Xperience Rocks! -- "Cairns"

The cairns pictured in this website are or once were on “Kayser Ridge” in Berkeley Springs. Some visitors say the cairns create “spiritual presence” others say they are “interesting” and still others say, “Frankly Cliff, they’re a little ‘freakish’ for my taste.” Apart from being signposts to guide visitors from other planets toward the landing site I constructed on Kayser Ridge (yes, kidding)  -- I work with cairns as a means of creative expression. I find they are in some ways metaphorical to the work I do in organization development and executive / life coaching. Every stone is both unique and the same; formed by forces and circumstances of earth and existence and each possesses a center point from which it can support other stones, and be supported. Each stone has the innate potential to be part of a something bigger than itself that is, like itself, perfect in its flaws and unique in its beauty. Sometimes working with a cairn seems almost too easy -- bing, bang, boom -- it's up and it's amazing! Every now and then a cairn seems impossible and frustrating to work with and after awhile hardly makes sense to continue in the effort -- and so becomes meaningful by contributing to my learning in some way (hopefully). Some of the first cairns I ever worked with are still standing and I’ve heard hours-old cairns fall in the distance or watched them topple in their first windy encounter. I experience cairns as transient gifts – beautifully simple, complex, and whimsically powerful that enrich me. Framed photographs of the cairns are for sale. If you are a guest at Kayser Ridge and see a framed photograph of cairns on a wall that speaks to you, please take it and leave a donation.

What Are Cairns?
The word derives from the Scottish Gaelic (and Irish) càrn which has a much broader meaning, and can refer to various types of hills and natural stone piles. In German and Dutch, a cairn is known as Steinmann and Stenenman respectively, meaning literally "stone man". The Inuit inukshuk version is also meant to represent a human figure, and is called an inunguak ("imitation of a person"). In Italy, especially the Italian Alps, a cairn is an "Ometto," or a "small man".

Starting in the Bronze Age, cists were sometimes interred into cairns, which would be situated in conspicuous positions, often on the skyline above the village of the deceased – perhaps to deter grave robbers and scavengers or as a token of respect as is the case in the Jewish tradition. Cairns can be found all over the world in alpine or mountainous regions, and also in barren desert and tundra areas as well as on coasts. In ancient times they were erected as sepulchral monuments, or used for practical and astronomical uses. In modern times cairns are often erected as landmarks. They are built for several purposes:
* They may mark a burial site, and/or to memorialize the dead,  mark the summit of a mountain, and placed at regular intervals they indicate a path across stony or barren terrain or across glaciers;
* The Inuit erect human-shaped cairns, or “inuksuit” as milestones or directional markers in the Canadian Arctic;
* In North America, they may mark buffalo jumps or "drive lanes", often petroforms in the shapes of turtles or other animals or for astronomy; and,
* In the Canadian Maritimes cairns were used as lighthouse-like holders for fires that guided boats.

Cairns along hiking trails are often maintained by groups of hikers adding a stone when they pass. In some regions, piles of rocks used to mark hiking trails are called "ducks" or "duckies". These are typically smaller cairns, so named because some have a "beak" pointing in the direction of the route. An expression "two rocks do not make a duck" reminds hikers that just one rock resting upon another could be the result of accident of nature rather than intentional marker on the trail.Cairns have been used to commemorate any sort of event, from the site of a battle to a place where a cart has tipped over -- a warning to other cart wheelers. They vary from loose, small piles of stones to elaborate feats of engineering. In some places, games are regularly held to find out who can build the most beautiful cairn.  Visitors to Kayser Ridge have begun to add their own creative energy and engineering prowess, which has contributed in wonderful ways to the collective energy and beauty. For further information about cairns, come out to The Ridge, check them out, and build one or several!