The Wisdom Under Our Feet

DID YOU KNOW that September 16th marks Collecting Rocks Day?

Probably not because I didn’t either, and collecting rocks is one of my favorite things ever.

I’ve always been the “hey, look at that cloud - let’s touch this plant - check out my cool rock” kind of person. But it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve truly fallen in love with rockhounding, which is just a fancier way of saying I spend a lot of time looking for rocks.

There’s something about scanning a riverbank or sifting through gravel that slows my mind and pulls me back into my body. A rocky beach gives my brain something better than my own worries to chew on, as it sweeps again and again over every stone, searching for treasure. Maybe it’s some leftover hunter-gatherer instinct. (Same reason I can’t resist thrifting - man, I really love finding stuff.)

This rock looked boring AF before we polished it.

These days, I’ve had to adapt how I rockhound. My chronic illness means long hours in the sun or heat are out, bending over makes me dizzy, and if there’s a hill involved - I’m probably just going to admire it from the bottom. Still, at a gentler pace (with a trusty grabber in hand and a husband who knows when to lure me back to the car before my hyperfixation tricks me into ignoring symptoms I’ll regret later), it’s a hobby I return to again and again.

Alongside being the “hey, look at that sunrise - can we see the stars from here - can I pet that wild animal?” type of person, I’m also someone who’s constantly on the lookout for metaphors. Rocks, it turns out, have given me plenty - helping me understand myself, the people around me, and the world just a little better.

So in honor of this very official holiday…

here are a few rock-inspired lessons worth celebrating:

1. Shiny or not, the beauty’s already there.

Pick up a rough stone and you might think it’s nothing special - until you polish it and the hidden colors and patterns burst through. But here’s the thing: not every rock needs a shine to be valuable. Some are beautiful simply because of their shape, their weight in your palm, or the memory of where you found them. People are like that too. With the right support or time, more of us comes forward - but that doesn’t mean we were ever lacking, or that someone else has to “fix” us. Like rocks, we’re already enough, whether polished smooth or left exactly as we are.

2. Some glow in the right light.

Some rocks look completely ordinary in daylight - you could pass them by a hundred times without a second thought. But under UV light, they erupt into neon magic. That’s the thing about context. A person who feels invisible in one space might radiate in another, not because they’ve changed, but because the conditions finally reveal what was already there. The glow was never missing - it just needed the right light to be seen.

3. Every fracture tells a story.

Cracks, chips, inclusions - what geologists might call “imperfections” - are often what make a rock unique. Around here, you can find quartz veins cutting through otherwise ordinary stones, where fractures once split the rock and were later filled in with something new. The break didn’t weaken it; it became part of the beauty. It’s a lot like kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing pottery with gold - the repair doesn’t erase the crack, it highlights it, showing that what fills the break can become the most striking feature of all.

4. Value is in the noticing.

There are billions of years’ worth of history scattered at our feet in the form of rocks, and most days we walk right past it. Take Lake Superior agates, for example - formed in the gas pockets of ancient lava flows, they’re about a billion years old. To put that in perspective, Wisconsin doesn’t even have dinosaur fossils - those layers eroded away long ago - so the rocks you pick up here are carrying stories even older than the dinosaurs. When I stop to notice one, it’s not about rarity or dollar value. It’s about holding deep time in my hand and letting that awareness pull me out of the noise of everyday life.

5. Don’t miss the treasures you weren’t looking for.

Just a heart rock, hanging out in the wild.

I’m always on the hunt for agates - they’re my favorite. But some days, I come home with none. I could let that ruin the whole trip, or I could stay so focused on finding agates that I ignore everything else around me. And if I did that, I’d miss all the other cool rocks along the way: quartz with unexpected sparkle, stones shaped smooth by the river, even the ones that just feel good in my pocket.

Life’s like that too. We set out chasing one goal, and when it doesn’t appear, it’s easy to feel disappointed. But often the real treasure isn’t the thing we thought we wanted - it’s what we noticed, picked up, or learned along the way.

So to wrap it up…

Collecting rocks isn’t really about filling jars or covering every shelf in the house (though, let’s be honest - give me enough time and I absolutely will). What keeps me coming back is the practice of noticing. Rockhounding slows me down, pulls me out of my head, and reminds me to pay attention to what’s already right at my feet.

So maybe this September 16th, you’ll take a walk and pick up a stone. Turn it over in your hand. Think about the millions of years it’s carried its story without anyone stopping to notice. See what wisdom it offers you.

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