Episode 4: Stones

[originally posted to Patreon on 14/6/25]

TRANSCRIPT:

Frankie: So have you ever, you know, gone to, like, a riverbed or a beach or just out in nature and found a cool rock and just taken it home with you? You've been like, this is a cool rock.

Sari: You know, it's happened a couple of times, but usually on psychedelics, I haven't it's not like I think I did as a child or 

F: Congratulations. You're neurotypical. 

S: Yeah.

F: Good for you. 

S; It's yeah. I don't know. I don't think I've had, like, a favorite rock as a child or something like that. 

F: Rocks were probably too fun for Mr. Soviet asshole.

S: Mhmm. We eat them. 

F: But do you want to play with rocks? You have work to do? 

S: How about you?

F: Yeah. Always. I was always watching people in my family pick things up from the ground and go that's nice and then put it in their pocket and take it home. Granted, we did live, like, you know, places where there'd be things like abalone shells that are really, like, pretty and shiny. But quite a lot of time, there was also just, like, rocks.

S: Mhmm. 

F: Not even shells. Just like, well, that's a cool rock. 

S: That sounds like, you know, like a thing we've been doing for, I'm sure, like, ten thousand years. 

F: I mean, look at things like standing stones. Bollmains. Even, like, in the Greek mythology, there was the rock that Ouranos swallowed. Or was it Kronos? No. It was Kronos swallowed, believing it to be the infant Zeus. Like yeah. He threw it up. It got buried in the earth in a certain spot, I think in Delphi, maybe. And it was, like, added to the same they called it, like, the navel of the world. So I think people have been we've got a weird thing with stones. You know what I mean? Even now, obviously, there's things like jewels, which are just fancy stones, really. But, you know, you also get, like, crystals. Crystals inherently have, you know, some sort of culture, myth, energy attached to each one.

S: So I'm hearing we should bring stoning back. 

F: A hundred percent. But think about even stoning. It was a religious ritual. It was a horrible one because you stoned somebody to death. But it was a religious ritual. Like, you they were being essentially sacrificed to to whatever god that was Via stones. Via fucking stones.

S: Yeah. Even in Islam, like, when you do, you know, a pilgrimage, you go and you throw three stone at Satan. 

F: Wow. Fuck that guy. Am I right?

S: Yeah. But also, like, what it little pussy like three stones is all it takes, you know? 

F: Look. He's been through a lot. Mhmm. Okay. He's got a lot going on. Yeah.

S: Also, it's like what's available and always there, like, even in the Antifada that, you know, the Palestinian children would throw rocks.

F: They are like it's the original weapon, isn't it? Like, Cain killed Abel.

S: David and Goliath also. It put a stone in a sling. Yeah.

F: So there's something like they're both weapons. They're both, like, healing or, like, know, people use them for power or energy and stuff like that. And then, like, there's just the standing stones that you find throughout Europe, but mainly, like, you know, Northwestern Europe, which I find so interesting because some of them are, like for example, you go to Newgrange, which is in 

S: Stonehenge. Yeah? 

F: No. Newgrange is older than Stonehenge. Newgrange is in Ireland in County Meath. It's predates the Pyramids by a couple thousand years. It's like a prehistoric site, and it's made from stones that have created they created a mound. So it's not a stone circle. It's an actual mound, and they're not sure if it was a burial mound, if it was a sacrificial mound, what it was used for, but there's a small, like, a tiny window above the entrance. And only on the morning of the winter solstice does the sun shine through it and illuminate the inside for fifteen minutes. Prehistory, like, 2,000 years older than the pyramids. 

S: That's pretty cool. So is it is it all of North Europe? I because, like, the anytime I think of standing stones, I think of The UK. 

F: Yeah. And, like Ireland. Yeah. 

S: The islands, basically. But, like, do you find them in, I don't know, France or Germany? 

F: Yeah. I think there's a lot of places in, like, Western And Northern Europe as well, but I think the ones in, like, UK and Ireland are the best known or, like, maybe the ones that have been around the long term. 

S: Best preserved maybe? 

F: Best preserved. Or, like, you know, there's so many that have been set up at different time periods as well. So it could be, like, for example, if they are from maybe the the Gauls or which are like the Celts, the same thing. But the Gauls, you'd use that name for Celts who were in Europe, and they got Romanized quite quickly as opposed to the Celts who were in Ireland and Britain, and they, you know, held off romanization. Or 

S: Wait. So, like, the French Gauls and the Irish, 

F: Celts. Same peoples. Same peoples. Same language. So Irish, Gaelic, and, Brito. Has the same they're they're from the name language family. Same as, like, Welsh, Cornish, Scots, Gallic. But I guess, 

S: like yeah. Stones are versatile. Like, throw it, it's a weapon. Fucking stack it, it's a wall.

F: Yeah. You stand one up. It's a monolith. You put a circle of them. It's kind of like a a ritual circle or a magic circle. And it, like, it makes sense. It feels like the oldest thing that you can have. The and it it's unchanging. It's solid. It's a connection to the Earth. 

S: It's heavy. It stays for a long time. Monolith. I never kinda thought of that as a thing. It's like an obelisk is a monolith. Yeah? 

F: Yeah. Just the one lith. But, like, if you think about other places, you know, outside of Europe, you think about other prehistoric monuments that have or even, you know, just ancient history, monoliths that have stood the test of time. But they're all made from stone. Stone was that thing that, like, you knew it was gonna last. 

S: You can stack it really well, and it's a castle. 

F: Or a pyramid. 

S: Or a pyramid.

F: You can carve it into statues. I mean, it's been almost, like, retroactively valuable because so much of, like, ancient history was carved into stone tablets or it was, you know, this statue or it was this this rubble that used to be a temple or, like, we get so much information from stone because leather, wood, paper, any of these things eventually go. Yeah. 

S: And it's like after we've been using concrete for so long, like, stones have sort of gone out of fashion or something. Right? Like, we don't use stones anymore.

F: Yeah. And, like, we don't use it decoratively. We don't use them religiously, really. We don't use them for any of these things anymore.

S: But I think, like, concrete Has a lifespan of, I think, something like a 150 years. 

F: Yeah. Like Yeah. It becomes like it's it's sort of devalued best of, like, the importance of of stone. Like, for example, my house, I need to get a new garden wall built. I'd love it to be, like, a stone wall, but that's gonna cost fuck loads. So it's gonna have to be wood. And inevitably, wood is gonna deteriorate. 

S: Unless you go and, like, just steal stones from nature. 

F: And slowly stack them up around the house. Well so during the Famine, not to always bring it back to the Famine, but I gotta bring it back to the Famine. 

S: So like the Irish famine? 

F: Yes. The Irish famine. If you go back to the Famine, which is a fun name because it sort of implies that, like, all the crops failed and it was an act of God. When in reality, we all know that it was because Britain took all the crops. And then when the one crop they left got all blighted, they were like, well, tough to do Irish people. Yeah. So they couldn't just give the starving Irish people food. That would be crazy, Giving them something, for nothing, but they obviously didn't have any money because they were colonized by Britain.. So what they do is they would invent pointless work for the Irish people to do in order to, like, make it worthwhile to give them food. And so they'd have them build these things called famine walls. So many of them are still standing all across Ireland, and it was just literally bits of stone of, I can't remember if it was limestone. I can't remember exactly what stone it was, but it's, like, taken from there from the ground, from the earth, or, like, you know, chipped off at bigger pieces and stacked. And they're still there, you know, two hundred years later, two fifty years later. But they just it's like this living I mean, not living, but it's this constant memorial to the things that the Irish people had to do Mhmm. Trying to the pointless work that they had to do just to be able to get some fucking food when they're starving. 

S: Damn. Also, like, makes you think of same now. You know? We can feed and house everyone, but we make everyone do fucking pointless work because, like

 You couldn't give them everything for free. 

F: That's fucking crazy.  Well, housing and food? That's 

S: But, like, really, we can do it. We only need, like, I don't know, 0.01% of the population to actually farm everything. We have things mechanized. We can just fucking 

F: We have so much food. 

S: Feed everyone. And then they create these fucking weird ass service jobs that are fucking just wasting time. 

F: Yep. Wasting your life when we all could be making sick art. 

S: Sick art, bro. 

F: And technology that, like, instead of us fearing technology, it could be used for the benefit of everyone. And then we could go back to doing things like crafting things with stone. I mean, if you think about, like so, you know stonemasons, there's no more stonemasons. Mhmm. Even, like, if I wanted to get a stone countertops for my kitchen, unless I'm willing to pay loads and loads of money, they're not gonna be marble. They're gonna be man made quartz. So, like, really, there's an amid for stonemasons almost in in any part of the process unless it's, like, the highly specialized luxury service industry. But that was career that people were like, you're always gonna need stonemasons. You're always gonna need people to shape and move and put together these literal building blocks of life. But if we were in a society which everything was provided for one another, people could go back to crafts, to folk crafts, to the things that we used to for thepure, like, pleasure of them. You know, like people who love knitting, for example, and maybe they want a side hustle of knitting things and selling them. But it's impossible because the wool costs so much and it takes so long to do. And so if you're pricing it out based on a capitalist system, you gotta charge £500 for every single sweater you make, and then nobody's gonna buy it because you've got £500 for a fucking sweater. And, like, if you could do it just for the love of it.

S: Yeah. Because, like, knitting something for someone you love is fucking great. 

F: Yeah. 

S: Why do they call it being stoned? Is it because you feel heavy?

F: Oh, maybe. That's such a good question, actually. Because it's a bit of slang. Right? So I'm out of just like 

S: You think it's because you feel heavy?

F: Maybe. Or, like, like, it feels like you've got a concussion. 

S: That someone hit you with a stone on the head. 

F: It'd be interesting. I wonder, like, I know some old Hippies I should ask them when they started using the term stoned.

S: I wonder what they say before. Even, like, high. You know? Like, use it so naturally now. 

F: But Back then, they used to call it getting loaded.

S: Loaded. 

F: Getting loaded. 

S: I'm loaded, man. Yeah. 

F: It's called, you know, like grass.

S: Uh-huh. You wouldn't you wouldn't use loaded. It's always high. It's kind of like you go up and then come down. 

F: Kinda woo. 

S: You even think of it, like, at least I think of it as going up now while it isn't really that.

F: I know. But, yeah, getting stoned. I don't know. And then, like, it's quite funny because sometimes, you know, older people call, like, getting drunk getting stoned. Uh-huh. They call everything get stoned. And you're like, what? That's 

S: Or like a stoner. He's a stoner. Yeah.

F: He's a stoner. You're where did that come from? 

S: Yeah. Also, a lot of, like, you know, all the stein. Funny names, that means stone in German.

F: Does it? Yeah. I know that. Yeah. Yeah. Where did that come from? Because, like, smith is because people were literally blacksmiths. 

S: They probably were stone masons. 

F: Yeah. 

S: True.

F: But, like, have you ever heard of the worry stones? 

S: No. 

F: So there's stones that, like, most of the time nowadays, you can buy some that are, like, formed like this already. But if you find one, like, on a beach or something, it's got kind of a natural imprint in it where, like, you can rub it, and it's supposed to, like, help you dispel. If you're feeling worried or anxious about something, you, like, rub it, and you put your worries into it.

S: Nature's fidget spinner. 

F: Exactly. For the oldie times. Or, like, I think they're called wish stones, and it's just a stone with a natural hole Bored into it.

S: And you make it into necklace or what do you do? 

F: I think some of you might, but I think it's, like, if you find one, you can, like 

S: Make a wish. 

F: Make a wish. I don't know. I think you, like, I was always told you, like, whisper your wish through the hole 

S: Mhmm.

F: Which is a lot more sexual in nature than I really first realized.

S: Can you do that into a butthole? 

F: You could try. I don't I think it's worth it. So let me know if you get anywhere with that.

S: You never whisper into my butthole anymore. 

F: This this episode's taken a really weird turn. Mhmm. I'm not upset about it. But, anyways, But, yeah, I think, I don't know. I think it's one of those things. We all talk about, like, the forest. I wanna go back to the forest. I wanna get lost in a bog. Blah blah blah. But I think we, I mean, we don't value just the connection to raw earth that is a stone. Yeah, man. 

S: Stones have have become underrated. You know?

F: Exactly.

S: So just fucking pick up a stone. Have a favorite one. 

F: Throw it at a cop Throw it at a cop. Or a billionaire. 

S: That's what it's meant for.

F: Whatever comes closer. 

S: It's nature's bludger. 

F: Yes. Nature's confetti. Uh-huh.

S: Dangerous, dangerous confetti.