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Marcia Bourgeois
4QForum Active Member
Username: Hovelite
Post Number: 92
Registered: 03-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 09, 2002 - 10:27 am: | 
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I have so many thoughts on Stones this year. I really just want to take a moment and share that I do appreciate all the work that so many people put into this event. I especially appreciate Kailin's thank-yous. They mean so much.
A couple of outstanding things for me about the event were things that were not even 'planned or scheduled', but sometimes, that is how it goes. They are as follows:
1. Meeting new similar minded people and renewing previous acquaintances. The time spent preparing programs or babysitting with Catherine or helping a vendor were times for this bonding. Developing the connnections between people by sharing work and responsibility ( being in service as Orren would probably say) were quite rewarding on a personal level.
2. Bringing my youngest son, Hunter (11), to his first festival and seeing him 'catch the pagan fever' was fabulous. He has it bad now and can't wait to return. As Julie Vedder said it best: "He got Stoned."
Again, thanks to everyone for the experience. I learned and grew.
Taking my journey, one step at a time.
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Bob Mogel
4QForum Member
Username: Hobbit
Post Number: 10
Registered: 07-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 09, 2002 - 05:47 pm: |
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I now have another vivid image of the standing Stones burned into my memory: both Saturday and Sunday night I got to be in the circle, pretty much alone, and was stunned by what I saw. Thanks to the medium in the air, owing to both the damp evening and the smoke drifting in from the fire circle, I felt I was in quite unfamiliar territory. Yes, the Stones were there, but they seemed very far away. My perception of the circle was that it was immense; light was emanating from only a few altar candles, and of course one at each stone. An incredible sight, and one that was rather unusual of late, because the stones were unadorned by anything except candlelight. Beautiful - I much prefer seeing the stones in their simplicity, stark and powerful. |
Barb Baur
Registered Non-Member
Username: Goldberry
Post Number: 5
Registered: 05-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 12, 2002 - 01:14 pm: |
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This was my sixth year at Stones Rising and as usual it was probably one of the most intense experiences of my year.
From a practical standpoint, I felt that things were generally better organized than the past. But then again it's gotten better every year, it's nice to see that we can learn from our mistakes.
My experience dancing all night was made much less painful after the fact by the wonderful healers. this time last year, I still hurt from the experience, but I was back up to 100% 2 days later this time. Many many thanks from my aching feet, legs and back!
It was also awesome that there were so many of us dancing, it seemed so much less a ordeal and more a celebration of what we could do together.
I too, just enjoying walking in the circle, looking at and feeling the stones. In the dark by candlelight and during the day, they evoke images in me of a long gone era and a far reaching future.
There used to be stakes to help visualize where the circle was planned. I didn't see them this year. Of course I could understand that the stakes could interfere with traffic, trip people walking through the brush, etc. But it was nice to look at our progress and imagine our future.
I have a question/request:
My daughter Wendy was picked up and given a ride on one of the moving Stones on Friday. All the folks in our party were either pulling or didn't have a camera, did anyone get a picture? This was very significant for Wendy, she feels a real affinity with 4QF and the Stones and if a picture exists, it would be nice to go in her scrapbook.
Some kind of organized activities for children might be nice at some point, especially if they could relate to a children's pathway of service so the children could feel involved, not because they need to be taken care of. I think most of the kids do that themselves.
Blessings!
Barb
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Heather McDuff
4QForum Member
Username: Wyndehawke
Post Number: 15
Registered: 05-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 16, 2002 - 06:28 am: |
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We made the front page of The Witch's Voice!
http://www.witchvox.com/
Great article (needs more pictures)! |
Malcolm-Rannirl
Registered Non-Member
Username: Windtree
Post Number: 1
Registered: 09-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, September 17, 2002 - 12:14 pm: |
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Kurt wrote:
But be that as it may, we must accept as a fact that many Four Quarters Folk will not be arriving till after work on Friday. Some arrive well into the night and will not be participating in the gathering in any real way till Saturday morning. If a large portion of the ceremony of Stones’ takes place Thursday and Friday, they will tend to feel shortchanged, uninvolved and a disconnect occurs.
This was certainly a problem for me. I didn't arrive until around 11:30 on friday evening (due to work). This meant that not only did I miss much of the ritual, I also did not have time to adjust to being there and let being on the land seep in.
So by the time I was in anything approaching the appropriate state of mind for any sort of ritual, two of the three Stones were already in place. This resulted in me feeling very little connection to the Stones themselves and the rising as a whole. (Unlike last year, which had a much stronger effect on me that I anticipated).
Whilst having the Rising on saturday does seem to make for a less hectic and exhausting experience (especially for the staff, who looked considerably less harried this year), it did leave myself at least feeling rather disconnected from events.
That said, I did get a number of good things out of the weekend, it just felt like there could have been a lot more. I'm not sure if anything could or even should be done differently (other than trying to insist I actually get long booked vacation time off work).
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Will Wurzel
4QForum Member
Username: Wolfstar
Post Number: 6
Registered: 03-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, September 02, 2002 - 10:18 pm: |
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Stones 2002 – I
Again, for the third year running, I try to make sense of it.
The white water of sprites running through my mind, my body, my spirit.
I try to understand it – to make sense of it.
Because so much of my life is simply trying to make sense of my experiences.
That gives rise to my reality.
Not Reality.
Just my reality.
(And in my reality, there is no Reality!
The more people I dialog with, the more apparent that becomes.)
As I walk the Land and talk to the People
(And talk to the Land and walk among the People)
The confluence that is Stones becomes almost too much to bear.
The People come together once a year
To do and witness
Pure symbolism
And pure concrete effect.
We come together to be in community
And to Raise the Stones.
Pure symbolism.
What possible concrete effect could result from
Dragging stones
And
Making them stand upright in a circle?
It makes no sense!
And yet
For each of us
It makes some sense.
The pain and discipline of sacrifice
In accomplishment of a worthy goal.
The Standing Stones represent
For each of us
Something different.
For some, they mark accomplishment
Of difficult goals.
For others, they remind us
Of our failures.
But they stand – and encourage us
To try again.
Standing in the Circle of Stones
Feeling the energy
Of the many who stood there before us,
Held in the Stones.
I feel the longings and elations of the People
Who stood the stones.
And will stand the stones,
Commingled in a whirlpool of unnecessary time.
The Stones speak – the first of many times:
In our intentions, we are all related.
All my relations –
We are all relations
Brought together in the sheer abstract
Of the Stones
Which let scales fall from our eyes
And armor from our egos.
We feel in dimensions far beyond making sense –
We leave Certainty
And enter Understanding.
That Love is Relationship.
Complex and Difficult.
That is the sense we make of our experiences.
We see
The God
The Goddess
Smile.
They nod their heads
As we nod our heads.
We have found them
In each other
And in Ourselves
And in Each Other.
And we hear the Stones hum:
What difference will that make
On the Earth?
We know we must ask Ourselves:
What difference will we make?
What must we do?
What must we become
To do what we must do?
First let us become what we truly are.
And in that becoming
Discover what we truly have
To do what we truly must do.
Say the Stones…
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