Perhaps, the spirits of stones in their early days...

On our planet, 3.8 billion years ago, the rocks claimed their hardened forms from the fiery surface of the cooling lava and oceans rained down from the sky. There was much shifting from place to place, but relative quiet as the rocks made their home. The first tiny organisms formed of the protein and minerals in the seas. Their waters were rich with methane, sulfates, carbon dioxide, and nitrates. The tiny creatures grazed upon the rock on the ocean floor. The rock did not mind. The tiny creatures created tiny rocks that grew (if they were kept close enough together and the weather was just right) into new and pretty rocks. The rocks cultivated their little friends and grew beautiful rock gardens. They lived in peace together this way for nearly 500 million years. Then the first lifeforms that could generate energy by absorbing the light of the sun evolved among their anaerobic cousins. They did not need to munch on rock all day. And they did not create more tiny rocks. The new lifeforms created oxygen. In areas where too much oxygen accumulated, the rock gardens stopped growing, or even changed color. The oxygen killed the tiny creatures that lived upon the seawater and the rocks. The rocks were children of change and were not alarmed. They took up the oxygen, keeping the balance, harboring their tiny friends. This helped for quite some time. Very gradually, the iron in the rocks changed color and grew brittle. Soon the rocks at the surface of the sea floor grew softer and softer. The youngest volcanoes rumbled and pulled forth more iron-rich lava from the Earth up to the surface. The iron absorbed the oxygen. The volcanoes quieted. Satisfied that they had done all they could, they slept for 250 million years. Nothing could stop the sun-loving lifeforms. Over millions of years, they released so much oxygen that the rocks could not keep the balance anymore. They were full. The volcanoes were asleep. The oxygen began to congest the oceans and rise up into the sky. The tiny creatures who had pleased the rocks with their little rock gardens began to die until only those who had acclimated to the rising oxygen, or who had hidden deep in the Earth herself, survived. Between the silence of the volcanoes and the chemical mingling of the waste oxygen with the gasses high in the sky, a climate shift began.