight to see!
And I’m wishing on a postcard that you were here with me.
It cannot be described with a picture,
The mesmerising colours of the Olgas,
Or the grandeur of the Rock –
Uluru has power!
And it’s raining on the Rock,
In a beautiful country,
And I’m proud to travel this big land
Like an Aborigine.
And it’s raining on the Rock.
What an almighty sight to see!
And I’m wishing on a postcard that you were here with me.
Four stones from a Riverton beach, picked up and polished by my wife, in the second batch of stones she tumble polished.
“There is all this untouched beauty, The light, the dark both running through me…”
Changes come, turn my world around
Changes come, turn my world around
I have my father’s hand
I have my mother’s tongue
I look for redemption in everyone
I wanna wear your ring
I have a song to sing
It ain’t over babe
In fact it’s just begun
Changes come, turn my world around
Changes come, bring the whole thing down
I wanna have our baby
Some days I think that maybe
This old world’s too fucked up
For any firstborn son
There is all this untouched beauty
The light, the dark
Both running through me
Is there still redemption for anyone?
Changes come, turn my world around
Changes come, bring the whole thing down…
“Changes Come” by Over the Rhine
One of the Riverton stones from my wife’s first batch of tumble polished stones. It has flashes of blue residing deep within…
Go find a jukebox
And see what a quarter will do
I don’t want to talk
I just want to go back to blue
Feeds me when I’m hungry
And quenches my thirst
Loves me when I’m lonely
And thinks of me first
Blue is the colour of night
When the red sun disappears from the sky
Raven, feathers shiny and black
A touch of blue glistening down her back
We don’t talk about heaven
And we don’t talk about hell
We’ve come to depend on
One another so damn well
So go to confession
Whatever gets you through
You can count your blessings
I’ll just count on blue
Blue is the colour of night
When the red sun disappears from the sky
Raven feathers shiny and black
A touch of blue glistening down her back
Blue
I picked this stone up at Riverton and then rejected it – I thought the “rust” in it was unsightly. My wife saw its promise and tumble polished it in her first ever batch. I think it is worthy of its own tune and name…
“Gabriel’s Oboe” is from the movie “The Mission”.
The scene featuring this tune from the movie, The Mission, with Jeremy Irons as Father Gabriel:
“The Mission” is rated among my top ten movies. It is about the clash between Jesuit missionaries and European slave traders in South America in the 18th century, about friendship and betrayal, the plight of indigenous people, greed and evil and forgiveness and redemption. It is spectacular, sumptuous, enlightening, provocative, disturbing and challenging.
