Atalanta Fugiens, Emblem 36: The Stone Cast to Earth, Raised on the Mountains

A wide valley opens under a pale sky, with a river, a bridge, church spires and a sloping town. In the clouds above, three small squared stones tumble toward the earth. More of them lie scattered on the ground, and others float on the lake.

In the foreground two travelers walk a path with staffs, and a horseman waits at a gate. This is the thirty-sixth emblem of Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, and its motto says: the stone was cast down to earth, raised on the mountains, dwells in the air and feeds in the river, and this is Mercury.

The book was printed in 1617 at Oppenheim. It has fifty emblems, and each one joins an engraving, a Latin verse, a prose discourse and a fugue for three voices. The engravings are attributed to the workshop of Matthäus Merian. Maier, a physician at the court of Emperor Rudolf II, loved sayings that spread across the whole landscape.

The Motto

The Latin line is a chain of four places. The stone is thrown down to the lands, lifted to the mountains, lives in the air and is fed in the river. The last words name the solution: this is Mercury.

The sentence takes the reader from earth to peak to sky to water, as if the Stone were present everywhere.

The Stone in Four Places

The picture follows the words. The squared stones fall from the sky, lie on the slopes, hover over the valley and rest on the river. The same object appears on every level of the landscape.

The old authors said of the Stone that it was found everywhere and known by few. It was the common thing that was overlooked. The emblem takes up this old paradox and makes it visible.

Mercury

In the alchemical tradition, Mercury was the volatile principle, the quicksilver that moves, dissolves and carries other substances. It was also the name of a god, the messenger of the sky who crossed boundaries between the heights and the depths.

By saying that the Stone is Mercury, the motto ties the seeking of the Work to a spirit of movement. What is sought is not a fixed relic but a power that travels from place to place.

Cast Down and Raised Up

The phrase about the stone cast to earth and raised on the mountains recalls a Biblical pattern of fall and exaltation. The psalm of the builders speaks of the stone the builders rejected that became the head of the corner. Readers of Maier's time knew the line.

The emblem does not state this link. The two fit together. A thing despised and thrown down may be lifted to a high place, and the tradition delighted in such reversals.

The Travelers

The two figures on the road are small, and they are not looking at the stones. They walk past the very thing they seek. That is a mild joke at the expense of searchers who look in distant places.

The tradition says that those who wander the world for the secret miss what lies at their feet. The same stones fall around them, and their eyes are on the horizon.

A Reading for Today

Many answers are close at hand. The things we long for are often in the ordinary landscape, in air, ground and water, in the people we pass daily. The emblem asks us to look at what we step over.

It also says that a single thing can have many forms. A stone can fall, climb, float and drink. A person, too, lives on the heights and in the valleys.

The Engraving

The drawing is rich in detail. Hills crowd the left, with a gabled house and a bare tree. A broad lake fills the right, with small boats and two swans. A bridge crosses the river far back, and a steeple rises on each side.

The stones are drawn as simple cubes with sharp edges, set against rounded clouds and rounded hills. The contrast makes them stand out like dice thrown from heaven.

The Fugue

Each emblem in the book has its own music. The fugue is written for three voices, and each voice follows the one before it, which is where the name comes from: fuga means flight or pursuit. The title recalls Atalanta, who raced her suitors until Hippomenes dropped golden apples in her path.

Maier used the old tale as a frame for fifty riddles. Modern singers have recorded the pieces, so anyone can hear them while looking at the engraving.

Contemplating the Emblem

For those who wish to work with this image:

• Look at the cubes in the sky, on the hill, on the water and on the ground.
• Ask what you may be walking past while you search for something far away.
• Name a common thing in your life that holds more than you have noticed.
• Take a short walk and look only at what is at your feet.

Closing

A valley, a lake, squared stones in the sky. Maier let a single sentence cross the whole landscape. For the seeker, the teaching is wry and kind: what you seek has fallen all around you, and it is Mercury, always moving.

---

Related Esoteric Inquiries

• Atalanta Fugiens, Emblem 49: The Philosophical Child with Three Fathers
• Atalanta Fugiens, Emblem 48: The King Healed by the Waters
• Atalanta Fugiens, Emblem 47: The Wolf and the Dog

---

Lux Esoterica.
2026.