Assumptions are not facts, no matter how often repeated, or how broadly taught.

Asking the adults in my life about the stacked stones, walls, etc. that I encountered in the forests behind my childhood home in Connecticut, I received the ubiquitous response, "They were built by colonial farmers, clearing their fields."

This never sat well with me... It was illogical.

Though clearly built with deliberate intention, nothing about them fit a model of agricultural construction.

So, I stopped asking.

We soon moved away. I went off to school, grew up, went to work, raised a family...

Then one day, I went for a wandering walk in the forest about 100 miles from where I'd lived as a child... and there were the stones, just as I remembered them from long ago. This time, I didn't ask the adults...or the experts...

i let all of that go, so that i could listen as the stones spoke for themselves.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this is a glimpse of the story...