Online since 2000.
ALL NEW WEBSITE
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: Use the slider to see each picture. Some pairs are opposites, some are complementary, and some are similar in shape, color, or origin.
A white aplite vein in gray granodiorite looks like pale sand below high 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.
Branch shadows and a dark mirror pool with branch 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.
STORYCAIRN SLIDE SHOW: Sacred Geometry – Triangles in Stone: Intersecting joints in fine-grained gray granite and coarser grained white granite. Basaltic rock intrudes white granite; this image of the contact resembles the Mountain that is visible from the canyon. These geometric patterns record rock stress in a rising mountain range.
“SILVER SATIN” GRANITE
This fine-grained warm gray 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.
“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 pendants with canyon wash pebbles and black steel wire fringe.
“Desert Driftwood: Hornpods” graphite and carbon pencil, 2024.
Proboscidea althaeifolia empty pods, northern Santa Rita Mountains, AZ.
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 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 strong, rounded 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.
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