Writing-On-Stone

Every seen a place like this? Well, you can right here in North America. It's not far from where my parents grew up and it is a place I spent a great deal of time as a kid. The mazes of hoodoos were fortesses and alien landscape all in one, so I decided to share this great place with all of you. The things about the area are astounding, and maybe many of you have no clue to the treasures that can be found here.



Southern Alberta, Canada is home to beautiful rolling prairies that extend as far as you can see. To the far East is the Rocky Mountains and to the south, Montana's Sweetgrass Hills. As you travel this land, you can suddenly find the unexpected. The sudden spectacle of Writing-On-Stone.

The whole experience is like stumbling upon a castle in the middle of nowhere. Finding a building in the middle of the desert. Suddenly you decend down, seemingly into the earth.



The last ice age ended 11,000 years ago, raging torrents of melting mountain water turned into a river which sliced the soft sandstone which had been deposited 80 million years earlier, on what had been a shallow marine area. I have personal knowledge of this because as a kid, my father found a fossilized Trilobyte shell in a field.

The Milk River was named such by the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1805 - 1806. It was named the Milk River because it looked like tea with milk mixed in it. The steep and immense canyon with its exposed cliffs, some as high as 50 metres (164 feet), is simply amazing to see. The enire place is a landscape is both compelling and forbidding at the same time. In daytime, its a garden of shadows.

One cannot help but feel that Writing-On-Stone is a supernaturally charged place. It just has a feel when you are there.



Several hundred years ago, the people of the Blackfoot Nation began to dominate this land. My foster-brother was pure Blackfoot, and I grew up knowing many members of the tribal nation. In this part of the country it's not uncommon to take a left instead of a right, and drive to a places such as "Head-smashed-in" to see where the buffalo would be run in droves off a cliff. The Blackfoot named this particular area Aisinai�pi, which means "it has been written." What they found (and what they themselves added to) were hundreds of petroglyphs (rock carvings) and pictographs (rock paintings).

It's the largest single concentration of native rock art on the North American plains. Evidence suggests that people have been at Writing-On-Stone for at least 3,000 years, but most of the rock art is between 100 to 500 years old. Some though may be as old as 1,000 years.



The petroglyphs, incised, using sharpened bone or stone and the pictographs, painted using ochre � iron ore mixed with water, record the ceremonial and biographical details of life during another time. There are the accomplishments of successful hunters and warriors, the weapons they used (bows and spears), the animals they hunted (bison, bear ,mountain sheep, deer and antelope) and the enemies they killed. The native people believed that all things in the world were charged with supernatural powers. In this strange valley, the cliffs and hoodoos were the home of powerful spirits, spirits with the ability to help people who came to pray at this sacred place.



This is the GLYPH of the Pleides Star cluster


It is one interesting location that still has drawings of unknown origin. There are places within a days drive that have the greatest dinosaur fossil finds in North America. There is even a small area not far from here, where the glaciers missed in their travels and some plants and a few insects, that are nowhere else around.

This is awesome!

I live in Idaho and theres some landscape like that around here. Like Craters of the Moon is very fun to visit.

Oh neat! I want to come see!

Nice photos, Zedd. Very interesting seeing that glyph of the Pleides.

Zed, your photo of the Pleiades (the Seven Sisters) was of great interest.

I took the liberty to do some searching on certain key words and found a relation between the Native American Indian's of that area and there connection to the Pleiades. This may be 'why' the markings on the rock(s) indicating the Pleiades may have been made. The Pleiades was of great significance to those Native American Indian's in and of that region:

* The Lakota Indian's believe that Star Nation/Star People came from the Pleiades.
* "The Sioux trace their origin to that Seven Sisters (Pleiades) constellation." That they are decendents of the Star People.
* "The Pleiades have a connection with the "chanupa", the sacred pipe, which symbolizes the union of the Earth (stone bowl) with the sky (hollow stem through which smoke is drawn and sent heavenward.)"
* The Cherokee's have a legend that the Pleiades are six lazy boys turned into pigs when they complain to the spirits.
www.star-knowledge.net...


Also this:

* "Plains tribes (Lakota, Oglala, Dakota, Blackfoot, Nakota) are joined by the Eastern (Iroquois, Obeida, Seneca, Choctaw) and Southwest (Hopi, Yaqui, Mayan) tribes in their legends of the �Star Nations� and share a common thread in their creation stories and traditions. These traditions include their origin from the stars, the influence of Star People visitors on the formation of their culture and their spiritual beliefs and ceremonies, and the imminent return of these Star Nations."
* "The Sioux trace their origin to that Seven Sisters constellation, the Pleiades. The Pleiades have a connection with the "chanupa", the sacred pipe, which symbolizes the union of the Earth, the stone bowl, with the sky, the hollow stem through which smoke is drawn and sent heavenward."
* "Oglala spiritual tradition speaks about the Avatars (world religious teachers), such as Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and White Buffalo Calf Woman, (the Star Person who gave the Sioux their spiritual history, health practices, and ceremonies.) The Avatars are Star People, it is said, and that seven different galaxies are represented on the earth. Each Native American tribe has its Star Nation race of origination counterpart."
www.cropcirclenews.com...


It is apparent that the Pleiades were of importance to past ancient civilizations and their subsequent mythology's, as well. Very good list of information here:
www.greatdreams.com...


It is also somewhat apparent that Christian's of past and today viewed the Pleiades as having significant importance. Some Christian's have claimed that God was confined to a place or location in space:

"The constellation of the seven stars forming the Pleiades appears to be the crowning center around which the known systems of the planets revolve.... It has been suggested, and with much weight, that one of the stars of that group is the dwelling place of Jehovah and the place of the highest heavens;....

The constellation of the Pleiades is a small one compared with others which scientific instruments disclose to the wondering eyes of man. But the greatness in size of other stars or planets is small when compared to the Pleiades in importance, because the Pleiades is the place of the eternal throne of God."


This belief was carried into or made to engage and involve the alignment and orientation of the Pyramids:

"This quote came from Seiss' book, Miracle in Stone or The Great Pyramid of Egypt published in 1877 (Also a source for Russell's pyramidology). The Pyramid was viewed as "God's Stone Witness" that pointed to the Pleiades as the place were God lived. The connection between the Pyramid and the Pleiades starts with the book's cover which has a drawing of the Pyramid and seven stars (the Pleiades). In this book Seiss claimed (based on Smyth's earlier work) that when the Pyramid was first built, the entrance passage:

... pointed to a [Alpha] Draconis, the then pole star, at its lower culmination, at the same time that the Pleiades, particularly Alcyone, the centre of the group, were in the same meridian above. [5]

In the September 10, 1924 Golden Age they were still echoing Smyth and Seiss' words about the Pyramid pointing to the Pleiades when it was first built:

... the position of the Pleiades at the time of the completion of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, "God's Stone Witness," is a very prominent feature of that building in the midst of the land of Egypt. For these and other reasons Bible Students have good cause to believe that in the region of the Pleiades is located the throne of Jehovah God,... [6]"
www.premier1.net...


Here is a some rather good information on the Pleiades and how it relates to past cultures and civilizations:

"Sacred Sites of the Heavens: The Pleiades"
www.shirleymaclaine.com...


Other than that....very beautiful pictures and story Zed.



regards
seekerof

[Edited on 13-3-2004 by Seekerof]

"Seven stars and seven stones, and one white tree."

Nice scenery. My family (father's side) is from New Mexico. Roswell, Soccoro, Carrizoza, Lemitar, Capitan, etc. My grandpa would go back every year for our family reunion. I went with him several times. My dad still lives in New Mexico. I love the desert. It's full of secrets and wonder. I believe the ancient people came from another dimension, a 5th world.

When I saw the petroglyph of the Pleiades, it reminded me of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song, "Can't Stop".

Not the full lyrics...

Kick start the golden generator
Sweet talk but don't intimidate her
Can't stop the gods from engineering
Feel no need for any interfering
Your image in the dictionary
This life is more than ordinary
Can I get 2 maybe even 3 of these
Come from space
To teach you of the Pleiades
Can't stop the spirits when they need you
This life is more than just a read thru

I am happy to see many of you enjoy my photos,

I have more images from Writing-on-Stone at www.shrinesandsacredsites.com/wos.htm

I plan to visit the place soon and take more pictures as well as another place nearby called Devils Coullee.

Roger

So did Zed take these or this other fella?





V

First, Seekerof...awesome post! I applaud the work on that. Very cool info.

Roger - Yes, enjoyed the pictures. I have been to Writing-On-Stone more times than I could count but never thought to search it out on the web. It was great to find your site for photo references to my post/story.

Also hope you enjoy ATS a bit.

Variable - I posted my story and got some great photos from the web, no different than anyone else when they post a story and link a picture. I never claimed them as my own. Just wanted to show you an incredible place. It is hard to describe without seeing it. Some photos came from that site, some from others.

About the use of the photos from my web site, .... is all I have to say, I was honoured

FYI, these rock carvings are very old, the Blackfoot legends say that they were there on the rocks when the first arrived in the area.

Roger