Find a stone that attracts you. Claim it as a sacred (to you, anyway) object of meditation. You are the stone carrier, the stonemason, the stone. You activate the power of the stone through reflection and realization. Spend time with the stone on a regular basis, cultivating a ritual of recognition and reorientation, with the stone without connecting you with the stone within.
One stone to contain them all.
The Foundation Stone—What is important/meaningful to you? What did you do today that was meaningful? What did you do last week that was meaningful? Where are the meaningful places for you in each week? What do you do to incorporate meaningful times/experiences into each week? You have to live out of your connection with what is important to you, meaningful to you. Establish that connection, nurture it, nourish it, tend it with time and attention. You cannot live your life accidentally, mindlessly. You live your life in relation to what is meaningful to you. You have to intentionally, mindfully, place yourself in the service of what is meaningful to you throughout your life. Your foundation stone is the heart of what is most meaningful in your life—live grounded in it, mindful of it, every day!
The Cornerstone—“The stone the builders reject becomes the chief cornerstone.” What is rejected by the culture, and hence by the people of the culture is our personal, individual, connection with our Heart, Soul, Mind and Body. With the culture, it is all about the Head. In the culture, feeling is subservient to thinking. This is to reverse the proper order of things. In the natural world, thinking is subservient to feeling–and the invisible world is the foundation of the visible world. In the natural world, we feel, sense, what is right in a situation—what needs to be done there—and then think out how it is best to do it. We feel, sense, where we want to go, and think of the best way to get there. We have to work to establish, and maintain, right relationship with Heart, Soul, Mind and Body. We do that by thinking about our connection to these deeper, older, aspect of ourselves, and tending our relationship with them by opening ourselves to what we are feeling/sensing/intuiting, in the time and place of our living and reflecting on our experience with “more than words can say” (or thoughts can think). We have to practice regularly “getting a feel” for our situation, and sensing what needs to be done about it, and then thinking how best to do it.
The Boundary Stone—Your boundary stone is what makes you, you—what sets you apart, identifies you as unique, individual and irreplaceable. It marks where you start and everyone else stops. It establishes what is your business, your work, your perspective, your view point, your personality, your character, your standards, your values, your traits, your preferences, etc.–and not someone else’s. You are here to live your own life–to be who you are. Carl Jung said, “You are who you always have been, and who you will be.” Let the stone remind you of you, connect you with you, and call you to live out of who you are and what you have to offer in each situation as it unfolds before you.
The Grave Stone—We only have a certain amount of time in which to bring ourselves forth in meeting our life, and expressing the gift, art, genius that are ours to present to the world through the way we live in it. Because we die, the life we live in service to The Stone of Life, is essential and irreplaceable. The stone is a symbol of the sacred nature of our life—of ourselves. Therefore, we must not die before our time. Our commitment is to The Stone of Life. We must not hurry the time of our dying, but live our life in full service to the stone that we hold, and to the stone that we are.
You are the stone carrier, the stonemason, the stone. Live in ways that honor this truth and make it so.
Jim Dollar's Published Works 