Lava falls Grand Canyon and the Basalt Stone

In 2006 I had the experience of a lifetime kayaking the Grand Canyon, 14 days and 247 miles of amazing beauty and some terrifying rapids. The one rapid that is perhaps the most scary is Lava Falls:



As a memento of running this rapid I wanted to collect a stone to help remember the experience, what you may not know is that you cannot remove stones out of the Canyon. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon a holy site and removal is forbidden.

We camped at Lava for two nights and I gave a talk about Suiseki and our Navajo guide was very generous, understanding that I had an affinity with the canyon beyond paddling the river. Def: Affinity: walking for hours along the riverside searching for stones. She gifted me two stones. One is Basalt from the bottom of Lava Falls and the other from the last beach at Diamond Creek (out Egress)

Basalt: 9 inches wide, 5 inches tall, 5 inches deep and VERY HEAVY
'Pebble' 6 inches round 3 inches deep

Like bonsai, stones can have many reasons to be appreciated. sounds like you were 'blessed" to have a sacred stone in your poessession and i thank-you for sharing them with us. Would appreciate your comments on if you would ever show them and how would you present them> suiban, daiza, cushion?

I could see the black stone in a three point display with wooden daiza, a scroll showing a canyon/river/waterfall
and some kinds of craft work of the indigenous people.

dick benbow wrote:I could see the black stone in a three point display with wooden daiza, a scroll showing a canyon/river/waterfall
and some kinds of craft work of the indigenous people.

Nice idea, if you search Google you may well find wooden figures made by canyon dwellers... They would work... You have got me thinking!