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.
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