A pile of rocks

By Cheryl Murfin

Eccles Cairn (Photo by Andrew Curtis)

On the fifth day of the walk, we climb over the wall that separates the Scottish side of the dirt path from the English side. Just beyond this point, a rounded knoll rises to the left, at the top a pile of rocks that you'd miss if you weren't looking. I am always looking for this pile, and I never skip pulling off to climb the steep hill and pause at the pile. Even if the skies are crying and my fellow walkers would rather, on this 14-mile hiking day, walk on by.

If you've seen a pile of rocks anywhere (and by your sixth decade, you've seen many), it's easy to say, "If you've seen one, you've seen them all." But the truth is, this knoll and this pile of rocks touched me in a new way every time I see them.

There is not a lot that's known about Eccles Cairn—some sources say the burial mound was likely built in the Bronze Age (3,500 BC), while others say it was built in the Iron Age that followed. Either way, the landmark—a "rounded" cairn—has been there a long time. It holds a history and mystery; As far as burial mounds go, it's a long, long way from known Bronze or Iron age village sites. Burial sites of this size were likely created for a community leader and their family, a site where those they led would travel far to pay homage.

Sometimes doubt is what you bury in the rocks of a cairn

Nobody knows who is buried in this place, surrounded by rolling green hills. But countless people have come to the cairn and left a piece of themselves behind—a rock added to the pile, a note, one year, a broken shot glass. For the last two years, I've sprinkled a bit of my mother's ashes here, knowing she'd appreciate the view.

Still, even though my DNA, in the fragments of her bones, is now a physical part of the site, it's not why I stop. I stopped here before she passed away, each time leaving a piece of myself or answer to myself there—a rock painted with the words "You are enough," a picture of my children in a ritual of amends and self forgiveness for my lesser moments of mothering, a bit of old kibble in remembrance of a sweet dog who got me through the pandemic.

I'm not sure of the rituals that made this cairn, and I'll never know how many things have been placed here since that first burial to help someone let go or mourn, but I've grown to appreciate, and perhaps even need, this touchstone. Even if I never climbed that knoll again, it is a living monument that continues to hold, bless, and heal today.

On this trip, I stood by the pile with my friend of nearly 40 years, and we both brought something new to this place.

At the start of the walk, she was unaware of the grief she had continued to carry several years after her father's death, a loss that made itself more fully known along the path. She places a stone she'd been carrying on the pile.

I can't think of any greater honor than to stand beside another and, as they lay down even the slightest bit of their mourning to be received by the planet that sustains their continued living. My friend and have shared something profound—the gift of letting go a little more into the heart of a cosmos and the mystery of familial love that we do not control.

And each time I return here, because I know I will be greeted by a pile of stones and all things they hold—my mother, my friend, her father, regal leaders, the hopes and tears of passersby, the possibility of new freedom resurrected from death.

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Writing from the road

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A walk through headstones and into community

By Barbara Lyghtel Rohrer

A headstone. Old, as are the graveyard and the church that stands guard. Gated.

We cannot enter to read the names, the dates of their lives, spanning from birth to death. Their spouses and children, if so named.

This headstone is one I cannot read. And even though it is old, there are some living souls, one who have yet to pass on, who must be connected to the ones who lie here. For at that foot of the headstone, nestled in a bed of brown grass, are two white lilies. 

Who are they? These living people who visit this grave and leave fresh flowers? Theirs is a story as unknown as the story of those lying below. All I can see is the connection, the thread, from the days of time past to our present. 

I see a community of the living and the dead, a communion of saints, if you will. Headstones of those who died in centuries past and a well-kept church tells me those still walking this Earth care about this place, tend to this place, have made this place their own. This is not the work of one family, but a community of families, many who no doubt live in the town surrounding this church with its old headstones in a side yard.

Perhaps they are the descendants of those who now sleep here, enjoy eternal rest. Perhaps they are newcomers who, despite the lack of a common name, still care to create the connection of community.

Community, that is what those who sleep here and those who walk, work, love and play here, form together. A place for all. Both the living and the dead. A place for all to belong.

It is how we are to go on.