The News from Four Quarters

March 31, 2021

Sweat Lodge Build 2021

Members of the Ceremony team rebuilding the Sweat Lodge frame, Spring 2019.

On Saturday April 17, 2021 we shall gather on the Land to rebuild the Sweat Lodge in Main Camp and we need your help. Lodge frames are subject to wear and the elements, and the stresses of ceremony. So from time to time they need to be de-commissioned and replaced. So, we invite all those with an interest to join the ceremony team and lend their hands to the effort. We expect it to be an all-day project and the more hands on board, the faster the labor, and if you're not watching out, you might even learn something! It is also a Labyrinth Build day! So plenty of opportunities to roll up your sleeves in a good way and give back to the Land.

We are ever grateful for the energy, effort and gifts of this labor to these sacred ceremonies and their service to the People. A Lodge Build is a powerful way to be of service and to add your energy to this good work. With enough help, and  the work done in good time, in a good way, we might even get to sweat in the rebuilt lodge! (Official First Sweat is scheduled for Beltaine - April 30-May 2, 2021) This work is deeply ceremonial. The work itself is sacred, and an integral, critical part of the Sweat Lodge ceremony and it is how we learn. We often say around the Lodge, “we learn by doing.”

March 8, 2021

Moon Service Misas

Preparing the Altar for a Misa Ceremony in the Loft.

Beginning with our Ostara Service, and continuing with the April 10th New Moon Service, Four Quarters is pleased to announce that we will be hosting monthly Misas to honor our beloved ancestors. Misas will be held on Friday nights of Moon Service weekends at 7:00 pm in the Loft.

A Misa, or Spiritist Mass, is a beautiful  ceremony of prayer and song to honor our family of birth and spirit. It is practiced by most houses of Cuban Santeria and many other traditions of the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora. The liturgy is mostly Roman Catholic and popular prayers with our own Four Quarters favorite prayers added in. (Prayer books and hymnals are provided)

March 3, 2021

Celebrate Ostara at Four Quarters

Crocuses, harbingers of Spring, rise up at the Farmhouse. Spring 2017.

”Winter's freezing cold and dreary stillness has lingered long, penetrating our hearts as well as our homes. But have hope; sunlight is returning, birds are chirping, and the smell of the Earth thawing heralds the Return of Spring.”

Join us on March 20 to celebrate Ostara at Four Quarters!

Weather and circumstances permitting, we will safely gather in the Great Outdoors for workshops, hands-on practical crafts, a nature walk/tour—perhaps an Egg Hunt—and we will welcome Spring's Return with an outdoor Ostara service in the Stone Circle. Light refreshments will be served at the at the Coffee Dragons. Festivities begin at Approximately Noon.

Tentative Agenda (as of 3/18/2021)

Friday, March 19 evening

February 24, 2021

The 2021 Calendar

By now you should have received your copy of The Wheel of the Year Calendar,
or your complete Membership Packet if you are a Member of Four Quarters.
We are mighty proud and tickled pink with this year's mailing!

    Last year, 2020, we cancelled the printed calendar amid much soul-searching and uncertainty
given the evolving pandemic. That was of course the correct decision, but one that left us quite sad.
We have been producing the calendar since 1997 and it is a labor of love that defines our seasons of the year..

February 2, 2021

Snowfall
Orren Whiddon, Photos by Mike McConnell

One of our pleasures living here in the Allegheny Highlands is the magical change of the seasons
and how those changes bring out aspects of The Land that we live with every day,
but none-the-less remain invisible to us.

December 18, 2020

2021 Schedule at a Glance Available

We relase our year's schedule in advance of the Wheel of the Year to give folks a heads up for their year.