Enchanted Rock is a pink granite mountain located in the Llano Uplift about 17 miles (27 km) north of Fredericksburg, Texas and 24 miles (39 km) south of Llano, Texas, United States. Enchanted Rock State Natural Area, which includes Enchanted Rock and surrounding land, spans the border between Gillespie and Llano counties, south of the Llano River. Enchanted Rock covers roughly 640 acres (260 ha) and rises around 425 feet (130 m) above the surrounding terrain to an elevation of 1,825 feet (556 m) above sea level. It is the largest pink granite monadnock in the United States.
Wikipedia
Getting There
UT / Texas Through Time
- More than 400 archeological sites have been discovered in the park, of which about one-quarter are State Archeological Landmarks
- As temperatures fluctuate, particularly in the evening, the rock can be heard groaning and creaking—a once-mysterious trait that lends itself to legends of the “enchanted” nature of the park. We now know that these sounds are caused by the thick sheets of granite contracting and expanding across one another.
- Translucent Fairy Shrimp are known to live in the dome’s vernal pools. The depressions are frequently dry, but the eggs can survive without water, hatching after rain refills the pools.
- The vernal pools also support rock quillwort—an endangered species of grass only found in Central Texas
At about 0.65 miles, the slope becomes gentle and we find ourselves on a broad rolling tableland of solid granite. Numerous depressions (tinajas) trap water during rains; the larger tinajas have islands of vegetation (vernal pools) that include grass, shrubs, and the occasional prickly pear cactus. The water trapped in these tinajas and by the soil in the vernal pools promotes erosion of the granite and enlarges the depressions.
University of Texas
The fairy ponds can be seen from the Google satellite images:
Fairy Shrimp
Enchanted Rock State Natural Area
Enchanted Rock, near Fredricksburg, has special temporary wetlands called “vernal pools.” Tiny fairy shrimp live in them.
No, Silly Goose, they don’t have magic wands! But it would be nice if they did; fairy shrimp are in trouble and might become endangered.
Fairy shrimp swim like the one in this picture…on their backs!
Texas State Government
Anostraca is one of the four orders of crustaceans in the class Branchiopoda; its members are referred to as fairy shrimp. They live in vernal pools and hypersaline lakes across the world, and they have even been found in deserts, ice-covered mountain lakes, and Antarctic ice. They are usually 6–25 mm (0.24–0.98 in) long (exceptionally up to 170 mm or 6.7 in). Most species have 20 body segments, bearing 11 pairs of leaf-like phyllopodia (swimming legs), and the body lacks a carapace. They swim “upside-down” and feed by filtering organic particles from the water or by scraping algae from surfaces, with the exception of Branchinecta gigas, or “giant fairy shrimp“, which is itself a predator of other species of anostracans. They are an important food for many birds and fish, and some are cultured and harvested for use as fish food. There are 300 species spread across 8 families.
Wikipedia
Branchinecta gigas / Giant Fairy Shrimp: The bad boys of the Anostraca family.
Enchanted Rock and the 2024 Solar Eclipse
Good News / Bad News / Bad News
The Harmonic Convergence
Enchanted Rock hosted the Central Texas 1987 Harmonic Convergence Experience.
Harmonic Convergence
The Harmonic Convergence was the world’s first synchronized global peace meditation, coinciding with an exceptional alignment of Solar System planets on August 16–17, 1987.
According to the astrologer Neil Michelsen’s “The American Ephemeris,” on 24 August 1987 there was an exceptional alignment of planets in the Solar System. Eight planets were aligned in an unusual configuration called a grand trine.
The Sun, Moon and six out of eight planets formed part of the grand trine, that is, they were aligned at the apexes of an equilateral triangle when viewed from the Earth.
The Sun, Moon, Mars, and Venus were in exact alignment, astrologically called a conjunction at the [blah, blah, blah, etc.]
There is disagreement regarding this occurrence being a unique event. Grand trines, where planets share 120 degree positions forming an equilateral triangle, are not uncommon or particularly noteworthy.
Power centers
An important part of the Harmonic Convergence observances was the idea of congregating at “power centers.” Power centers were places, such as Mount Shasta, California, Mount Fuji, and Mount Yamnuska[1] where the spiritual energy was held to be particularly strong. The belief was that if 144,000 people assembled at these power centers and meditated for peace, that the arrival of the new era would be facilitated.
Wikipedia
[1]Mount Yamnuska
One of the Harmonic Convergence’s Power Centers, Mount Yamnuska is approximately 52 miles from the nearest Cinnaholic bakery.
Mount John Laurie is a mountain in the Canadian Rockies, in Alberta’s Municipal District of Bighorn No. 8.
Various names
Officially named Mount John Laurie in 1961, it is also known as Mount Laurie, or by its original Stoney Nakoda name Îyâmnathka, borrowed into English as Mount Yamnuska or simply Yamnuska. Îyâmnathka is a compound that includes root words meaning “mountain” and “flat”, however it is usually translated more figuratively as “flat-faced mountain”.
John Lee Laurie, 1899–1959, was a founder of the Indian Association of Alberta. The mountain’s 1961 renaming came at the request of the Stoney Nakoda First Nation. Laurie, an educator and political activist, served as secretary of the Indian Association of Alberta from 1944 to 1956, promoting the causes of First Nations in Alberta.
As a part of a celestial event called the “Harmonic Convergence,” E-Rock was one of many places around the world which was presumed to be a special place, and over 7,000 people converged on the park (these days the most people you will find in the park on any given day is less than 2,000). You can find the full story on his website (www.irakennedy.com) as well as his book “The History of Enchanted Rock.”
Texas Hill Country / Enchanted Rock Dreamscape by Ira Kennedy
Semi-Sequitur: A Cool Love Story
Mr. Kennedy (artist of the above painting) has a delightful story of his parents meeting, and how he got the name “Ira”:
What I’ve Done Since Birth (1941 – )
(Maybe More Than You Care To Know)This document is for my sons so that they might get a better understanding of my life’s journey and perhaps in some indirect way better understand their own. Memories are like snapshots or short film clips which we recall in no particular order. So, it is with this work in progress as I skip around filling in the blanks… All of this is first draft stuff so typos, awkward sentences, etc. are everywhere.
Texas 1941-1946
I was born in a tent in San Saba on September 25, 1941. A woman named Lizzie Slaughter was to be the midwife, but at the last moment Dr. Ira Stone arrived on the scene and out of gratitude, Mom named me after the kind doctor.
My folks were migrant workers, but around my second year my mom met a Warrant Officer in the Army at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. Owen Kennedy was in a bar where my Grandma Rosa was working. When he saw Mom standing outside he asked Grandma who she was and Grandma said, “That’s Lucille, my daughter.”
“Mind if I ask her for a date?”
“That’d be up to her, I reckon.”
Mom was barefoot at the time (and she really doesn’t like me telling this part of the story) so Dad asked her out, she agreed, and the next thing she knew he took her downtown San Antonio and bought her a new pair of shoes and a pretty new dress and took her to the officers club. Not long after they were married.
Ira Kennedy
And what does AI make of this Harmonic Convergence?
The Harmonic Convergence
There is disagreement regarding this occurrence being a unique event. Grand trines, where planets share 120 degree positions forming an equilateral triangle, are not uncommon or particularly noteworthy.
The Sun, Moon and six out of eight planets formed part of the grand trine, that is, they were aligned at the apexes of an equilateral triangle when viewed from the Earth.
The Sun, Moon, Mars, and Venus were in exact alignment, astrologically called a conjunction at the [blah, blah, blah, etc….]
Fairy Shrimp
