Sunset Hill

A rock split in half on Sunset Hill in Gloucester marks the angle of the setting sun at the Summer Solstice. A second split rock on the opposite ridge marks the angle of the rising sun at the Winter Solstice. Some believe that thousands of years ago a glacial erratic was moved here to be the “gnomen” at the center of an ancient celestial observatory. Native people have neither endorsed nor denied this belief, but a pilgrimage here at the solstice is a ritual for hose devoted to this place. Whether this practice is an appropriation of a sacred Indigenous landscape or a settler myth to colonize an undeveloped hilltop remains an open question.

Were these rocks desposited randomly as glacial till and split through a natural process of weathering? Were they moved into alignment by human ingenuity and cut in half to mark the points of a solar compass? I went to Sunset Hill to reflect on the words of Potawatomi botanist and acclaimed author Robin Wall Kimmerer: “Our elders share the teachings that these rocks, the glacial erratics, are the oldest of grandfathers, the carriers of prophecy, and our teachers… Imagine walking through a richly inhabited world of Birch people, Bear people, Rock people, beings we think of and threfore speak of as persons worthy of our respect.” (from Braiding Sweetgrass)