Stone of the Month: 

September 2023 

"Cuerda Larga" (long Ridge)

By Jesủs Quintas Bermủdez

“Cuerda Larga” closely resembles the outline of a trail along the mountain crest of the Guadarrama Mountains near Madrid, Spain. These mountains are 80 km long with several peaks over 2,000 meters high. Many people use these mountains for skiing in the winter months and for hiking and climbing during the spring, summer, and autumn months. It is a good example of the Buddhist thought that the small and the big are the same.

This stone was collected by Josẻ Antonio de Frutos in the Guadarrama mountains. It is a metamorphic stone of the glandular gneiss type and is known as Guadarrama-ishi. Guadarrama is the most important mountain range in the Madrid region. Jose Frutos, a skilled woodworker, made the daiza from recycled Cuban mahogany brought to Spain from Cuba over 100 years ago. 

An interesting characteristic of gneiss Guadarrama-ishi is that it gets a nice patina using a dry hand rubbing yoseki technique in a short time and with no significant texture or color alteration. These stones are found in river beds and are often bulky. Because of this, they require a single bottom cut to improve their suggestive power of islands or far distant mountains. Josẻ de Frutos owns this stone and it is 50 cm wide, 12 cm high, and 11 cm deep.