The silhouettes of Lone Pine Peak and Mt. Whitney were too dull on this moonless night to be worthy of a frame… Leaning against the rough granite of the Alabama Hills, my gaze turned north instead of the usual west, my eyes followed the mobius twist of the arch clockwise instead of counter-clockwise, and there, just above the twist, found the North Star, Polaris. As I watched, Cassiopeia, her throne anchoring the northern stretch of the Milky Way, prostrated herself in her nightly homage to the North Star, and slowly turned her gaze downward. Perhaps she wondered, from her heavenly seat, whether this was a sea serpent turned to stone by Medusa’s gaze, frozen in time as it arched and twisted above the frothy waves, now stone themselves… Surely that’s how this expanse of surreal shapes was formed, a turbulent sea turned to stone, then carved by wind and rain…
