I'd always puzzled in the past about having to do a presentation (showing what can be done with stone) if ever the projector lamp burned out, or my laptop battery died.
I imagined me trying to describe wildly with my hands the span of dry stone bridges I'd built, stretching my arms to show what my stone balances looked like , the shapes of benches and follies I'd built, endeavouring through it all to get across the magic of what could be done using stone alone . No mortar . No glue . No concrete . It would be impossible
The whole thing would be pretty silly without the visual of modern technology .
Giving that extemporized unprojected non-pixel talk in that Sunday in Ireland, I discovered however that the universe will catch you, and allow experiences and visuals that make even the most well-prepared PowerPoint presentations pale in comparison.
Towards the end of that miracle morning talk, the stone(s) that I'd found on the beach earlier, became one last solution/demonstration piece of the puzzle.
I'd found the smaller half stone ( in the upper photo) on a 1/2 mile of shoreline covered in millions of grapefruit sized stones pummelled by the Atlantic Ocean . I thought to myself what are the chances of finding the other half of this stone on this beach?
I looked around and circled the area where I'd found it searching intently. It seemed like a silly impossible exercise in improbability. But then i saw it! Lying there surrounded by a myriad of similar sized miss-matched stones was the very mate to the half I had in my hand.
I walked to the building where I was to give the talk bravely anticipating the whole thing might now somehow magically 'come together' the same way!
