The News from Four Quarters

November 23, 2024

Samhain Memories
By Pamela Alexander

The Decorated Flame Stone, preparing for evening ritual, Samhain 2024

Samhain at Four Quarters this year was an amazing experience as we came together to connect with the most Ancient Ancestors. We gathered in close Friday night, working in the beautiful North Copse, which was decorated with an amazing petroglyph, gracing the Flame Stone. 

I know it is a mistake for an event organizer to get too emotionally tied to event content. You really need to maintain some sense of objectivity. But, this year, I simply could not be objective. I was emotionally invested in every aspect of Samhain, and all I can humbly say here is that the event delivered everything I could have hoped for.

October 30, 2024

The Community Altar
By Pamela Alexander

Illuminated Samhain Altar with momentos and remembrances, Samhain 2019

The Community Altar is one of the most special things we do each year at Samhain at Four Quarters. As a community, we bring our photographs, mementos, altar pieces, and offerings to our Beloved Departed, and together we build the Community Altar on the beautiful Stone South Altar in the Stone Circle.

This Altar completes the circle of the living and the dead, joining us all in communion. We find ourselves standing around it, pointing out photographs, and sharing the stories of Those Who Have Gone Before. And it's amazing how sharing those stories, those precious memories, can bring back our Beloved Departed so vividly.

October 29, 2024

Breaking Bread With Our Brethren: Why It Matters
By Pamela Alexander

If I had a sandwich, and I knew you were hungry, I'd give you half.
          – Henry Rollins

When my oldest daughter was 3, we had a mail carrier who always seemed grumpy. So she took it upon herself to help him by giving him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Unfortunately, she chose to deliver the gooey sammy by dropping the whole, unwrapped treat into the bright, blue mailbox on the corner outside our house. As you can probably guess, this did not improve the mail carrier's demeanor.

But that desire to share food with our fellow beings runs deep in our blood, our bones. It starts early in us, and it is so important to break bread together.

Sharing common meals builds the bonds of family far beyond the ties of simply mother, father, sister, brother. When we all sit together and eat, suddenly, “family”  expands to include the Grandparents, the Aunties, Uncles, Maidens, Gallants, the whole tapestry of humanity begins to be woven into the simple act of eating, together, a meal prepared by willing hands, with reverence, and love.

September 18, 2024

Wheel of the Year 2025 - Call for Content!
By Kurt Griffith, Art Director, WoTY

We've started putting together the 2025 Wheel of the Year, and we need your content!.

The Wheel turns and it’s that time of the year again! New Stones are Risen. Samhain, Thanksgiving and Winter Solstice are on the horizon. It is time for the Board of Directors, and captive Art Director and Designer Kurt Griffith to retire to our monk’s cells and engage in the annual ritual of assembling the Wheel of the Year for 2025. We have our calendars, event planners, astronomical tables, and even crystal balls, bones, and tarot decks focused on eighteen months out...

The Wheel of the Year 2025
Call for ARTICLES, Artwork, & Photography

We are once again calling out to each and every one of you for your articles, prose, poetry, art, and photography, to make up the 2025 Edition of the Wheel of the Year. You don’t need our permission to write an article – WRITE THE THING and get it to us. Material that we have, we can review and choose whether or not to use. Stuff that we don’t have, however brilliant the idea, we can’t use!

September 9, 2024

Stones Rising XXX Report
By Pamela Alexander
Photos contributed by Members & Guests

Taking a tilt at moving a massive 5 ton Stone. An aspirational effort. – Stones Rising 2024.

The Thirtieth Year of Stones Rising was an amazing event. It brought so many old friends home, and so many new friends joined us for the first time, learning the lore and lessons of The Land as the event evolved around us.

    Our hearty crew, with some heavy assists from modern technology, managed to move and raise two very daunting stones into the Great North Copse. Together, at over 22,000 lbs they are the heaviest stones we have ever raised, and the Easternmost is a full fifteen inches thick! They bring the arc of the Copse around significantly to the South East and South West, truly defining the ellipse. It is truly a breathtaking sight.

August 21, 2024

Stones Rising XXX
By Pamela Alexander
Photos by Jim LoSclazo, Beth Thomas, Kurt Griffith

Bringing the towering “Flame” Stone into the Stone Cricle – Stones Rising 2017.

Eight days until Stones Rising!!! And the Farmhouse is buzzing with activity and excitement as supplies are ordered and plans are carefully laid out for the largest Stones Rising in twenty-five years!

We are in the process of updating the schedule with all of the Stone Moving, Ceremonies, Pathways of Service, and other content so you can keep and eye on the Stones Rising page to see the updated schedule sometime early this week.

But, while we are getting that together, I wanted to share at least  SOME of what we have planned this year because it's all really good stuff, and it will give you some things to look forward to!

First, we want to talk about the Stones! After all, they are the “Stars” of Stones Rising!