Cascadia Druids: White Mountain Druid Sanctuary Blog

White Mountain Druid Sanctuary (WMDS) is a Druid inspired Pagan site in Trout Lake, Washington. This blog describes the planning and creation of the Stone Circle, Shrines and physical surroundings that are being built there.

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The Goddess Samona’s Shrine part IV

Throughout the summer at White Mountain Druid Sanctuary, Kirk Thomas has been working on building a Shrine to the Goddess Samona.  She has been identified as the local river goddess of White Salmon River in Washington State. Kirk made a trek up Mt Adams to find the headwaters of her river and came upon a spring that fed into the source of the river.  After some meditating, the name Samona came about. Most likely this entity has always existed - now is just the time we are discovering her. Because she IS the land and water of our geographic area, it seemed imperative to get her Shrine built now so we could make offering of thanks for all that our local environment provides.  (For more detail on this, see this post, http://witchesandpagans.com/pagan-paths-blogs/cascadia-druids/the-goddess-salmona-s-shrine.html).  

 

What follows are several pictures of Kirk’s work getting her Shrine built.  It is almost near completion….

 

Here is how we started.

 

 

 

Then we dug a hole.  (You can see more about this part of the process here, http://witchesandpagans.com/pagan-paths-blogs/cascadia-druids/salmona-s-shrine-part-ii.html)

 

 

 

Next came playing with blocks and rebar.  (You can see more detail about this part of the process from this blog post, http://witchesandpagans.com/pagan-paths-blogs/cascadia-druids/the-goddess-samona-shrine-part-iii.html)

 

 

 

Kirk ran into some trouble this summer due to the extreme heat.  In the afternoon, the stucco dried out too fast so he couldn’t get a full day’s work in doing this.  But before we knew it, the walls were up and the roof was on.

 

Another challenge with this Shrine has been the fountain.  It’s important that there be a flow of water since she is the river goddess.  It turned out getting a pump that was strong enough to pump water under the walkway (like the drawing above) was too troublesome so Kirk went with the wishing well idea.

 

 

Water will run along the rocks in the corner and down to the round wishing well.  

 

Next was time to make it look pretty.

 

 

 

And this is how the Shrine stands as of now.  The heat came into play again here when Kirk was affixing the stones to the fountain.  It took a while to dry so he could only put so many on a day or they would all slip down.

 

Most recently, one of the issues you can’t see is that the beloved mice have chewed through the rubber piping for the fountain so Kirk is replacing that with metal piping.  He cheerfully says that it is better to have them do their busy work now than later so he can fix it before the whole job is complete.

 

The small hole to the left of Samona’s image is a sort of ‘holey stone’.  Kirk will build a couple steps up to it so people can peer toward Mt Adams.  A holey stone has mystical significance as a sort of secret peering into another world.  What will you see when you look through the omphalos of Samona’s Shrine?

 

Lastly, here is a picture of the back of the Shrine.

 

 

 

 

The lighting for the Shrine is solar (which is consistent with all the Shrines).  There is also extra lighting at the top and bottom of the glass relief sculpture so Samona is backlit at night or during dim days.  

 

Next time: The completion of the Goddess Samona’s Shrine, the beginning plans of the Shrine for the Goddess Brigid and the near life size statue of Lleu Llaw Gyffes.

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We are Cascadia Grove of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship (ADF). Our local Grove serves the Puget Sound area. We meet 8 times a year to celebrate the equinoxes, solstices and the cross quarter days (including Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain). We also support the planning and building of White Mountain Druid Sanctuary in Trout Lake WA.

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