9
Gods
&
Monsters
It’s said that if you drink from the Athenaeum fountain in Providence, you will always return to Rhode Island. It might not be the best idea to drink the water (the fountain and its pipes date back to 1873), but you won’t need to. Rhode Island has a way of getting itself into your blood once you’ve been there. Colonists and artists, captains of industry and Chthulhu, artists and writers, Native Americans and possibly Vikings have graced its rocky shores, each lending their unique perspective to make Rhode Island a mystical and sometimes mysterious place.
Enchanting Emblems
Perhaps H. P. Lovecraft was thinking of Rhode Island’s state stone when he wrote, in The Call of Chthulhu, “Totally separate and apart, its very material was a mystery; for the soapy greenish-black stone with its golden or iridescent flecks and striations resembled nothing familiar to geology or mineralogy.” While bowenite doesn’t have the “unknowable stone’s” unique markings, it is green in color, ranging from dark to light olive like the stone of the “odd idol” described in Lovecraft’s classic tale. What’s more, some specimens have been used for creating talismans; Maori tribes have used it for tiki carvings.
Deposits of this stone can be found the world over, but it was discovered in the northern part of Rhode Island by mineralologist George Bowen in 1822—long enough before Lovecraft (who had a keen interest in geology) to be inspiration. Bowenite is related to jade but a closer relative of serpentine, and so it takes on the qualities of both of these stones: healing, luck, good health, and meditation. Protective like a shield, it enhances dream memory—like the encounters described by The Call of Chthulhu’s hapless narrator. Slip a bowenite fetish under your pillow. What visions come to you from dim areas and dark stars?
In summertime the fields and hills of Rhode Island are dotted with wildflowers, including the tiny, star-shaped common blue violet, the state’s official flower. Selected by schoolchildren on Arbor Day in 1897, the violet had to wait a while (seventy years!) until statesmen got around to adopting it in 1968. Violets are associated with the twilight, perhaps because of their star shape. Make a wish while you assemble a chain of violets. As you tie each flower, repeat your wish. Keep the chain on your altar or as a crown or garland on the image of your favored deity until it comes true, for to give violets is to pledge faith and loyalty.
Rhode Island schoolchildren of the late 1800s were busy picking state emblems. They selected the red maple as the state tree in 1890 but once again had a long wait: Rhode Island didn’t make it official until 1964. The red maple gets its name because of the change it undergoes in the autumn: green gives way to brilliant shades of cherry, blood, and scarlet, making it a tree of magical transformation. Red maple wood and leaves can assist in magic for creativity and effecting change. Use a wand of red maple to help direct the change you want to bring to your life.
Bewitching Tidbits
Rhode Island had no witch trials, but it did have vampires. Nearly 200 years after the Salem Witch hysteria, the nineteenth century saw a surge in the belief in vampires, with exhumations being conducted on a regular basis. Mercy Lena Brown got caught up in the craze—after her death. She died of tuberculosis in 1892, following her mother and sister to the grave. At the time of her death her brother was also ill with the disease, and the townsfolk of Exeter suggested that perhaps something more sinister was at work. Mercy’s father gave permission for the bodies to be exhumed, and— being that she’d only been dead for a few months and it was winter—she was well preserved. Her heart and liver were taken out and ritually burned. It is said that Mercy wanders the cemetery where she’s buried; sometimes you can hear her whispering. It’s also believed that she visits the terminally ill to comfort them.
Once upon a time, a tree stood in the middle of a road—right in the middle, erupting out of the asphalt like a crooked finger. No island, median, or even guardrail protected it. The road was paved around it, so much so that drivers could circle around the tree to change direction. It survived countless crashes, absorbing the energy of each accident, and still, somehow, bloomed again each spring. Smithfield’s Witch Tree is gone now, and the intersection of Log and Mann School Roads is paved over, but it is still a place of strange energy—approach with caution.
In 2000 Providence’s Biltmore Hotel was named the Most Haunted in America by the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Built in 1918 and opened in 1922, the hotel had a reputation for being a speakeasy during Prohibition. The Fitzgeralds (F. Scott and Zelda) and Louis Armstrong were patrons—but there was something else afoot at the Biltmore. Latched and locked doors mysteriously opened, guests reported (and continue to report) noises from ghostly parties, while other guests have gone missing (the last reported incident was from 2008).
Many of these odd goings-on are chalked up to the hotel’s financier, a rumored occultist named Johan Leisse Weisskopf (sometimes called a Satanist—and a proud one at that). He built the hotel, legends say, as a venue for rituals, which took place on the upper floors and the roof—rituals which sometimes involved sacrifices. These were chickens, but more likely the birds were meant for a main course to be served in the lavish Bacchante Room, another aspect of the hotel that added to Weisskopf’s reputation. The Biltmore’s exclusive dining room was staffed by “nude” Bacchante girls—a bit of an embellishment that played on Bacchian decadence: the women were indeed dressed, but in skirts that were sheer from the knees down—definitely decadent for the period, and, perhaps, Pagan-inspired.
The devil’s been to Rhode Island a few times—and left tracks all over the state to prove it. Rhode Island’s former state folklorist Michael Bell points out that natural pits in stones on Block Island, Purgatory Chasm, Devil’s Foot Rock in North Kingston, and Chimney Hill in South Kingston have been called “devil’s footprints.” There’s a well-told tale of a woman (often called a squaw) accused of murder who was chased by the devil until she got to the brink of Purgatory Chasm, with nowhere else to go. He threw her into the crack and left a footprint behind as a memento. It’s important to note that many stories of the “devil” and “devil’s footprints” in New England folklore are often Colonial attempts to transform figures in Native American myths and legends to fit a Christian paradigm.
Magical Monuments
When Natalie Burlin visited a Hopi Indian reservation in 1900 she discovered her life’s purpose. Traveling the country with a notebook and an Edison cylinder recorder, she began what would be an epic library of indigenous music. In 1910 she started recording African American music. Her earthly remains rest in Rhode Island Historical Cemetery Providence #1, but her true legacy is in the elements of the cultures she so lovingly preserved.
Rhode Island’s founder, Roger Williams, had enlightened views of spirituality and equality for his time, and he has a few memorials in Providence.
- • At the corner of Gano and Powers Streets at the edge of the Seekonk River is Gano Park, the spot where Williams landed when he fled his Puritan colony. There he was greeted by a band of Narragansett, who greeted him with the words, “What cheare, netop?” (today’s equivalent is “What’s up, friend?”).
- • The site of the Roger Williams National Monument is built around the spring upon which Providence Plantation—so named because Williams believed it was God’s providence that brought him there—was founded.
- • Williams’ larger-than-life granite doppelganger can be found on the high hill of Prospect Terrace. His remains—or at least a part of them—are interred in a bronze box inside the statue’s base, but his mortal coil had, and still has, a far more interesting story…
- • Williams was originally interred on his property on Town Street (now North Main Street) when he died in 1683. He stayed there for nearly 200 years, until civic leaders felt that the founder of the state deserved a more accessible memorial. The body was exhumed in 1860, and it was discovered that the roots of a nearby apple tree had found their way into the grave and traced the body so that the intertwining limbs resembled a human form. Earth from the site was interred in a bronze box and placed in the mausoleum in the Northern Burial Ground until 1939, when it was moved to reside in the memorial at Prospect Terrace. As for the root, it can still be seen in the John Brown House Museum on the grounds of Brown University. If it’s not too crowded and you ask your docent nicely, you may be able to get a few moments alone with it.
Author H. P. Lovecraft is buried in Swan’s Point Cemetery, a parklike Victorian graveyard. The inscription on his marker in the family plot sums up his relationship with the city of his birth: I am Providence.
Sacred Sites and Magical Spots
The Newport Tower
There is the shell of a tower in Newport. An architectural enigma, it stands in a corner of Touro Park.
Was it the work of Vikings who came from Scandinavia?
Or could it have been built by medieval Templars 100 years before Columbus’s voyage?
Was it a beacon fashioned by the Portuguese navigators/brothers Miguel and Gaspar Corte-Reál? Similarities have been drawn between the tower and a convent in Portugal.
Was it a mill owned by none other than Benedict Arnold? This speculation often garners the most clout, as Arnold’s is the first written record of the tower, and its construction is similar to the Chesterton Windmill in the United Kingdom. However, Arnold didn’t build the tower; he inherited it when he bought the land it’s on, and there are no records of him using it as a mill. And there are differences in construction to the Chesterton Mill.
There are also theories about Chinese colonists and Scottish swashbucklers (both supposedly beginning their settlements of the New World with a round tower), but one of the most intriguing comes from Jim Egan of the New England Antiquities Research Association and involves John Dee—that wiley old occultist and Elizabeth I’s astrologer. Was the tower built on his orders? And was Narragansett Bay called, even in passing, the “Dee River Port”? Dee was in favor of colonization, so building something in the New World might not be so farfetched.
The tower itself has occultist hints paved into its stones. There are eight pillars, four of which are sited on compass directions. Then there are the small, oddly placed square windows that, depending on date and season, align with the moon when she’s in her minor position, which happens every ten years. The rising sun passes through the windows to cast light on the niches inside the tower as it climbs its path at both the summer and winter solstices and the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The question is, of course, was this done on purpose or is it just a happy accident of construction?
The tower isn’t telling—but whatever the original purpose and whoever built it, the Newport Tower is magical. We may not know the exact facts, but we do know what we can see with our own eyes: the tower has eight pillars, which can represent the Wheel of the Year. Four of those pillars are sited directionally, and so can represent the elements.
Use the structure’s shape and site to work some magic: beginning at the pillar facing the closest end of the park (east), walk clockwise around the tower. As you walk, think of something you would like to accomplish in a year’s time. When you reach the eastern pillar again, seal your intention with the mantra:
By the power of secrets and age and stone
By the turn of the year and elements four
Bring my wish to pass at last
So mote it be.
Map Some More Magic
A heavily patinaed version of William Ellery Channing, that doughty champion of Unitarianism, stands a few yards from the Newport Tower, keeping watch over it as well as the Unitarian church just across the street.
One of the many origin theories of the Newport Tower is that it was built by Vikings. There are scattered pieces of evidence that these Norse seafarers with a romanticized reputation for raiding as well as trading must have at least visited New England. One such trinket that they supposedly left behind is the Narragansett Stone, a small boulder with two rows of runes scored deeply into its surface. It used to sit in Narragansett Bay until it was stolen in 2012. The drama continued when the stone was recovered via an anonymous tip and then sent to the University of Rhode Island for safekeeping—just in time for the stone to be called out as a fraud (later, the caller was dismissed as a fraud). Still under lock and key at the university, the stone is waiting for its permanent home, which, at the time of this writing, will be somewhere in North Kingstown, not far from its original location.
Touro Synagogue
“Everyone shall sit safely under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.” So said George Washington in a letter to “the Hebrew congregation in Newport” after he’d visited the synagogue in person. The unassuming building on Touro Street was built in 1759 and is home to the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States, which dates back to 1658. It fits in snugly with its neighbors with typical eighteenth-century American Colonial New England charm—but it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
Enter, and a space vaster than what you’d expect opens up. Both the main sanctuary and the traditional women’s gallery flood with natural light that gilds the chandeliers. Travel writer Jana Riess points out a numerical pattern: twelve pillars that guide you to the altar, twelve windows that let in light, twelve torches that illuminate, twelve arms on the chandelier—which also includes the images of four monks (divisible by twelve), which can refer to converts of the faith or to tolerance.
Twelve is a magical number. In the Jewish faith, twelve is the number of the tribes of Israel. It also represents the wholeness of God, and a Jewish temple is its own world, a complete spiritual place. Numbers have universal significance, and so does this house of worship: everyone is welcome, no matter what path you follow.
George Washington’s letter to the Newport congregation is read aloud every year. Add your voice to this prayer and intention for peace and tolerance—access the full text of the letter at www.tourosynagogue.org/history-learning/gw-letter.
Cliff Walk
Open sunrise to sunset year-round, Cliff Walk has several access points along its three-mile length. The entrance at Narragansett Avenue takes you down to the water by a series of steep steps. At the top you can’t see the bottom, but you can hear the sea crashing against the rocks or hissing and bubbling as it pulls itself from hidden caverns. Once at the bottom the path stretches out in both directions, paved and neat, with no hint that it will change. On one side the sea swells and tumbles, and on the other sprawling lawns creep up to the back facades of mansions.
The path meanders along the ocean, sometimes with a drop of up to seventy feet (hence the “cliff”) onto seawater-splashed rocks that are coal- black shale, sandstone, and slate, some with visible fossils. Paved and rough road (especially at the southern end) glides between the spiritual and the material, between man and nature, between the gilded age and the sea. To traverse Cliff Walk is to revel in the expression of nature and humanity at the same time, each separate but existing together in a seemingly easy peace.
Green Animals Topiary Garden
You may feel as if you’ve fallen down a rabbit hole into a weird world: an elephant lumbers through the grass; toy bears, larger than life, hold out plump arms while a peacock struts proudly, his tail a carpet of flowers planted in a precise eye pattern. A lush armchair beckons you to rest for a spell—but you probably better not. It is, after all, a shrubbery.
Thomas Brayton wanted his Portsmouth estate to be completely self-sufficient, and to that end, he hired a gardener, Joseph Carriero. The result was not only an efficient kitchen garden, but a creation of extraordinary beauty: a collaboration where human artistry works with the palette and canvas of nature.
The art of topiary, which dates back to ancient Rome, is by nature whimsical and magical: these are living sculptures. The creation of the shapes that tumble across the Brayton property took patience both in growing and training, and a studied knowledge not only of the plants themselves, but of the seasons and growing cycles. A gardener is one with his plants, knowing when to prune and when to nurture—the same skills required for practicing magic.
Carriero and later his son-in-law, George Mendonca, sculpted over seven acres of privet, yew, and boxwood trees and shrubs into animals, shapes, and patterns. Now known as the Green Animals Topiary Garden (the oldest garden of its kind in the Northeastern United States), the landscape of the Brayton House was left to the state of Rhode Island by its last owner, Brayton’s daughter, who just so happened to be named Alice.
Fantastic Festivals
The sun is just setting over the Providence River. It is a clear night, and the glimmer of stars can already be seen in the rapidly darkening sky. All is reflected in the water. It’s cold and strangely quiet for downtown Providence. It is nearly Yule, and everyone is waiting for the fires to be lit.
At the moment of sunset the music starts, a swell of instruments and voices timed strangely with the flickering torches that glide into view. Torch bearers and fire tenders float into the basin in wood-laden boats. Each settles next to an iron basket filled with wood, rising from the water. One by one each is set alight, and in a matter of moments the air is filled with flame and sparks that disappear into frost and wreaths of scented smoke. A circle has been cast in fire.
Artist Barnaby Evans has been taking over the rivers of downtown Providence for over a decade. On varying nights throughout the year, city rivers are lit up with volunteer-tended bonfires, sometimes as many as eighty running up and down the river. The cooler months see quieter, more contemplative burns, while in spring and summer crowds gather, bringing a different, more kinetic energy to the celebration.
Waterfire is a sensual experience that varies from season to season; no two burns are the same. Eyes alight—not only from the bonfires, but from flame dancers, jack-o’-lanterns, or twinkling holiday lights. Crackling logs snap to the sound of drums and voices while the air is filled with the scent of burning herbs and perfumed woods.
Find a Fire
Fire festivals celebrate rebirth and renewal. To get your burn on, visit www.festivalfire.com for a listing of fire festivals held throughout the United States. Fest 300 at www.fest300.com lists international festivals—fire and otherwise—by location and category.
Lovecraft’s Providence
H. P. Lovecraft wrote tales of beings from other galaxies so steeped in science, history, and anthropology that they’re believably real. For devotees of horror and science fiction, Providence—which he loved—is a minefield of sacred spots.
- • The author’s birthplace at 454 Angell Street is no more, though you can stand in the vicinity. An honorific to the street can be found in the character of Professor Angell in The Call of Cthulhu.
- • Watching the skies at the Victorian-era Ladd Observatory at Brown University (it opened its slide window in 1891) fueled Lovecraft’s imagination with visions of sticky star spawn.
- • The cemetery adjacent to St. John’s Episcopal Church was one of Lovecraft’s (and Edgar Allan Poe’s) favorite places for contemplation. Plans are in place for using the now-defunct church as a slave trade museum. Spearheading the effort is the Tracing Center (http://www.tracingcenter.org), an organization whose mission is to bring to light an accurate history of the slave trade in the United States.
- • Lovecraft (and again, Poe) called the Athenaeum, with its famous fountain, a favorite writing spot. This library—sacred in its own right because of what it is (and free and open to the public)—was named for the Temple of Athena.
- • Visit the H. P. Lovecraft archive at www.hplovecraft.com/creation/sites/rhode.aspx for a detailed listing of sites associated with Lovecraft, but tread warily. Who knows what you might accidentally piece together or encounter in the narrow streets of Rhode Island’s capital?
the joseph peace hazard memorial garden
Gibson Avenue is a dead-end street in the town of Narragansett, but the dead neither walk nor sleep here, though there is a graveyard. It’s easily missed, though it’s visible from the road, and at first glance it’s pretty unremarkable: only a ring of simple pillars. Go inside and it becomes clear that there’s something more to “Cemetery #3.”
There is a central monument, though only the base remains. The ring, almost thirty feet in diameter, is made of eight pillars of poured concrete, each one about three feet high. Half are convex, while the others are concave. Empty, they would be perfect for offerings and are just the right height for a bit of scrying when they’re filled with leaves and rainwater. In reality, they’re perches and baths—for birds. The assemblage is the work of Joseph Peace Hazard, who built it as a family memorial. It’s called a cemetery, but no one is buried here even though the path off to the right is lined with pillars engraved with the names of several Hazard family members. (For the record, Joseph and some of his clan are interred in the family plot in Rhode Island Cemetery #27 in Portsmouth.) After Joseph’s death the property was earmarked by the family to be made into a bird sanctuary to honor his memory.
The Hazards were one of the wealthiest and eccentric families in the area; the whole clan had a penchant for Spiritualism, so fashionable at the end of the nineteenth century. “Spirits appear to be quite as anxious to communicate with us as we are to hear them,” Joseph wrote in an article he penned for the British spiritualist journal the Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph and British Harmonial Advocate. The memorial he designed and called “Kendal Green” is known affectionately as “the Druid’s Altar,” maybe for a reason. Joseph Peace Hazard had an abiding love for nature and all things ancient and English, and he had a special interest in Druidry. He built his home in the style of a medieval castle (complete with a séance room) and, later, a cottage, Druid’s Dreaming, with a meditation garden in the backyard, where he hoped to further his spiritual pursuits; the castle is now a private school, and the cottage is a bed and breakfast.
The end of the path that leads to the memorial stones is set with a boulder taken from Narragansett Beach. Hazard felt that it looked like a regal seat, but it’s more like a waiting-room couch. Many people call it “the Druid’s Chair.” Ritual space—sacred space—is often an in-between place, a world between worlds. Is the Druid’s Altar, with its stone chair, such a place? It can be. Sit in the chair and take in your surroundings, then enter the circle.
Note: Once you pass South Pier Road on Gibson Road, go down about a half mile and look for the small sign and low stone wall on the right side.
Map Some More Magic
We are just beginning to learn the accomplishments and contributions of Joseph Peace Hazard to magical and spiritual work. The Narragansett Historical Society is in the process of digitizing his ledgers and making them available online.
• https://skplhistory.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/joseph-p-hazard-diary/
Block Island
Thirteen miles off the mainland of Rhode Island is…another island. Isolated by sea and season, Block Island has year-round residents but is a ten-square-mile nature preserve. It is a magical spot that can only be accessed by ferry, boat, or plane.
Dory’s Cove. Sheltered and somewhat isolated, Dory’s Cove is a rare black sand beach. Unlike the volcanic sand you’ll find in Hawaii and Iceland, the dark grains washed up on Dory’s Cove come from placer deposits, which are heavy with iron but also contain tiny pieces of minerals such as garnet, topaz, ruby sapphire, and hematite. The same kind of sand is found by prospectors when panning for gold. The beaches of Block Island, Dory’s Cove in particular, have the greatest concentration of this kind of sand on the East Coast. Collect black sand in a small bottle as a protective amulet; the minerals in the sand will help with balance. Hematite is for protection and strength; iron, power and joy; ruby, healing, protection, and strength; garnet, meditation and peace; sapphire, healing and love; topaz, true love and success.
Mohegan Bluffs. Yankee Magazine called this lonely beach “the best for solitude.” Maybe it’s the 140 narrow steps that you have to climb to get to the top or bottom, and then maneuvering around the innumerable rocks and boulders to reach the sea. The 200-foot cliffs that stretch for about a quarter of the island are named for an epic battle between the Niantic and Mohegan. The bluffs are made of a thick green-gray clay that draws toxins from the skin. Slather it on, visualizing it working as a magnet, drawing out poisons and negativity. Rinse the clay off in the sea, a bath of salt water that will refresh both body and spirit. Cleansed, make a tiny tower of thanks with the stones on the beach for the solitude and scenery afforded by the cliffs; many visitors to Mohegan Bluffs have left such cairns as marks of their presence.
The Sacred Labyrinth. The Sacred Labyrinth on Corn Neck Road was built by island resident Barbara MacDougall and is tended by local people. Only a tiny sign and a steep wooden stile hint at what lies in the seemingly secret grassy circuit overlooking the ocean. For nearly twenty years folks have walked the winding path and told the story of their journeys in notebooks tucked into the mailbox just behind the labyrinth. As you walk, know that you’re not alone: off to the side, a cluster of heads watch intently, guiding, protecting. They’re the work of New York artist Gail Goldsmith and were once a part of the Socrates Sculpture Garden in Long Island City, New York, before they came to live here. Does one speak to you? Name him or her.
Purgatory Chasm
You can hear the water from the little parking lot just off Tuckerman Avenue in Middletown—a hollow, sloshing sound. The ocean is close, though you might not be able to see it when the trees are full and green. The little path that takes you there winds through a little woods, and then you must choose: the little arched bridge or straight to the rock whose edge ends at the sky. The water echoes up from below through a massive crack in the cliff wall; the waves call up from the depths of the chasm, the sound of the sea in a nautilus shell, magnified.
A crevice formed by glaciers and shaped by the sea, Purgatory Chasm is 160 feet high and 50 feet deep. The chasm itself is 8 feet at its narrowest and 14 feet at its widest. Like its namesake, this world-between-worlds is like a doorway—between land and sea, and sea and sky. To stand on the bridge that leads out to the cliff’s edge is to be in a place of in-between, a magical place where anything is possible, and to stand on the rocks themselves on either side is unnerving. It is a place of intense energy.
The site has many legends attached to it: doomed couples threw themselves over the edge. A wealthy heiress who tempted one of her suitors to the last straw by telling him that only leaping over the chasm would prove his devotion was bested when he did the deed—and walked away. She went into mourning for the rest of her life. Folks have called pits in the stones “devil’s footprints.”
Lovers and the devil are common themes in the lore of Purgatory Chasm. In the tarot, both of these Major Arcana cards deal with choices, particularly the freedom to make choices. Purgatory Chasm is a powerful site at which to meditate on these images when you are looking to make a leap of faith. Lay down the Devil card; see the figures chained to the devil, who holds them captive. Ultimately our choices lie with us. Think of what makes you hesitate in making your decision. Write your doubts on a piece of paper and place it on top of the Devil card. Now hold the Lovers card in your hand. What are you certain about? What is it you want to accomplish from taking this chance and risk? Know that you will do the best that you can with the information you have. Ask for guidance on how to overcome your doubts about this decision. Cover the Devil card and slip of paper with the Lovers card. Look at the Lovers when you need a boost in confidence. Carefully burn the paper and blow the ashes into the wind near the chasm.
cumberland Monastery and library
In his classic horror novel The Shining, New England author Stephen King spins a tale about gifted folks who can hear other people’s unspoken words and see the lingering residual energy of things that happened in the past. While troubled energy can shine and make for a good story, so, too, can positivity and peace. Among the books and nooks and reading rooms of the Cumberland Library are the remains of something that was here in the past, whatever the present use.
The Cistercian order of monks was founded by Bernard of Clairveux in France at the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine. When French colonists crossed the sea, the order came in tow, and at the end of the nineteenth century they established a monastery, Our Lady of the Valley, in the town of Cumberland, the first of its kind in the United States. The monks lived very much the same way they had for hundreds of years, self-sufficiently and ascetically. Then, in 1950, tragedy struck when a fire destroyed several of the buildings. While no one was hurt, the monks—sometimes called “Trappists,” as they abandoned the superfluous trappings of the world—were obliged to move. They went north to Spencer, Massachusetts (if you’ve ever come across Trappist brand preserves in the grocery stores, that’s them!)—but the shell of their old digs had another fate.
The library—birthed from that fire like a phoenix—still shines with the gentle simplicity of its previous life. The quiet prayer and simple ways of monks can still be felt in the Gothic doorways, halls, and children’s center, and in stairs to nowhere on the grounds. You might stumble upon it on one of the many walking paths that winds through the woods of the adjacent park and takes you to columns and crosses slowly swallowed by the greening forest: the bones of the past, the foundations of what is to come.
Map Some More Magic
A simple cemented cairn lies quietly in the woods of the monastery grounds. On this spot, nine colonists were killed in 1676 during King Phillip’s War, hence the name of Nine Men’s Misery. It is the oldest veterans’ memorial in the United States.
Find a Veteran’s Memorial
Every state, every city, every town has a memorial in it dedicated to the men and women who serve. Visit www.usa.gov/Federal-Employees/Veterans-Memorials.shtml for a listing of war memorials throughout the country. Find the memorial in your hometown and leave a poppy, the official veteran’s flower, with a word of thanks, then visit www.vfw.org to find ways for giving thanks to those veterans who are still with us.
Stop By for a Spell…
Horn and Cauldron, Church of the Earth is an active Rhode Island–based Wiccan teaching coven. The group was founded in 2009 by Gail Crompton McHugh and based on the Spiral Tree Grove tradition, for the purpose of group study and practice of witchcraft spirituality. Connecting to the cycles of nature and life throughout the Wheel of the Year and the phases of the moon, Horn and Cauldron focuses on the divine mysteries found within the balance of dualities: masculine/feminine, shadow/light, magical/mundane, ordinary/non-ordinary reality. This midsummer ritual comes to us from its high priestess and priest, Gail Crompton McHugh and Darrell Moore.
• www.hornandcauldron.com
Litha “Flaming Wheel” Ritual
at Black Point, Rhode Island
Writings about ancient Celts indicate that midsummer, or Litha, was celebrated with hilltop bonfires. It was a time to honor the space between earth and the heavens. In addition to the polarity between land and sky, Litha is a time to find a balance between fire and water. In many European agrarian societies, children and farmers used to make a wheel from the branches of Yule trees and tie a straw man to the wheel. They would roll the wheel around the village, taking offerings from the villagers and putting all their wishes and desires into the wheel. This was banishing winter and the spirits of the Yule tree, thus making a sacrifice of it and inviting a strong summer for healthy crop growth.
Some European traditions celebrated this time of year by setting large wheels on fire and then rolling them down a hill into a body of water. This practice may have symbolized the sun at its strongest, yet also the day at which it begins to weaken. Some also believed that subordinating the sun wheel to water may prevent drought.
It is a Horn and Cauldron tradition to celebrate the summer solstice by performing this ritual on a well-hidden, stunning cliff above the open waters of Narragansett Bay. We walk along a craggy, wild rose–lined path overlooking the rocky coast, breathing deeply of the rich scent of seaweed and listening to the call of the gulls. From the narrow footpath, we duck into an overgrown, barely visible side trail that takes us to our sacred space on a majestic rocky cliff over the ocean. There we honor the goddess and, today especially, the divine sun god. We acknowledge his essential life force at peak strength, while recognizing that after the solstice his power will begin to wane a bit each day as the Wheel of the Year turns. We set fire to a wheel made of the branches of our most recent Yule tree and roll this flaming wheel down the rock-faced hill and into the ocean below.
It is best to perform this shortened version of our ritual near a body of water. You will need:
- • Simple altar on bright yellow-orange altar cloth laid on ground
- • Large iron cauldron
- • Firewood, tiki torch oil, lighter
- • Sage
- • Clear quartz crystal
- • Offerings to the god (dragon’s blood herb, cinnamon, cedar chips, juniper berries)
- • Wheel made of branches of the coven’s Yule tree
- • Cakes and ale, chalice, offering bowl
Before you begin, cleanse the area you’ll be using of debris such as cigarette butts and trash left by others. Purify the area, call the quarters and deities, and cast sacred space as you normally would, then say:
Today we celebrate Litha, the summer solstice, also known as midsummer by many ancestors. We honor the sun. We honor the earth itself. We stand before the great ocean. Between the sky above and the soil beneath us, we are connected to all. I light this fire as the ancients did so long ago.
Light the fire in the cauldron, then say:
Celebrate the strength and power of the sun and the longest day of the year! After the summer solstice, the light will begin to fade ever so slightly, shortening the days again as the Wheel of the Year turns on and ever on.
Next, make offerings to the gods.
May these offerings show our gratitude, devotion, honor, and dedication to the god and goddess. Celebrate the life and love of the gods of the sun, water, and earth.
Cast your offering into the fire, then consecrate the wheel:
We call upon the strength of the bright god at his strongest. We call upon his heat and light to vanquish all famine and the waters of the goddess to vanquish all drought. May his blessings shine upon this land, bringing peace and plenty. May this wheel be put to flight in his name.
Hold the wheel high and move around the circle, presenting it to each quarter, saying,
Peace and plenty. All famine and drought be vanquished from the four quarters of this land.
Pass the wheel around the circle and allow each participant to hold and charge it with intent…
Everyone, infuse this wheel with your wishes and intentions for the harvest season!
…then light it!
To honor the balance between fire and water. we light this wheel, made of the branches of our Yule tree.
Anoint the wheel with oil and light it carefully. Position the wheel until it is fully aflame, then release it, rolling it down into the water and sending your intentions to the universe with this chant, which is a Pagan chant from a Native American source:
We are one with the infinite sun
For ever and ever and ever…
We are one with the infinite sun
For ever and ever and ever…
When fire and water have joined, consecrate cakes and ale and share them around the circle. After, give thanks and farewells to the deities and the elements, and release the sacred space.
So mote it be.