Stone of the Month: 

March 2026 

“The Great Respiration”

By By Paul A. Harris

This large Chinese White Lingbi Stone, with the gray limestone rock contrasting sharply with the whitish siliceous or calcareous-siliceous formations, is a rare variant of the more common, uniformly dark-colored Lingbi Stone. The name of the stone, which embodies the orogenic forces that form mountains, is derived from a Daoist text that states "rising and falling, soaring upward or sitting down, the mountain brings about the great respiration of the world."  This provocative specimen is currently on display in the Stone and Scene exhibition at the Hilbert Museum of California Art in Orange, California. Various viewing stones are paired with one or more California landscape scenes in a groundbreaking exhibition that helps raise the status of naturally occurring stone as objects of art. Stone and Scene will be at the Hilbert Museum from February 12 to October 1, 2026. This stone is in the private collection of Paul A. Harris.