Over the last year or so I have walked past a house in the street where I live. On its ultra modern front porch there lived a shabby array of stones, arranged in no apparent order. Beside the stones was often an array of small sticks. The pattern and placement would change from time to time but essentially there was always a few stones and sticks on the wooden step.

One morning I was walking by with a Frangipani flower in my hand and I tossed it amongst the stones. About a week later I moved the stones into a circle and put a red leaf on the road side of the porch. This behaviour went on for months. You might well ask why I did this, well I keep asking myself too. I figured it was either a real eccentric Wiccan playing with the element of Earth, unlikely. Maybe it was a person who placed stones randomly as an act of minor anarchy, kinda passive aggressive anti style statement.

I was fascinated and my speculations got wilder. Last week I was walking along my street and outside the house of interest was a big moving van. A man and a woman stood on the now stone and stick free porch. I smiled and said, “Looks like a big move. Where are you going?”
The man replied , ” London.”
“Golly,” I said, “That’s a big change, If you don’t mind me asking, what’s with the stones and sticks on your front porch?”
“That’s our son.” Said the man, “Every time we go to the park he insists on bringing back a stick or stone and we make him leave them out the front.” So there you have it, It never occurred to me that the culpret was a child, who’d of thought a child in Balmain, silly me.
Then our good traveller said, “Yeah someone kept putting flowers amongst the stones.”
I pursed my lips and said, “That’d be me.”
The couple smiled and I said, “Bon voyage, I hope it goes really well for you in London.”

I love being alive even with its dilemmas and especially with its delusions that often resolve themselves into lovely human realities of warm human consciousnesses touching.