I embarked on a deeply personal journey through the landscapes of my ancestral land, driven by a desire to find stone. I set out without a clear destination, simply knowing I needed to find stone—stone that would hold something for me, something I could not yet fully understand. The journey began as an impulse, a call I couldn’t ignore, one that had no clear shape until I was already walking. There was no plan to follow, no precise understanding of what I sought—only the act of moving, of being in motion, as the journey itself began to reveal its meaning.

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The stones I found along the way were not just materials to be shaped, but talismans—strange, silent companions that seemed to carry with them a resonance, a hum, as if each piece held the potential to become something else. They were not just objects to carve, but seeds, abstract ideas in gestation. It wasn’t until I walked among them that I understood: the stones were waiting to become, to form within the space created by the journey itself. I had no conception of what I was meant to create before I set out; the creation itself was in the walking, in the searching.

I found myself living in the tension of this duality, walking alongside both sides of myself. As the artist, I sought the ideal stone for my work, driven by my craftsmanship and the precision required to shape the material into a meaningful form. Yet, as the spiritual being, I understood that my quest for stone was not about quarrying or extracting from the earth. Rather, the earth itself was a living organism, and the stones I sought were offerings, gifts awaiting acceptance. It was not for me to force the earth to yield; it was for me to accept what the earth provided, to meet the land halfway and receive its offerings with reverence.

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This journey, then, was not merely about finding the right material but about aligning myself with the land—recognizing that I was both part of and separate from the earth. In the stones I discovered, I found not just a raw material for creation, but a deeper, spiritual connection, a gift from the earth itself.

The land spoke to me, not in words, but in quiet, persistent presence. The stones I gathered were not chosen for their perfect form or ease of use—they seemed to call to me in a way I couldn’t quite place. Perhaps they knew something I didn’t yet understand: that the environment of the journey—the act of being in the land, moving through it—would generate the conditions for the forms to arise. The journey was the process; the destination, whatever it was, would reveal itself only when I had arrived, but only through the act of walking.

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In this way, the journey itself became the source of understanding. Each stone, each step, held within it the potential to be something more than I could yet know. The act of searching, of moving, was not to find but to allow—allow the environment, the stones, the land, to work upon me, to germinate ideas and forms in a language that could not be rushed. The process was the point; the meaning would unfurl with time, as everything I sought would always be in the act of becoming, just as I was.