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Online since 2000.
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Updated 4/26/2026.

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by Lorena Babcock Moore.
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THE BOOK OF THE HIDDEN LAND: Serpents, Ladders, Gates, and Eyes:
Photos of geological, historic, and natural treasures in our private desert nature sanctuary. Mysterious geological images form tiled patterns, story cairns, and matched pairs. About 120 photos so far.

Green Serpent Stones “Magic Square”
Snakelike dark basaltic veins in white granite, green epidote spots in volcanic breccia and calcsilicate rocks, and a green rat snake!

INTERACTIVE MATCHED PAIRS: Some pairs are opposites, some are complementary, and some are similar in shape, color, or origin.

STONE STRIPES: A black basaltic vein in granite resembles a creek flowing over moonlit rock. A white aplite vein in gray granodiorite looks like pale sandy wash in dark stone.
Both photos have the same minerals (white feldspars, gray quartz, black hornblende needles, black biotite flakes) but in different proportions. Both are about 3 inches long.

STONE PATHS: Black basalt in white granite. Pink aplite in gray granodiorite.

TRIANGLE GLYPH: White granite stringers in gray granodiorite. Both magmas were molten and crystallizing at the same time, creating swirling, branching patterns that are now revealed on a waterworn outcrop. A summer flood left driftwood tree roots.

GRINDING HOLES or BEDROCK MORTARS in gray granodiorite and white granite:
Branch shadows and a dark mirror pool with reflections.
These are human artifacts. Their age, purpose, and makers are unknown. They have been attributed to native Americans who used them to grind corn, acorns, and mesquite pods for food. They have entered geologic time as evolving secrets of the living landscape. After a rain, animals drink from them.

PURPLE DESERT MAGIC: Pale larkspur in spring, turkey vulture feathers in autumn.

STORYCAIRN SLIDE SHOW: Sacred Geometry – Triangles in Stone: Intersecting joints in granite, and a basaltic rock intruding white granite. These geometric patterns record rock stress in a rising mountain range.

“SILVER SATIN” GRANITE
This fine-grained rock was used for early 20th century gravestones in southern Arizona, sold as the “Silver Satin” granite.
We bought the abandoned quarry in 2021, and maintain it as a nature preserve and geoheritage site.

Yin/Yang Quarry Boulders
A split rock shows the fresh gray surface and tan weathered surface with darker brown desert varnish. A small circular dome and its matching depression shows that these two rocks were once one.

**“Mountain Lion Track”** handcarved in “Silver Satin” granite.

“Half Moon Hollow” The bracelet is displayed on a quarry chip. “Silver Satin” bead, forged iron, black steel wire, sterling silver, antique steel cable, and antique African iron beads.

HANDCARVED STONE BEADS: “Silver Satin” granite and pink aplite discs.
The discs and beads were carved from pebbles found in the wash; they were not quarried from outcrop. Black steel wire fringe.

“Desert Driftwood: Hornpods” graphite and carbon pencil, 2024.

SLIDESHOW: “Desert Driftwood: Saguaro Bones” graphite, 2026.
When a saguaro cactus dies and dries out, the waxy skin falls away, showering a constellation of starry spines on the ground. The hollow skeleton greets the sun, and a treasury of memories appears: gnarled, fused trunk poles, bundles of tapering sticks, fragile coiled ropes that connect the arms to the trunk, and cup-shaped, jug-like, or spherical vessels of papery scar tissue that dry and peel in concentric layers. The ribs grow in a curve around the scars, cradling the vessels, and the vessels support the column of woody bones.

“Kitten Meteor Shower” colored pencil.

“Sapphira Crab Apple” colored pencil.

MY MUSIC: Improvisations on fretless banjo and homemade instruments.

Hear more on BANDCAMP

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