With all our technology, with all our industry, and especially with our overinflated opinion of our species, still the fact remains that today - now at the beginning of the twenty first century - if one wants something to last, one puts it into stone. The ancients knew this. This planet is littered with ruins from technologically advanced civilizations from the long-forgotten past. The academics insist these ruins were produced by peasants using ropes, farm animals, and copper tools. They were not. Proof you ask? Spend thirty minutes carving stone with our advanced tools; carbide tipped chisels and a pneumatic hammer, and you too will understand that there is much more to our history than we have been led to believe.

The local Bluestone of the Catskill Mountains is a medium hardness stone, and a relatively young stone in geological terms. At 360 million years old it was the sediment at the bottom of a shallow sea that was here long before we were. And the scratches we make in this wonderful material have the potential to last thousands of years outdoors without maintenance. Perhaps outlasting our species if we continue our current suicidal direction. 

Many seem to associate the hardness of the material-stone-with an imagined difficulty to work that material. This is not the case. The actual material removal is relatively easy. I have had four-year-old’s carving stone with the air hammer in fifteen minutes!  We also often hear the phrase “I’m not artistic.” This is also inaccurate. All humans are born as creative beings. Our corporate controlled culture succeeds in beating it out of some of us. However, it can be reawakened!