The News from Four Quarters

 NewsLogoBuilding, planting and planning. Sharing ceremony and good, home raised food.
Oddities in the weather and how the orchard did.
Observations on the Global Crisis.
Earth Spirit and Earth Living.
These are all parts of the News from Four Quarters.    Enjoy.  

May 8, 2019

Beltaine Celebration 2019

Griffith Bel2019 4480 1200

Pulling the Seed Stone at Beltaine 2019.

The start of our event year, Four Quarters celebrated Beltaine once again on the land. We had a lovely, relaxed weekend with friends old and new, celebrating the return of life and spring and the people to the Land. It was a wet weekend, but the elements were gentle with us and blessed, rather than purified, our ritualsl. We danced the Maypole surrounded by exuberant May green. We showed off the stunning new span of Rainbow Bridge, linking Main and New Camps. We held our firsts - the first labyrinth walk, first fire circle, first sweat lodge of the new season, culminating in a magical evening ritual in the Faerie realm. Sunday as is our custom, an eager pack of young’uns pulled and raised the seed stone, a promise of large and heavy things to come.

Read more ...

May 6, 2019

Four Quarters is pleased to announce “Rainbow Bridge.”

kbhmhameepijbhfm

The Rainbow Bridge arcs across Sideling Hill Creek connecting Main and New Camp.

This 210 foot long cable suspension bridge soars through the tall Tulip Poplar trees of the Big Bottom's river bank, to land 30 feet above water level in New Camp's Old Forest area. The two halves of the hidden valley that is Four Quarters are now permanently connected, making the place where "A river runs through it," whole and complete.

Planning for Rainbow Bridge has always been an integral part of our risky decision to purchase New Camp in 2015. Design work began that year with final engineering surveys completed in the summer of 2018. Structural steel orders were placed in October of 2018 and we broke ground the first week of March, 2019. A full photo essay of the construction of Rainbow Bridge will be published shortly.

Read more ...

April 29, 2019

Interesting Project!

DSC 4104 800x600

This thing... might have something to do with that other thing.

If you’ve been following our news posts, we dangled a teaser for you good folks last time. But anyone who’s been about Four Quarters any amount of time knows that we do from time to time build stuff. Bunkhouses, Kitchens, Shower houses, Dining Pavilions, Stone Circles... Typically these are improvements to the camp to make things more comfortable for Members, guests and visitors and make the camp more efficient and safer to operate.

Read more ...

March 27, 2019

Massive Midwest Flooding to likely get Much Worse

Ponca Flooding1

Massive Flooding in Ponca, Nebraska, March 13. Photo: Aaron Voss/KTIV.

Back in October, we published here and in the 2019 Wheel of the Year, “Our Wettest Year Ever. Much as the repeated drenchings, floodings, and culvert destruction was challenging, and consumed our resources – the Midwest has had it worse. Much worse. In our last news post, we posted an image of Sideling Hill Creek, swollen and risen with runoff as the weather warmed with impending Spring. Imagine those conditions cranked up to ELEVEN.

The “bomb Cyclone” storm that recently settled in the center of the Nation combined with heavy snowfall in late February, tropical rains and wet snow to utterly inundate the Midwest, particularly devastating in Nebraska. This unfolding disaster, which has caused billions of dollars of damage, destroyed infrastructure and faming communities, and prompted massive evacuations – has been largely overlooked in the mass media, distracted by mind-numbing stupid human tricks - the Christchurch Massacre, Brexit, The Muller Report. But the Science Press has taken notice and is genuinely alarmed.

“The rains and floods are expected to continue through May and become more dire, according to Ed Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “This is shaping up to be a potentially unprecedented flood season,” Clark said, “with more than 200 million people at risk for flooding in their communities.”

Read more ...

March 20, 2019

Equinox Full Moon, Puppies, & Spring

GriffithMar2017 2232 800x600

The Ancestor Altar and the Western arc of the Stone Circle.

  Vernal Equinox Full Moon Service

Join us on Saturday, March 23, as we celebrate Balance and the turning of the Wheel at the Vernal Equinox. Ceremony will take place at 4pm in the Stone Circle (with favorable weather), followed by Church Supper. Kailin Miller & Daniel MacNeal in service.

Thanks, and see you soon!

Puppies!

When we last looked, Ms Circe was very very pregnant, since that time, she has dropped a impressive litter of no less than ELEVEN little guys, reminiscent of 101 Dalmations. And of course like young people of any species, they are eating like little machines, and growing like weeds.

Griffith PuppyEyes Mar2019 4217 800x600

Read more ...

March 11, 2019

The Members Muse in Waiting

Preparing the Members Muse mailing | Griffith March 2019

Preparing the Members Muse mailing

 

The 2019 Members Muse is, even as I type, being prepped for our annual Members Mailing. It will hit the mails as soon as we receive our shipment of 2019 Wheel of the Year calendars, also ink hitting paper even as I type. Generally we arrange to have our bulk mailing of calendars go out while we prepare the Muse for our Members Mailing, so if you’ve gotten a request in by … um… mid-February, your Wheel may already be on the way!

Read more ...