Heart of Stone

Heart of Stone

This little gem of a rock lay for, well, a stone’s age, in a friend's driveway, just waiting for the day someone would discover it in all its’ modest glory. I was talking to my friend outside her house, getting ready to take my leave after an outing we’d been on. She was on the cusp of a breakup with her boyfriend, and this was just one of many conversations we had on that subject.

I don’t even know how I managed to spot this little stone. I don’t consider myself to possess an "eagle eye" for these little details, and there was nothing particularly flashy about its’ coloring or unusual about its’ size that would make it stand out from the crowd of other stones hanging out there. But for whatever reason, I glanced down, and there it was, begging me to pick it up. A heart of stone! Made by God, or Nature or The One, whatever the force is one believes in.

As you see it here in this photo is exactly as I found it; I didn’t chisel or chip or grind away at it, no manipulation of any sort was done. I thought it was absolutely beautiful, and after showing it to my friend, I asked if she minded if I kept it (it was in her driveway, after all!) She didn’t mind, and so one little stone among many was rescued from obscurity, not to mention the crush of car tires.

There’s nothing particularly precious about the materials in this stone, in the manner of gemstones or such, but something about it seems to spark my imagination., making it quite precious in my own heart of hearts. That my friend and I were conversing on the subject of heartbreak at the time of its’ discovery seemed no mere coincidence. I took it home, and gave it a place of honor in my curio cabinet. Among the many curiosities it snuggles in amongst are a snakeskin, given to me by a child I worked with for several years, various unusually shaped pieces of driftwood, and cat whiskers (I've deemed finding those a sign of good luck - doesn’t count if you actually resort to pulling them off a cat, of course!) The treasures I find worthy of saving! Anyhow...

A heart of stone - I conjure up images of people whose hearts have gone cold and dead, incapable of compassion of any sort. I can't think of any I know personally who fit this description, though of course I know they've existed throughout history. So, I figured I'd do a little impromptu research and see what I could find out about what others have related concerning hearts of stone.

I’d thought this little idiom may have originated - or at least made an appearance - in the bible, so I looked there, finding a reference in Job 41:24. Now, I am no biblical scholar - and I admit, I didn’t reread the entire book of Job, so I could very well have taken this out of context. But it appears that Job was having a conversation with God, in which it seems that God is describing "The power of the leviathan:"

His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.

I confess I was a bit disappointed. I never imagined a biblical reference to a heart of stone would refer to a whale. I’m no expert in whales, either, but I’ve read a fair amount about them, and been on a few whale-watching tours. It’s been my impression that female whales are usually pretty darn good moms, and that many, at least of most species, form tight bonds with others of their kind. I can’t recall hearing about any clashes with whale-watching boats in recent times, either, at least nothing originating on the part of the whales. Considering our long and not so pretty history with them, I think this shows quite a bit of warmth on their part! Of course, I don’t want to set off a blaze of controversy with my vast readership in which debates rage over whether the bible is a literal transcription of the word of God or simply a most excellent read - and I realize either way that the scribes in those days didn’t have access to the scientific info we do now (divine inspiration aside), but still, in MHO, this one doesn’t quite make it onto a list of notorious hearts of stone. The search continued...

I googled up heart of stone, and found an interesting article by Robert Manne, professor of politics at La Trobe University, who wrote of Joseph Stalin that he was a "man of steel, heart of stone." He writes that this evil tyrant "appear(ed) to have experienced ... no attachment to any human being." Not even his mother! Continuing on, Manne states that Stalin was responsible for the needless deaths of possibly "20 million human beings." Whoa! I knew Stalin was a very bad, bad man, but that’s ridiculous, to say the least! A heart of stone, indeed! That would be a hard act to follow, but I kept up the search. (To read more about what Manne had to say about Stalin, click here:) http://www.theage.com.au/

Hitler, of course must be considered in the same league as Stalin, brothers at lithoid-heart. My quick "surf-by" research on the net left me with the impression that he only actually killed two people - Eva Braun and himself, though of course, like Stalin, he was responsible for millions of murders, most of which were actually carried out by his followers. Saddam Hussein’s deeds putting him in this category only pointed out farther how futile trying to pin down exact numbers is, particularly for a mathematics - challenged person like myself. But whether or not these people had blood on their hands in the literal sense hardly seems to matter when contemplating the hardness of their hearts. These are certainly not the sort of people I’d care to socialize with!

Then there are the folks with hearts of stone cold and brutal enough to inspire the creation of legends; Vlad Tepes, "the Impaler" is purported to be the historical inspiration behind Count Dracula of Vampire fame. The exact truth behind the tales of his reign of terror may be much disputed, particularly by the Romanian people. But just to hear what his stone heart is said to have been capable of - not just impalement, but skinning and boiling alive, eye gouging, and amputations to name but a few of his favorites - is enough to rock my world.

Of course, history didn’t close the door on these cold villains. Contemporary monsters are all too common, as a look at just about any day’s news will prove - from the Jeffery Dahmers, John Wayne Gacies and Harold Shipmans of relatively recent times to Osama Bin Laden or who-knows-who, out on the streets right now, as I sit here contemplating these chilling tales of human cruelty, safe - I think - in my own home.

Perhaps, though, the most interesting of all the stories I’ve come across in my little inquiry into this matter of hearts of stone was one I found in an article collected by Marcine Quenzer (www.hotcakencyclopedia.com.) The story which caught my eye was a fictional one, in which Nahum Hersom writes about finding a stone heart back in his youth (a man after my own heart!) This heart of stone, unlike mine (which you can see from the picture is a somewhat romantic version, reminiscent more of some cartoon heart hewn of stone, than the real thing) looks almost like a petrified version of an actual heart. He writes of how, as a child, he showed it to his mother (a nurse,) who pointed out where the blood vessels would have been connected in life. Hersom even mentions that some folks who have held his stone heart in their hands claimed to have sensed an energy in it. (OK, I don’t get that feeling with mine, but I do think I can hear the ocean when I hold it up to my ear!)

Hersom wrote about meeting with Chief Whirling Thunder, who told a legend of a tribe of giants, the "Wong - a - Rouskah - Podarouuhuh - Poruh - Wah - Roughe - a - ga," AKA "those who eat people and have hearts of stone." These giants were a cruel and fierce sort, with not only stone hearts, but stomachs of ice as well. Supposedly, when they appeared among the Winnebagos, some of the tribe would disappear forever. In the legend, as Hersom writes of Chief Whirling Thunder’s telling, one day, long ago, a young male giant came into Winnebago country and became smitten with the sight of a lovely young Indian maiden, who was standing on the far side of a stream. When she saw that he was not going to try to harm her, she walked home, curious about why he did not seem to be the vicious sort that she had heard tell of. She saw him often after that, becoming less and less afraid of him, until she realized she had fallen in love herself. Alas, she knew she could not marry him (because of that stone heart, of course!) After she prayed to the Great Spirit, however, the giant received a "real life" heart, filled with "warmth, compassion and patience," and they were able, presumably, to live happily ever after. Ah, at last, a story that could warm any heart! (Well, except maybe Stalin’s, or...)

Personally, I’m glad my heart of stone doesn’t look realistic enough to have ever actually beat in the breast of one of these monsters, real or imagined, that I’ve come across in my research - or for that matter read about in the papers or seen on the news. Rather than the petrified heart of some manic, lost soul, I’d much prefer to think of mine as a bedraggled valentine, perhaps accidentally dropped by Fred on his way to Wilma’s house one Valentine’s eve long ago. Warms my own heart just thinking about it.