Starwood 39.5

Your Festival Staycation.

So, here in Ohio we continue to face Covid-related caution advisories. None of them have been Draconian – we’ve gone out for supplies as needed, but socializing here at Tredara has been minimal, and all spring/early summer events have been cancelled. As a result we have been learning how to use the internet for our work – our Druid Grove has offered our rites on live feeds, and we’re all meeting on various meeting-platforms.

As most of you know I’m a founder of and organizer for the Starwood festival, which is approaching its 40^th opening this year. Things being what they are, this year we felt it wise to cancel our Big Camp-out. Instead we are producing a virtual event that we hope will be as interesting and engaging as a live Starwood.

Attendees will receive a link to the “Lobby”, where scheduled programs can be accessed. Beginning with the Opening Circle meditation on Tuesday evening, we will offer four days of workshop program. Each day will open with a “coffee at Camp” chat-meeting, where folks can get face-time, test their connection, ask questions, etc. We will often offer two, three or more choices per scheduled slot. 

I invite you to review the schedule and speaker list at the link. Selena Fox, Jeff McBride, Vermin Supreme, and so many of our favorite folks (we couldn’t possibly have them all…). Workshops will be interacting, tough our monitors will work to keep things organized, prevent extraneous noise, etc.

Musical guests will play at lunch-time and post-dinner slots each day, and various unusual overnight feeds will be accessed. We will maintain a non-themed chat-room, and offer unique programs from our 40-year archives.

There’s some fire-tribe building a Pretty Big Fire in my back meadow as we speak. Saturday night, after concert, we will light it and join our eyes and hearts together, even if we can’t all dance in the same place.

So if you have the cabin-fever, a persistent nagging itch to do something cool, and an ache in your bones for the fam, consider pitching in the measly fee.

Then get yer wi-fi in order, with a good screen, arrange some camp chairs (or your fave chairs…) around a fire – even a little bitty one, maybe get a cooler full of your fave cold stuff.  You can meet friends and like-minded mutants from across the planet (probably), while relaxing with your very own plumbing.
You can register at this page:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-starwood-395-tickets-105711453804

It’s the 2020 thing to do…

Tredara Good News

Spring 2019

Oh my friends, I have a story for you. It’s a good story, because it has a good ending, and being near the end of it makes me Very Happy.

Many of you know that I and my partner have, for many years, been using and developing our patch of land as Pagan sacred space. Starting with an 8-acre lot that Sue has been on since 1975, and expanding in 2013 to include 8 additional acres to our north. Along with a small patch on the other side we now work with 17ish acres. The tale begins following the expansion.

The new acreage was, when we purchased it, a disused satellite growing-field for the nursery-stock, shrubs, etc that is a common local agriculture. On our early inspections it was serene, with shoulder-high grass, overgrown shrubs and a variety of lovely flowering trees. It was a lovely acquisition, but with it we also acquired new neighbors. 

Just north of the northern boundary of this new property a family keeps their several acres of small agriculture, horses, etc. We seem to have frightened them. It was certainly the case that for as long as they had owned the property that patch had been quiet, even deserted… flowers, deer and bunnies, nice place for the dogs to run – I get that. Then comes us. The grass is mowed, the roads regraveled, regular tractor action, and people – our people. (for details on the progress, click the Tredara tab on the blog front-page, and recall that articles are reverse-time-line order)

Having acquired the acres in 2013, we immediately began building a new, larger worship space, and by the following spring we were holding our Stone Creed Grove seasonal rites in it during the summer. That fall we built a new 30 x 50’ pavilion-roof and attached shower-house. With that in place we hosted the ADF Wellspring Gathering at Tredara in May of 2016. This modest, 120-ish-person event had previously been held at the Brushwood folklore center, but this moved it into our full management.

Even prior to that we had our first visit from our local zoning inspector, who mentioned some neighbor concern and wondered just how commercial an operation we were running. He explained that some complaints about our activity (and some presumptuous youtube vid claims by me...) had brought him out, but was satisfied that we were making incidental use of our personal back-yard to host our church events.

The fact is that Tredara is not and has never been a ‘campground’. We do not charge by the night to camp, nor advertise ourselves in that way. We are, and have always been a sacred space for Pagan worship and spiritual practice. From the days in the 80s when our coven met in the woods, through the evolution of our public Druidic work the place is the private project of Lia Fal and I. We build in service to the Gods and the folk, and with honor to the land. While we have been blessed with donations we seldom seek them, and we’re just not in it for the money, as they say. Nevertheless, the place has been a buzz of construction, campers, hippies, pagan drumming and chanting and the installation of idols in the five-ish years we’ve owned it. I can understand a degree of culture-shock for the closest neighbors.

So this past fall the zoning inspector returned to our door, and had a look around. I’ll keep the details simple – our ‘agricultural’ zoning forgives a lot, but we’re not really doing agriculture. The decision was that our uses were ‘permitted’ under ‘conditional uses’ in the local ordinance. That began a process of determining the ‘conditions’ under which we would be permitted to continue.

Of course I was prepared to stand on the first amendment. I was allowing my church to use my farm for services and our annual reunion-campout. However in the USA if anything overrides the bill-of-rights it’s local land-use sovereignty. I hoped to avoid the employment of attorneys in the matter, and in the end I was able to do so. 

I have also had my faith in the culture of my corner of NE Ohio affirmed by the lack of passionate Christian opposition to our efforts. The offended neighbors held back from any religious reference, and we debated noise and imposition. Early on there *were* people at the podium with concerns about “what kind of church” was being permitted, but the members of the Board of Zoning Appels plainly said that such a topic was not at issue in the discussion. At no time past the very first speakers were our ways mocked or belittled – mainly they were accommodated. In the end there was no outcry from either Evangelical or Catholic local churches, may they be blessed by the spirits of America.

The offended neighbors leaned on issues of noise and property-security. It seems they had had a distressing random visit or two, which they wanted to attribute to our guests. We agree that good fences make good neighbors.

My kin, this all-winter process has had my brain just Parked! Our goal here has been to make a sacred space for the sake of our folk, and now we faced an external authority’s mandate on whether we would have to undertake a serious fight to keep our dream alive. Discussion happened only on the record at live meetings, so we were simply suspended for weeks at a time. By the final meeting quite a groove had been worn in my patience.

However the process was, I must judge, fair and right. The bureaucrats were helpful, the board members cooperative and neutral-to-neighborly. They all toured the place for an eyes-on judgement, and listened in fact to our needs and plans. It seems plain that they had never seen anything quite like us, before.

In the end we were granted our conditional use permit as a ‘place of public assembly’! The only bad news is a mandate to install a big, damned-expensive fence along the boundary with the offended neighbors. We’ll do it, fulfill a few other simple requirements, and be free to flow as a working Pagan sacred forest and worship garden here in NE Ohio.

Magic? Well, some… we’re not done with every little thing, but I’ll say that I began asking Certain Others for their aid last fall, and various measures have been taken over the months. I give thanks, of course, to all those who have aided us.

All in all this is the public birth of the Tredara Hearth Farm & Shrine. Now we can actually put up a sign (must do, in fact…) and publicly be what we have been. At this time we’re not soliciting new events, or looking to expand our event program. Rather we’ll focus on our facilities for worship, and making our occasional camping guests even more comfortable. Our sacred work will continue, teaching and incidental ceremony will probably increase, and we can begin really fitting ourselves into this thing we’ve built, and growing into the corners.

Tredara Spring 2018

"The" Tredara

On we go!

Here at our own small Pagan sanctuary and community hall, which we call Tredara after the big triple oak in one corner., we are cranking the place up for spring. It is really only fate that has led that to mean that we must be ready for our local Grove's Bealtaine just at the beginning of May, followed by hosting ADF's Annual Meeting at the Grove's Wellspring Gathering at the end of the month. That means that if it rains in april, we have a bit of catch-up to do.

This year we had a bit of catch-up to do. We are also a couple of key staff people short, due to unavoidable attrition.  Fortunately L. and I are retired, and have some time to do the work. We also have our community of friends and volunteers, who have helped in many ways. We'll be ready, bless it...

So, without a lot of typing while I could be mowing and trimming, I'll give you a little tour of some of the pretty, sacred things, including new Shrines.

We have had several styles of shrine to the Earth Mother over the years. Aiming for a once-and-for-all solution, we commissioned this fine piece from artist Sidney Bolam of Bohemian Hobbit Studios. 

She knew just what we wanted, and produced a lovely image, with the figure on both sides so that it can be seen both from the path, and through the windows of the barn's social room

Down the path and over the little stream one reaches the Lower Crossroad, where we have erected a Herm. A Herm is a traditional crossroad shrine to Hermes, Lord of Roads, and the Hellenes have wanted one for some while. We kept this simple, with a square pillar rising from the start of a cairn. Folks will now bring stones when they come to visit, and the cairn will grow in time. There's something just right to me about having a shrine to Hermes, Lord of Magic, down in dark, moist crossroad next to the running water. Sure we're Druids, but witchy is witchy...

Leaving the Barn, and the warm, Earth-Mother's hearth, and passing the Crossroad with due offering, one makes the way up into the Shrine precinct proper.

The dedication to the Landspirits is standing firm, even as we consider how best to gently garden the space around it.
The Ancestor Mound requires more gardening attention, and it gets a full shave every spring, save for the patches of herbs that are establishing themselves.

We are reaching the completion of the vague plan we began with for buildings, shrines and facilities here. The device is nearly built. Now we must spend some years (if fate blesses us) learning what it can do.

A Shrine for the Landspirits

 At Tredara, our 17-acre stead in NE Ohio, we have been working to build a sacred complex of shrines and worship areas for our polytheist and animist ways. Last year we arranged the construction of a Mound-Shrine for the Ancestors. To balance that we are building/gardening a glade for the many Spirits of the Land. In Our Druidry we use a conventional division of the many spirits into a triad of Gods, Dead and landspirits. BY completing this shrine we will honor the gods at our primary Nemeton fire, and have special places for the other two Kindreds.

The image in storage
over-winter

A photoshop mockup of the basic layout
in last winter's picture.

To create the anchoring monument I sought out a local chainsaw Carver, Bob Anderson of Rock Creek Ohio. My original notion was a green-man tricephalus, but that was vetoed as 'too boring'. We decided on a tricephalus of green man, owl and bear, those being important guardian spirits around here Bob did a fine job on the piece.

A few years ago we were fortunate to be able to enlarge our property, allowing us the space for this build. The fact is that we have since had occasion to kill many plants, disturb habitat and otherwise generate for ourselves a need for frequent special offerings. The glade chosen for the shrine was an abject wreck when we arrived, filled with tires, holes and unmanaged brush. While we have been somewhat severe in our pruning and prepping, I hope that our offering of beautification and the reverence that comes with it will be well received.

I think the best thing is to show you some photos, with captions, of our work over the last couple of weekends. With the coming Beltaine season we will be doing a special rite of consecration for the shrine - I'll try to show you that as well.

...Built a pedestal another 2' or so tall.

I wanted the main monument to be big.
The carving is 6.5', and we ...

Machine assist got the rather large
idol up the hill safe

And discussion ensued about getting it
upon the pedestal

But, up it went, safe and sound.

Cleverly disguising the brick pedestal...

Finished with a ring of brick to prevent mud around the image.

With the monument complete we are working on a small path down to the small, pretty pond. Gardening with local perennial plants will follow. 

We plan a consecration ritual for the Saturday of our Beltaine weekend. Human relations with the non-human world is always full of irony... we hope to get all our pruning and killing done in the glade before the big sacred apology ceremony...

On we go - let us raise up shrines and idols to the Gods and Spirits, that the land may once more be known as their home.

AJ Gooch, In Memoriam

This eulogy was written for ADF's magazine, Oak Leaves, following AJ's death at the end of February 2016. It is late to the public, but I want it preserved here on the blog. 

Let us take a moment to write about our good friend… our brother... AJ Gooch.  He passed from life due to a suspected pulmonary embolism following minor surgery on the 28^th of February, 2016, at the age of forty-eight. He is survived by his son and daughter, Madoc and Sydney, and wife Stephanie, and by the work and worth of several organizations and communities of which he was a central part.

We met the Gooches at Stone Creed Grove’s Summer Solstice of 1998. Madoc was in a stroller, and the young family was searching for a spiritual home. The sense of accord was immediate, and the family threw itself into ADF, and into the local Grove.

At that time AJ’s back-injury disability, the result of an auto-accident and subsequent surgeries, was not as severe as it would become. Throughout the years that we knew him AJ fought against ongoing nerve and structural difficulties, which produced chronic back-pain at levels that we guess were well beyond what an uninjured person might suspect. He faced medical predictions of life in a wheel-chair, but he never arrived there; largely, we thought, due to pure cussedness, but also due to the care of his family and ongoing alternative medical attention. AJ seldom allowed his pain to interfere with his mood, and handled the pain that his efforts produced privately; we consider him a fine example of a bad lot well-handled.

AJ and his son Madoc

AJ was, maybe first of all, an organizer. When we met him he was finishing a long term as the Seneschal (administrator) of the local SCA Barony, where his interpersonal and political skills had allowed him to see that group through a difficult change of leadership. He was also the ‘Lord’ of a small but noisy household – a matter of personal loyalty and tribe, more than bureaucracy. His work in the Current Middle Ages had given him broad experience in organizing events large and small, handling an all-volunteer membership work-force, and generally herding cats. From the first he was ready and willing to share those skills with ADF. AJ served nearly ten years as Senior Druid of Stone Creed Grove, helping us grow and solidify our work. He became a partner in the Grove’s effort to develop Tredara as a Pagan resource, and his absence will be deeply felt in those ongoing efforts, as in all.  Our local organizer cadre being fairly incestuous, AJ and Steph also quickly became organizers for the Starwood Festival. While his son was young he took charge of Starwood’s Children’s Program, and now-adult members of that community will remember him as that big, nice guy that helped them have a great, if different, ‘church-camp’ experience.

AJ’s skill with children (some called him the baby-whisperer) was an example of the kind of heart that AJ brought to the world. A big, tough-seeming young man, he possessed a core of empathy and open-heartedness. He was the sort of fellow that spent time on the phone and in person with friends, just getting his broad shoulders wet, helping friends process their bad times and enjoy their good ones. Certainly AJ enjoyed good times, and his ability to bring life to a party had as much to do with his openness and easy respect and affection as his skill as a bartender, grillmaster, and host.

AJ, Liafal & I at the Winterstar Ball 2015

AJ was also a man of art, and arts. A craftsman in metal and wood, he expressed musical talent especially as a drummer and didgeridoo player. He developed his high level of natural talent through casual workshop instruction, but especially by hours of real practice. (I admired him for his success at mastering circular breathing.) AJ will be remembered in Cleveland’s alternative community as the organizer and host of the “Thursday Night Drum Jam”, a venerable meeting that AJ revived and preserved for many years, bringing it out of living-rooms into notable public venues.

All of these things came together in AJ’s personal priesthood. AJ had a desire to serve the gods and spirits, to work magic, and to serve the community spiritually as well as by organizing. His charisma and forthright face made him a fine public ritualist. He was ordained in ADF in 2010 and, while he did not complete the scholastic work of ADF’s training program, served as a priest in fact in Stone Creed and the surrounding Pagan community. He was dedicated to Brigid, both of the Arts and the Hearth, and to Manannan the Wise. He served as a chief, a diviner, and as the occasional voice of inspiration, bringing such things as the Oath-ring custom to SCG’s local religion.

A person can have many sorts of luck. AJ lived with the bad luck of his injury, but he lived, and lived a life he often enjoyed. He was blessed with a family that he loved, and with an extended tribe that he loved as well, in all its motley qualities, and which loved him in turn. His memorial was attended by over three-hundred, all drawn by the departing light of AJ’s life and work. We lit the Fire of his final offering (well, not final…) in the fire-altar that he mortared with his own hands. His life was short, it must be said, but it was not quiet or without reward. The wise also say that luck comes from strength, and it was AJ’s strength - of body, heart and character – that made his life shine brightly, and that will keep his memory equally bright in the hearts of those whose lives he touched.

May he Roam In Pride, wherever his fate takes him.

A Throne for the Dead

The Elder Nemeton

The Hallows of the new Nemeton

At Tredara, the sixteen-acre patch of land that L. and I keep, here in NE Ohio, we have long been working to build remarkable and inspiring worship and magic spaces. L. began with a small worship circle in the forest for her Wiccan coven, many years ago, but even that small space was ringed in small stone and equipped with ringed firepit and wooden altar. Stone Creed Grove built a Nemeton working space in the back corner in the mid-90s, which served us for many years. In recent times we have begun to outgrow it, and we were making plans to bring a more major event to the place. 

Three years ago L. and I had the opportunity to double our acreage, and the new patch offered plenty of new space. We almost immediately chose a meadow in which to build a larger ritual space, and that new temple has been in use for over a year at this time, following some adventures. Firmly established, a year or so ago we turned our attention to new projects, and the item that occurred to us first was a Mound built for the Mighty Dead.

I won’t do a survey of Euro-Pagan burial mound customs here, but the heaping up of stone and earth over the graves of the honored dead has a long and widespread history. However confused Neopagan amateur scholarship may be about the relationship

Norse burial mounds

between megalithic passage-graves, Celtic and Germanic tumuli, kurgans, etc, the image of the Mound looms large (uh, note my title, coined a decade before this project…). Myself, Liafal and our departed Kinsman AJ committed to the project and began feeling our way around the property for where such a thing might be located. While I had an inclination to put it in the immediate grounds of the nemeton we determined that the central crossroad of the property, in the SE corner, would suit best. We removed a few ‘fire bushes’ and left many in place, building the mound between them to keep a sense of the original space.

Germano-Celtic burial Mounds

Skallagrim's Mound, Iceland

At the first important ADF nemeton, at the Brushwood Folklore Center, building and improvements were usually done at the Wellspring Gathering. Wellspring is the annual festival sponsored by Stone Creed Grove, which has been the location of the ADF annual meeting for many years. Building sacred spaces together has been a powerful source of group memory and identity over the years, and so we chose to do the primary build of the Mound at Wellspring 2016.

Offerings to the Dead began to be made on this spot pretty early in our ownership. We made a series of offerings over the months and weeks prior to the build. My general permissions and reception by the spirits of the new piece of land allowed me to proceed with confidence, and the outcome, thus far, vindicates my choice not to do immediate divination concerning the spot. We did take an omen at the consecration, as I’ll tell below.

gravel and dirt - I like them well.

Mechanically I found myself pressed by the scheduling of the Wellspring event to plan to build the Mound in a single day. Being the grateful owner of a modern tractor, I was confident of completing the work in the required time. To support that effort I prepped the materials like a sous chef with mounds of cracked stone, sand, and topsoil, arranged in a row.

To obtain enough boulders to feel well-supplied for the design was not inexpensive. To support the effort I ran an internet t-shirt fundraising campaign. I must thank the many who purchased shirts for the benefit of the effort, which specifically allowed us to reach the stretch-goal of a full ring of good rock around the Mound.

I must mention, as well, that the very weeks of that campaign saw the sudden death of AJ Gooch. I’ll be posting my eulogy for my kinsman and friend soon, but here I’ll say that he was the third man here at Tredara after L. and I, and his loss was a brick to the head of our local community. It did, however, help to inspire giving to our fundraising, our friend’s strength carrying us even in death. The timing of his passing meant that it would be his own ashes, in part, that anchored the spiritual construction of the Mound.

In addition, ADF has been entrusted with a modest gift of the ashes of our Founder, Isaac Bonewits. A nearly-homeopathic amount of that ash was given to us in a tiny reliquary, and was added to the burial. For this we thank Isaac’s spirit and his family, and remind all that the families of Gooch and Bonewits will always be welcome to make offering at this place.

The Initial Offering

The base and anchor of the giant talismanic project was the burial of an initial grave-offering beneath the center of the Mound. For this, AJ had asked Grove member Brian Wilmott to apply his professional skills to the construction of a ‘casket’ to contain the initial offerings. Brian is a master-carpenter, proven by his production of a cabinet-class, perfectly joined coffin of classic style. Substantial at 48”x20”x16”, the side-panels of the coffin were decorated with Underworld art produced by Ian Corrigan, and laser-burned (text-crisp) into the wooden panels by Michael Dangler and The Magical Druid of Columbus, OH. Fitted with a well-made lid and ( ! ) upholstered ( ! ) by members of the Grove the casket made, itself, a remarkable object - a wonder of craftsmanship on its arrival at the event on Thursday. To know that this art would be given in sacrifice forever to the land was… poignant.

The tiny relic of Isaac Bonewits

The coffin full of offerings, Friday AM

The four primary panels of the casket.

The plan was to consecrate the coffin at the Thursday evening Opening rite, allow it to “lie in state” overnight in the community area while folk made offerings into it, and then inter it on Fri morning. So we did, with several key offerings being given that evening. I can say with certainty that we gave: a drinking-set of pitcher and various memoried cups; worked platters and vessels of service; 12-year-old scotch whisky, various ale, the Underworld Gate token made by Rev. Raven Mann of honored memory, an ADF priest who has passed on. Also: a sealed casket of AJ’s personal hallows and power-objects, with personal family gifts and a skull-vase of his ashes; many personal gifts of rings, cups, cigars, talismans and small crafted marvels were added. By morning the coffin which I had feared over-large was full nearly to not-rattling with gifts.

This whole process was a combination of the serious and ceremonious with folkish and community revelry. The full Druid-Temple opening rite and blessing led to the coffin being pall-borne down the forest trail to the party, where we spent the evening drinking and admiring the memory of our beloved Dead as well as the skill of the craftsmen. The grief around our kinsman AJ was still rather raw for many, and the knowledge that this work of art was a one-night-only show made everything rather like a wake.

Morning At the Graveside

The Mound was sited at the ‘upper crossroad’ of the place, where four roads meet. The land-crew had cleared a small number of bushes (leaving more), filled holes, and dug the grave at the center of the circular area. We scheduled the graveside assembly for an abstemious 8:30 AM Friday morning, and missed it by most of an hour, but it got us going on the day. The weather was scheduled to be summer sun and 85F temperatures by mid-day, so we meant to get to shoveling.

Morning graveside prayers

The graveside rite was mainly improvised. I spoke about the work, and we lit a fire in the bottom of the grave, because we feel funny without Fire, and to confuse future archaeologists. We recited the Death Song and sang “Breaths”. The offerings were topped off with cut flowers and incense, and a shroud given from SCG’s ritual gear was tucked over all. Brian once again proved his skill by driving nine soft worked-iron nails into his sound, oaken lid with a round-ended ritual hammer to seal the coffin.

Building the Mound

The Fire was extinguished and the sealed coffin-offering was placed in the House of Clay. The shovels came out and we filled the grave by hand. With sufficient earth over the grave we began using the tractor to bring several of the larger boulders to pile over the grave, along with a couple of scoops of cracked stone.

The plan was to build a central offering shaft by propping three chimney bricks up on this pile of stone. Around this center we built the initial ring of boulders, carried by the tractor and arranged on the ground by hand. The cracked stone was then used to begin the filling, and a long morning of heaping up earth began. The pace rather required steady tractor work, but many folks pitched in with hand-tools to spread and level the scoops of sand and soil as they arrived. Names deserving of mention include Brian Wilmott (the craftsman), Mike Zurilla (who was our triple-blessed land-crew boss for the weekend), Tom and Debra from Arkansas, Oona and folks from Stone Creed Grove, and, really, too many to be sure to remember them all.

The covered grave, and the chimney-brick
that makes the shaft.

There are categories of work that are simple but not easy. The work of heaping up 4.5 feet of mound, bringing the earth roughly to the lip of the shaft-bricks was a trudge, though the thaumaturgical aid of Tantor the Robot Elephant did the work of ten mortals. The weather was premature summer at May’s end, and we sweated like two horses each as we completed the primary fill. We had discussed a stair to allow access to the top of the Mound, and Brian found three flat-sided boulders to install, making a steep but usable stile up the eastern side. The bit of brick showing at the top was decorated with small stones, as we declared a primary end.

There was one more key business, and that was the installation of the stone monument, carved for us by Sidney Bolam of BohemianHobbit Studio, who generously delivered the work to us, and accepted no fee. We stared at the work for a while, and finally chose a spot at the top of the stairs.

This project is a modern work, and some might call it a ‘folly’ in the older style. But I’ll say this about its authenticity – it is rooted and crowned with the craft of the craftsman, the inspiration of the artist. From the Vanished Offering deep beneath to the Skulls of Honor on top, its whole shaping was done by community, for community, with song and fire and beer and sweat and diesel. Inspiration is in it, and love, and will, so I’ll stack it’s beginning in spiritual power against any in the world.

The Stomping-In

Once the primary heaping-up was done, we invited people to climb up barefoot and stomp their way around the top. The mix of sand and topsoil was fairly firm, and a flat top evolved quickly. A steady progression of the folk, circle-dancing women, etc helped to conform the fill to future uses. My goal had been to have enough flat surface on the fourteen-foot diameter to provide seats for a small group, or a bed for one or two; this was achieved.

Women finished with a dance

I am told that there was a spiritual ‘breaking in’ as well. A roving band of Druid priests and fellow-travelers made improvised rite on the mound, and trancework led to results of which I suspect more will be heard. The new construction seemed to amount to a spiritual attractive nuisance, but nobody broke their head.

As mentioned the weather was lovely, if tropical-hot. Finally on Saturday afternoon the heat and humidity broke into a rolling thunderstorm, the mightiest of the season so far, with winds high enough to send folks scurrying, and rain in tubs. Despite the inevitable difficulties we were pleased to see the sandy Mound hold its shape and drain the water well. So we felt as if the construction had been well stomped-in by the time we reached the final Rite of Consecration on Saturday afternoon.

The Consecration

The final rite of the sequence was a modified Order of Ritual rite, done in full sun on Saturday afternoon, following the storm. We contemplated postponing the work, for fear of the flooding, but in fact the land drained very nicely and a little treatment with straw made it quite usable. WE assembled at more-or-less the appointed time.

I had planned the construction of the Mound in rather a lot of detail. We were winging the consecration. The weather conditions were high in my priorities – I wanted to avoid sun and heat injury. I devised a little trick, and instructed the company to attend with a towel or veil or cloth that could be draped over the head and face. The ‘veil’ would be drawn over the face for the vision portion, and could be used to protect the head and neck throughout the rite.

ADF has not developed a rubric that separates Underworld offerings from our common sacrifices. Among the Hellenes that split was fairly severe, though matters are less clear to the North. For this rite we decided to focus honor on multicultural Kings and Queens of the Dead. At the core level this meant Hades (Aidoneos, we learned), Pluto, Persephone, Velnius etc. As the Gatekeeper we offered to Hermes Cthonios, Manannan, and Arawn. We chose not to receive a drink blessing, but rather to give all to the Deep, and seek blessing in a vision.

We opened with a simplified outline, and a short Sacred Center affirmation. Three priests made the invocations of the Gatekeeper(s). The Landwights were honored especially as the beings whose bodies made up the Mound – kins of stone and soil. The Underworld Gods were invoked by a round-robin of priests and chiefs, and given precious crystal as an offering. That brought us to the core of the work.

The central offering to the Dead was worked in three parts. First we heard words of memory about the three ADF Honored Dead who are given special memory in the Mound – Raven Mann, AJ Gooch and our Founder, Isaac Bonewits. We then heard the Invocation of the Dead. Brian’s wife, Ygrainne, is a skilled Pagan priestess who has recently become a part of our Grove’s work. I had asked her to expand the simple prayer which I had written for the casket-panels into a longer invocation, which included the specific language for blessing the Mound itself. Finally we gave a gallon of milk, a bottle of whiskey, apples, bread, and honey into the new offering shaft at the top-center of the Mound.

Here is the full text of the Invocation to the Dead:

So we will remember the dead.

O, heart of the underworld, forebears,

Dwelling beneath the sacred land

To impart your watchful wisdom & guide our journeys.

Let us remember the Fathers & the Mothers; from our own cradles back into time.

Those in whose promise & potential we abide

As heirs of their gifts, given freely in love & hope.

Let us remember those we knew in love, of blood & heart.

Those with whom we shared life's simple joys,

Whose passing tore us asunder,

And yet now impart to us peace, 

in the knowledge that all must pass.

And those we know as heroes, as inspirations & as way-showers.

Whose lives, lived in virtue & valor, remain a beacon,

Despite their passage o'er the threshold

Into the realms of the mighty.

Let us remember the ancient wise & ask them for their good teaching.

Open our eyes for signs & portents of their pointing of the way,

And grant us the courage to make good of the wisdom they share.

Mighty & beloved dead, we make this gift to you of art & reverence.

With open heart, with all honor, with the keen power of our memory, 

And the will to continue the work.

Bless this place, we ask,

Where we will give you due offering.

So will we remember the dead. 

For an omen we drew three Ogham lots. The first was Nion, meaning “letters” and given to the ash tree; communication, tradition and the Warrior’s Shield. (This letter had appeared in the blessing of the casket, so it provides a frame.) Muin was the second, meaning “Esteem” and given to the vine; connection and clever effort. The third lot was Gort, “Garden”, given to the ivy; fertility, the soil, and bounty.

I took this as a good omen then, and agree now. The spirits offer us communication and support through the Mound, they offer teaching and gain in honor, and they offer the bounty of the very land in which graves are dug. May we gain the good of these blessings, over the years.

The Blessing confirmed, we called for a vision. Pulling the veils over our faces we opened our hearts to the spirits for a sun-shortened length of time. Sometimes truth comes like a cliché; I am grateful for the loving embrace of my kinsman that was the central point of my own short vision.

I felt the rite was concise yet detailed, and produced a proper atmosphere, even in the mid-day sun. It capped a work well-done by a community working together, and produced a modest monument.

Going Onward

Now we have this Mound – this Sidhe, this Seat or Throne made for the Dead. The next step is to devise both local cult and occasional extraordinary use for it. I’ll be writing about both as we go. I anticipate using the mound for regular offerings, and for regular divination and communion with the Dead. I plan its use as a place for a High Seat for Seidhr work, and a basis for utiseta type outdoor spirit-rites. Located in the center of our patch it should provide silence and darkness for many kinds of chthonic experiments.

As we said several times over the course of the work, it is the oath of Liafal and I that this Mound, as all of the Tredara sacred complex, will be accessible for worship and inspiration as far into the future as we can provide. May we all be blessed in the work.

This lovely pic, and several others herein,
are thanks to Michael Dangler of "The Magical Druid" in Columbus Ohio,
and more from Francesca Hedrick. Thanks to all.