When I painted the very first proto-Alchemystone many years ago, it was definitely not a meditation. I was just trying to "doodle on a rock."
Even back when I was drawing tsimilarly intricate mandalas on pieces of paper, I never really thought of them as a meditative tool, either... although they were certainly for "passing time" when I was between doing other things, or I was on a long hold on the phone and things like that.
When I was in high school... it was basically a way to "zone out!"
In the earliest days — that would be shortly after I had made the decision that this "COULD become an art form" — the meditation aspect was actually related to my being very fond of doing "walking meditations" on the local beaches, as a way to power down and balance myself when I otherwise had a lot on my plate.
Even though painting your pretty "average" stone takes me a minimum of 30-45 minutes to complete — and it's an activity that requires considerable concentration for the duration — and requires me to sit still and focus on a single task, I never really considered the meditative properties.
Why?
Well, the focus and concentration seemed counter to the idea of "emptying my mind."
In truth, though, intricately painting a rock is precisely something that requires "emptying the mind" because if I get sidetracked and start to think about anything else, I invariably will end up making a mistake. And when I do that? There's no "correcting" it like you might by whiting over part of a canvas... you simply discard the stone and start over.
The meditation aspects didn't really come into play until my wife got more actively involved with what I was doing... and we started talking about people using the stones as meditation objects rather than as just "something pretty on your desk."
In time, I started painting designs for specific Chakra meditations, and that was the point at which the imaginary "lines" between painting and meditation more or less merged — or at least became so blurred that I realized that painting stones was my daily meditation.
Of course, sometimes that "meditation" might end up lasting all day! Or even a couple of days, like might be the case for the stone below!
Talking about the spiritual aspects of Alchemy Stones remains something that's fairly "audience specific." Your average Arts and Crafts show attendee generally isn't very oriented toward the spiritual end of art; they care mostly about the art and creativity end of what they are looking at. They want to know "what kind of paint I use?* and perhaps "how long does it take to paint one of those?"
And that's absolutely fine.
However, when we go as vendors to more "ethereal" events like a Faery Festival or a Paranormal Symposium the spiritual aspects suddenly become extremely important, and that's when I mostly bring out the information like I have shared here.
Interestingly enough, people at UFO conferences are particularly receptive to the "otherworldly" aspects of the art.
In the meantime, I am very grateful that I have an artform that also serves me as a grounding/healing point... in addition to just being pretty to look at!
Thanks for stopping by and having a look!
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2021.11.12 AS-TXT-066/032
Dear @alchemystones I just created a Group on hive called Hive rocks and I am very exited to see this. I would like to make you admin and maybe you want to help me with this movement. I'd be super glad. I am @yangyanje here. So excited to see this. @qwerrie thank you for pointing this out. I love the stones. Just gave you a follow and reposted this. Beautiful work. Very meditative, emptying the mind. There is a concept in buddhism called Shunya. Also very interesting. The art seems to remind me of fractals.
Hi there @yangyanje, and thanks for stopping by!
That is a great group you are starting there, and I'll be happy to help with it! I am well familiar with the "rocks" movement; I live just 50km down the road from the town of Port Angeles, Washington where the very first such group "Port Angeles Rocks" was "born" about six years ago. Nobody realized it would become a global phenomenon, even giving rise to "The Kindness Rocks Project!"
Here's a 2016 article talking a bit about it.
What's particularly cool about having a "Hive Rocks" community is that not only will it help spread awareness of Hive, it is also (at least to my knowledge) the FIRST truly global rock painting community... the ones I know of are all town/city/country specific.
@alchemystones , i had no idea. It's like you say probably a global phenomenon. I only discovered that people were painting rocks around a year ago consciously. So glad you are doing this. Thought that this group was missing and i was hoping someone like you was out here. You are right. This movement could really put hive on the map. Recently i noticed that a lot of people around me were doing it, but none of them were using hive.
@yangyanje, you have to look at this beauties!
marvelous piece of art. -- !PIZZA
Thank you @qwerrie, and thanks for the connect to @yangyanje!
Truly magnificent. Thank you so much for sharing this lead.
My pleasure. As a bee, I love the idea of fertilizing all over the Hive :)))))
Manual selection by @qwerrie.
Thank you; I appreciate the support!
Thanks for the support, I appreciate it!
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You are really clever 😃 I am very impressed with your drawings. I also had the opportunity to paint on the stone last week, and have to admit that drawing small details is really difficult.
@alchemystones I really love these! I just got one with a star on it from your ebay page. I know what you mean about painting one being a meditation. It is the same for me doing a drawing or painting - you can't really think about it, but be in that kind of blank zone. Very nice feeling. We live in Shoreline and take trips to Whidby and the peninsula somewhat regularly, Dungeness, Hurricane Ridge, sometimes thru Forks to Lake Quinault.