Throughstone #1: What is a Throughstone?
Nov 10, 2025
A throughstone isn’t always visible at first glance. Sometimes you can’t even be sure that you’re seeing it after taking a hard look from one side of a stone wall. To be certain that what you’re seeing is definitely a throughstone, you have to clamber over and take a look from the other side.
A throughstone is the long and typically angular stone that is often placed about halfway up a stone wall and spans the full width of the stone wall itself. Spaced about every meter or two along a wall’s length, throughstones help stabilize the rocks of the lower portion of the wall, while more evenly distributing the weight of the upper stones across the full width of the wall to counter the effects of heaving and settling on one side or the other.
Philosophies differ among stonemasons of various cultures, but most prefer throughstones with flat faces, positioned flush with the rest of the wall so that they’re not used as steps over the wall either by farmers or their livestock. This strategy makes throughstones harder to identify, but their unassuming appearance is part of their appeal.
Throughstones offer not only structural integrity but also a time-tested metaphor for unseen connections. They span polarities, distance, heaviness, and even diversity. Stones of all shapes, colors, and sizes are cobbled together with more intent than we realize at first glance. In their own silent way, throughstones hold it all together. Whether we recognize them or not is a choice.
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“Throughstone 250” is a purposefully constrained blog project. As a long-winded Southerner constrained by Vermont’s limited porch season and the Yankee penchant for paragraphs of three words or less, I’ve opted to aim for semi-daily reflections of precisely 250 words for the foreseeable future.
250 means something right now. Maybe more than we anticipated. It’s symbolic but incredibly important...and a 250 word count seems much less constrained than a 5-7-5 syllable count for a haiku.
Like many others, I’m struggling to make meaning out of these tumultuous days. I’ve always found it useful to try and write my way out of tough spots. Looking for throughstones is just one more effort to try and generate some meaning from the mayhem.
More free-ranging rambles here, if you’re so inclined: www.freerangeprof.com
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