Search This Blog

Welcome to Quarry Hill's Blog!

Quarry Hill Creative Center in Rochester, VT, founded 1946 by Barbara and Irving Fiske, is Vermont's oldest alternative community and at one time was probably also its largest. In the 60s -80s, as many as 90 people lived here.
It was and is visited each year, often in summer (but in every season, really) by visitors from all over the world.
We welcome interesting and creative people who are peaceful, bring no weapons, don't believe in hitting children or killing animals, and enjoy the beauty of Vermont and of themselves.

Most of us do not adhere to any particular dogma or religion, though many do find Eastern philosophy closest to our own thought (some of us are also members of the Quakers/Society of Friends).
We value the individual, particularly people who are energetic and have a sense of humor.
Visitors are welcome-- and prospective residents, too. There are some places for rent, others for sale. If interested, get in touch!
And, please follow the Blog and comment whenever you like!

"The symbol is the enemy of the reality, and the reality is ever one's true guide, true friend, true companion, and true self." Irving Fiske, 1908-1990

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

December 2016

It is the beginning of Winter.
Do Thanksgiving, Christmas and other festivals come at the  early part of Winter because it is so difficult to accept, at least in a cold region, that the last golden leaf is gone? The icy, slippery bars of winter are closing in, so we decorate them with holly and pine, and let the light face. The astrologers and the Gaia mystics and many others call this the most profound time of the year, stick season (though now the snow is coming), the time of inner turning.

I could do without it, since as a child I was almost always long gone... no, always gone, as far as I remember, before the depths of winter came. I do remember leaving here among snow and ice but I think (could this be so?) that these colder times came at an earlier moment in the year. Or were we here in early December? 
C/S. Lewis' phrase about "always Winter, never Christmas" keeps coming to mind. Though Christmas is definitely racing down upon us with its demands to buy things. One good thing, when all the hullaballoo is gone, and Christmas is past, the year will have turned back toward Spring again.

I have to put up the bird feeders. Animals suffer for our carelessness... and for much more, as Facebook reminds me every day with its images of dogs shot and buried alive... I can't think about  it at the moment but every day, I try, as do so many others, to staunch the bleeding wounds created by vile psychopaths (I fear some are children) who damage animals as a way of... what?
Evoking the pain they feel (or don't feel)?

Laws, I fear, need to be a lot more ferocious and thoroughly looked into and enforced to help animals. For years I tried just to keep children from being hit and slapped and beaten... they too are suffering.

"She had always known that all things suffered."
-- Vina Delmar, Beloved

No comments:

Post a Comment