The Perfect Pebble
✤ The Nature of Things: Brimstone pebbles
All my life, I have treasured Nature finds. I post photos of these wild discoveries and pocket keepsakes, explaining their natural history and what they mean to me. In the process, I hope to inspire curiosity about Nature in my readers. I also hope you’ll share your own Nature finds.
Pebble properties
I love to comb the beds of streams, the banks of rivers, the shores of lakes, and the beaches of oceans, in search of the perfect pebble.
When I enter ‘pebble mode’, as my husband calls it, I slip into a Zen state, with all my attention focused on the area around my feet. I scan the ground slowly, letting my gaze travel where it will until it is snagged by something different, striking, exotic.
What makes a pebble perfect, I hear you ask?
It’s shape, certainly. Symmetry is probably the most desirable trait, whether round, oval, or eggy. Its plump curves might fit my hand as though I, rather than Nature, had moulded it. I love to hold such a stone in my pocket until it almost seems to come alive with my body heat. But flatter stones, with gently bevelled edges, are also perennial favourites.
Sometimes, the mere fact of a pebble’s weight can make it perfect, giving it a satisfying heft, a presence.
Then there’s its colour. Of course, there are shades and tones without number. Nut-brown, celadon, apricot, smoky pink, palest powder grey, dusty aubergine... However, there may also be unusual features, such as veins, stripes, or zigzags. Even stars! (see future post :-). Many pebbles look like bird’s eggs, flecked, speckled, spotted, or marbled.
Lastly, texture: grainy, ridged, or as velvety as mole fur. Some pebbles are matte, perhaps with a chalky finish. Others have a soapy sheen or, rarely, look as though freshly varnished.
I found the pebbles in the photo above about 30 years ago. I was fresh out of university and living in Amsterdam with my then-boyfriend. He was away a lot, and I was lonely and bored and a bit sad. My parents were sailing off the coast of Maine at the time, and as I didn't have a job yet, I decided to join them for a few weeks. I think it's the only trip, of so many before and after, that we were just the three of us. And I remember it as one of the most special times of my life, all the more precious for being brief.
These lustrous brimstones are superlative in every sense. Why? Firstly, I love pitch-black pebbles, and these are the pitchiest, blackest pebbles I've ever seen. They are deeply, densely, profoundly black, blacker than midnight, blacker than liquorice, blacker than the black cat of my childhood.
Equally spectacular is their oh-so-fine texture. When I run my fingertip over the basalt surface, I can't detect any graininess. At all. To say the sensation is like touching silk is an awful cliché (so is 'pitch black', for that matter), but I really can't think of a more apt metaphor. They have the same slick, slippery, sensuous feel. Compulsively tactile.
Back in Amsterdam, I had the loveliest of the pebbles, a flawless nose of a stone, made into a simple pendant. When I wear it, as I am now, my fingers constantly stray towards it. And it's warm, like my memories.
Pebble art
My daughter, Saba, is currently in her second year of a Bachelor’s degree in Marine Sciences at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She shares my love for wild life and wild places, especially all things ocean. Art is her second great passion, and she’s keenly interested in natural history illustration.
Luckily, it has become a family tradition for Saba to give me one of her creations for my birthday or other special occasion. It’s the gift I look forward to most. And some of my found stones (my collection has grown over the years since my Maine trip) have become her canvases.
Saba believes art should complement a pebble, not overwhelm it. The stone must be allowed to speak. This is why she doesn’t paint the entire surface; instead, she prefers to seal and protect her work with satin varnish rather than gloss varnish.
Recently, her wildlife art has become more precise, more detailed. She first draws a basic shape of the subject in pencil. Next, she fills in the outline with white acrylic paint, one or two layers depending on the shade and texture of the stone. This helps to make the final image pop.
After drying, she applies the ground colours and gradually adds tiny details with the finest of brushes. She finishes with white highlights, often beginning with the subject's all-important eyes.
I’m biased, of course, but I adore Saba’s pebble paintings. In my opinion, her best work not only complements but enhances the natural beauty of the stone.
Pebbles in the wild
After three decades of searching, I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as the perfect pebble. Or rather, they are all perfect and unique. I have wondered if I am wrong to bring these stones home, these fragments of the country I travel through. Does my deep pleasure in them justify removing them from where they belong? Or is this another example of appropriation of Nature, my need for exclusive ownership?
Pebbles are not alive, nor have they ever been alive, unlike shells. They generally don’t provide shelter or food for living creatures, unlike driftwood. They are often one among thousands, beautiful only because my admiration makes them so.
Sometimes, though, this admiration is shared by others. There is a place in Peru, the Paracas Nature Reserve, where a harsh wind often blows. Here, stones of all sizes, from pebbles to boulders, have been carved by the wind and by stinging sand to create stunning, otherworldly sculptures. Over the years, the most dramatic of these have been collected by local people and by hotels to display in elegant interiors. So much so, it is now impossible to find them ‘in the wild’. I know because I have tried. And in trying to find one for myself, I began to consider that even the inanimate, the lifeless, belongs in Nature, and when we take it away, we also rob that place of a tiny bit of its wildness, its soul.
It is said you should ‘take only pictures, leave only footprints.’ I can’t promise never to bring a pebble home again. But the next time one catches my roving eye, I will pick it up, fondle it... and think twice about pocketing it.
Today’s Wild Minute
I'm a collector of Nature quotes or quotes relevant to the natural world. Ones that give me a little adrenaline rush of recognition, that I connect with personally, or that inspire me. I hope today’s quote has meaning for you, too.
❝ The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are our biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity - then we will treat each one with greater respect. This is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective.
~ David Suzuki
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Gorgeous meditation on our unique affinity for stones. Your daughter's work is lovely, particularly the seal, which looks to be swimming in the stone. Thanks.
I feel a similar way about removing items from their natural location. ❤️