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You are designing a ritual to be enacted around a standing stone. The ritual includes three constituent parts:

• A round-dance around the standing stone.
• Crowning the standing stone with a circlet of flowers.
• Pouring a libation over the standing stone.

What does a standing stone do?

Raised in 2021, the Bull Stone stands at Sweetwood Temenos, a pagan land sanctuary in southwestern Witchconsin's legendary Driftless Area. Born in the bed of an inland ocean, old before dinosaurs walked the Earth, the six-foot, one ton slab of karst limestone is the standing stone that I know best.

So what does the Bull Stone do?

Its long axis aligns with the Sun, pointing to the places on the horizon where the Sun rises and sets on the day of the Winter Solstice.

Its short axis aligns with Earth: with both a notch on the southern horizon, some two miles distant, where two ridges come together and, to the north, with the sanctuary's Grand Circle.

What does a standing stone do? Easily told.

A Tale of Avebury

In the days of King Ethelred the Unready, a priest was sent to the village of Avebury in Wiltshire to build a church. This priest's name was Willibrord.

Now, this village stands within the great henge of Avebury, the world's largest stone circle. Though the villagers were Christians of a sort, they were not sanguine about Willibrord's project.

“The Stones won't like it,” they said.

(Th' Stons wont lahk't was what they actually said. Willibrord was a foreigner, a Frisian, and often found these English stubborn, and difficult to understand.)

“Nonsense,” he said. “These old pagan stones should all be thrown down, anyway. They are mere, dumb earthfast stones; they have no true power.”

He picked out a fine spot for his new church at the crossing of the two roads that meet at the center of the Stones. Since the villagers refused him even the slightest assistance, he was forced to bring in workers from elsewhere, at great expense.

But day after day, their work proved fruitless. Each morning, newly-arrived at the site, they would find the work of the previous day cast down.

“The Stones don't like it,” said the villagers.

“This is the work of demons,” said Willibrord.

The outlander priest prayed every prayer in the prayerbook, and sprinkled holy water by the gallon, all to no avail. Day after day, the builders' work was nightly undone. For more than a year, this went on.

Finally, priest Willibrord conceded defeat. Today, when you visit the Great Henge of Avebury, 5000 years old and more, you will see there also the 1000-year old Saxon church of St. James where it now stands, just outside those old pagan Stones and their monumental ditch.

All over Christendom, tales are told of churches that stand where they do because demons cast down the original walls.

Here, said the standing stone.

Now, said the standing stone.

Here now, said the standing stone.

Me, said the standing stone.

You, said the standing stone.

We, said the standing stone.

Stand, said the standing stone.

Circle, said the standing stone.

Dance, said the standing stone.

American Menhir

At Sweetwood Sanctuary in southwestern Wisconsin, a circle of pagans stand hand-in-hand around the Bull Stone, silent.

Silent pagans. Fancy that.

Silent, maybe, to listen.

Silent, maybe, for not-knowing.

Silent, maybe, from awe.

Nothing is more awesome than the real.