By Bex Innes
In September 2022, I found myself standing among the purple heather-carpeted hills of Scotland, the wind raking across my face, my fingers wrapped around centuries-old stones—stones that women were never meant to lift. The act itself was one of defiance and resistance, traits handed down through generations of my Highland ancestors, whose communities were torn apart, whose traditions were suppressed, and whose families were fractured and scattered to new worlds.
The trauma of that loss is not locked in the past. It lives in the body and psyche of every descendant—myself included.
Though I was born generations later, this history pulses through my blood. The ruptures do not break me; they shape me. They call me to remember who I am—and to resist, defiantly, everything I am not.
While these so-called “manhood stones”—or stones of strength—were traditionally used to test male endurance and readiness for labor or battle, my journey to lift them became something far more personal. It was a reclamation of self. A transformation. A homecoming—not just to Scotland, but to myself.
Saddling the Mare
The first historic stone I encountered was the Saddlin’ Mare of the Sma’ Glen near Crieff, nestled in a valley between the rocky hills on the border of the Highlands and Lowlands. Sheep milled around us as I prepared to lift. The task was to raise the stone—roughly 200 pounds, though modest by lifting standards—to a boulder nearby: “saddling the mare.”
The shape was awkward, especially for my 5’5” frame. I failed. More than once. I got air, but I couldn’t get the stone to my lap. Still, I tried again—defiantly, determined to move the immovable. After several attempts, I finally chested it and walked a few paces toward the boulder.
I didn’t get a textbook “successful” lift. But to me, it was a triumph. I had moved what felt impossible. I had stepped into a space that was never meant for me—and claimed it. For myself, my children, and the women in my family—those who came before, and those yet to come.
The Saddlin' Mare, Sma' Glen
A Lineage of Defiance
That struggle shifted something in me. I realized it wasn’t just about lifting a rock. It was about confronting the centuries of messaging that told me this was not for me. That I was not strong enough. That I wasn’t built for this.
When I lifted my first stone as a woman, I wasn’t just crossing a gendered threshold—I was tapping into a lineage of resistance. Where men in my family lifted these stones for honor and recognition, I was lifting them for the women whose strength was never formally measured. The women who held families, cultures, and entire worlds together through sheer endurance.
To lift the stone was not only to confront a history of silence—but also to confront my own. It revealed the places where I had remained hidden in the shadows for too long—a self unclaimed.
The Women Who Endured
In Scotland, women were never invited into these traditional feats of strength. But we know they were strong. They raised children. They cleared land—both here and in the new world. They ferried water from distant burns and sang lullabies in a language that was being silenced.
The women of my line—McDonalds, Archies, Littlejohns, Leids, Ords, Adams—they endured. They persisted. And because of that defiance, I am here. And through my hands now, they lift.
I can’t fully explain it, but when I am in the Highlands, lifting those stones, I am home. Physically. Spiritually. Each lift a tribute to the women who birthed and held generations together. I lift for grief, for fury, and for the love driving beneath it all. Every lift is an act of healing—a reclamation of defiance and of truth.
We were not erased.
We are still here.
We endure.
Stones That Speak
Over the next few days, I sought out more stones: the Inver Stone, the Barevan, the Lifting Stone of Newtonmore, the Puterach, the Fianna. These stones don’t care about gender or lineage. But they do respond to intention. To dedication, persistence, patience—and to a quiet, blazing defiance that says: “I am possible.”
The Puterach
With each attempt—whether successful or not—something inside me fortified and transformed. An ancestral fire lit. Remembrance not just in words, but in action: breath held, muscles trembling, feet grounded in the only soil I truly know as home.
With every lift, I plant my story beside those of the men—and now women—who lifted before me. I am not an interloper in a man’s tradition. I stand within a lineage, both paternal and maternal, that shaped me. At my very core, I defy the odds. I carry what must be carried, no matter how heavy—physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
Sovereignty Through Stone
This wasn’t just lifting rocks. It was building confidence. It was reclaiming ownership over my body and my story. The woman who walked away from those stones was not the same woman who had approached them. I was freer. Freer from the quiet compliance we’re taught as women.
I’ve stopped playing by the rules. I lifted myself from the weight of history. Sovereign.
We are not just lifting stones.
We are lifting our silence.
I return to Scotland again this fall. And I truly wonder—what will the stones tell me next?
1 comment
Great write up, Bex! Love the transformational experience of lifting the stones!