RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER

Rinker’s Rock

High above the Wissahickon Valley, in the Northwest of the city sits Mom Rinker’s Rock. On top of the rock is a statue of a dapper looking Quaker. Scrawled across the base of the statue is the word “toleration.”

Mom Rinker herself was either a spy who ratted out British troop movements from her high perch, or a revolutionary era witch who leapt to her death (or possibly flew away) from the rock. Edgar Allen Poe used to sit at the rock and write. (I’ve been known to do that too, but I’m not Edgar Allen Poe and no one gives a shit where I do or do not write.) Strange Philadelphian, Poe friend and Germantown resident George Lippard famously married “according to Indian rites” at the rock in the mid 19th century. It really is one of the prettiest and most relaxing places in the city.

During high school I used to hang out at Rinker’s Rock. One day, while sitting at the base of the toleration statue I realized that all the gnats buzzing about my head weren’t as annoying as they were necessary elements to the natural world. They were like the static field on which all life is hinged - or if not hinged - at least symbiotically dependent.

Earlier that same day, at the base of the rock, I realized that the gentle whispering I heard behind me was actually the spring breeze cutting through pine needles. That was the first and last time a tree spoke to me in a human voice.

Another night in the pitch-black woods, I summoned all skill and magic to accomplish the impossible. I was atop the rock with a small group of friends. It’s a bulbous, jagged thing that rises about 60 from the trail below. We had just finished what George Lippard might call an ancient Indian smoking rite. A friend was putting away his pipe when it skipped out of his hand and disappeared into the darkness below. I saw it leave his hand and heard it hit the rock twice before silence retook the space below. The small wooden pipe was given up for lost.

About half an hour later we made our way to the base of the rock and started back towards civilization. I looked up into the night and into the arc of the rock’s precipice. I visualized my friend, the pipe and the sound of it striking the rock, ricocheting and spinning wildly and then striking it a second time in a spot some ways below and to the right of the first hit. It was autumn and the ground was covered in brush and leaves. My friends told me to come on, asking what I was doing. I had stopped walking and had stepped off the trail. I said nothing, holding my hand up, asking with a gesture for a moment to finish what I was doing.

I closed my eyes and removed the lighter from my pocket. Taking 3 steps to my left and 2 forward I kneeled at the base of a scraggly bush. Leaning lower I struck the lighter and held it close to the ground. It illuminated about 1 square foot of space. Leaves and brush were all I saw. Still kneeling, I looked back up to the rock and turned to the right by 45 degrees. I relit the lighter, held it to the ground – and there it was – the pipe.

That’s all for now.