The Bighorn Ewe and The Stone of Secrets

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Deep in the heart of Yellowstone National Park there is a place that is holy to the Bighorn sheep that reside there. Every year they make the arduous and dangerous Pilgrimage from Calcite Springs, high up on the cliffs of the Tower falls area, where the Yellowstone river can be seen flowing deeply along the canyon’s floor below. A place where they birth their lambs and find safety on the vertical cliff walls, safe from predators, their only neighbors the Fisher Kings, or as we know them, the Osprey, to this hidden valley near the Gardner river. A place a short distance from the gray stone pathway with its shiny noisy beasts full of screaming beings that pass through here on their way to somewhere, perhaps they’re on their own pilgrimage. Most do not notice the valley and its stone, or the animals who come to pay it homage.

Upstream a short distance the Fawn, Panther, Indian and Obsidian creeks join to form the main body of the Gardner river. The Bighorn sheep don’t care about that, they’re here for a completely different reason. This is after all, a spiritual place. A place where they make a single pilgrimage to each year, to do one thing and one thing only. And that one thing is to visit the Stone of Secrets.

The Stone is a common enough looking boulder shaped by unknown forces millenniums ago and deposited with several others in the bottom of the valley where it has lain unmoving to this day. Unlike its brethren very little lichen has formed on the stone, perhaps due to what it holds inside its rough-hewn exterior.

This is the Stone of Secrets and it contains the countless secrets, dreams and desires, the wants and hopes of the Bighorns who lean up against it and tell it their innermost desires. Some of the younger ewes want to be selected by the most majestic ram, others want the lambs they have been unable to produce and pour forth the most heart-wrenching pleas, hoping that this year their wish will be granted. The young rams secretly and embarrassed by their wants, lean tightly against it, whispering, asking for bigger horns. The older ewes want to lean against it and feel the warmth and contentment that washes over them, some of them ask for just one more year to make the trek back and forth from here to there again.

The stone has been here for as long as it and the untold multitude of Bighorns have been living here, which has been a very long time. Originally the stone did not have the flat spot the ewe is leaning against. The countless animals, and it has been countless animals, for occasionally other creatures came and used the stone too. Rubbed against the stone, feeling its strength and wisdom, letting  their secrets pour out like a  roaring river of emotion, washing and wearing the stone away until it attained the shape it has now. The flat area becoming infinitesimally larger each year.

It is unknown if the stone will work its magic on humans. Occasionally you will see one carefully approach it and lay their hands on it rough surface. Some rest their faces against the stone, or spread their arms against it as if they’re trying to lift the stone from of its resting place. But the stone is unmovable, the only thing you can take from it is the strength of it presence. Some say they have received more, some say it’s just a stone. You will have to go there and see for yourself.

Spires Of The Fisher Kings

 Spires6691Osprey Along the Yellowstone river   click to enlarge

There is a magical place in Yellowstone where the Yellowstone river slowly cuts its way through a magnificent canyon on its way through the park until it joins the mighty Missouri river way off to the East. Eon after eon it reveals the details hidden in the granite walls. As the water wears away the outer coating of the cliff sides these walls begin to take on a life of their own. It will shed one formation, letting it cascade into the canyon below to be swept downstream as small boulders and pebbles smashing and rubbing together until there is nothing left but sand, then presenting another formation as a prominent detail until it tires of it and begins the process all over again.

Throughout these eons there have always been fierce inhabitants making their homes in the rocky ledges and spire-tops up and down the canyon, each striving to claim  a small portion of the cliffs as their own fiefdom. They are known as the Fisher people and the strongest, fiercest of them all become the Fisher Kings. They have proven their right to their kingdom through trial by battle and prevailed, holding on to the area they claim from repeated assaults of those that would dethrone them and take their land and their queens.

The area they carve out as their own each have special nesting sites which may be the top of mighty spires, or tucked into the fissures in the cliff face, or on ledges high up on the canyon walls. Some of these nests have been occupied for years upon years, each new generation adding to the nest until the nests can weigh over a ton. Sometimes the nest gets so large that a fierce winter storm can send it cascading over the edge to hang precariously until it finally collapses into the river  below. Undeterred the owners soon begin the rebuilding process and a new nest emerges.

They sit on guard using the tip of a spire to watch for intruders and to scan the river below with their incredible eyesight for the movement of fish in the shallows. When prey is spotted they tuck their wings and dive into the canyon in a stoop that can take them down over a thousand feet to the river’s surface. The climb back up to their nests carrying a 20″ cutthroat tests their strength but they always make it.

Each year they mate and rear their young until they are ready to leave the nest and fight for a place along the canyon walls to raise their own families. They will be the next Fisher Kings and the cycle continues.