The 250-acre church nurturing faith and free spirits in the foothills of Pennsylvania
In its 300-year history as go-to haven for religions on the run — the Quakers, the Amish, the Huguenots — it is unlikely that Pennsylvania has attracted a community as colorful, and spiritually diverse, as the Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary.
Hidden in the state’s southern foothills, the sanctuary bills itself as a “safe and sacred ceremonial space for the modern practice of ancient religion.” An eclectic, 250-acre oasis, it includes a Native American Sweat Lodge, drum and dance circle, hilltop labyrinth, dozens of altars for worship and hundreds of campsites. And at its spiritual center, the Allegheny’s answer to Stonehenge — 47 multi-ton stones semi-circling an open-air altar. The stones were all raised by hand and are still growing by two stones a year thanks to a three-day, sweat-filled, community-wide tug of war called “Stones Rising.”
There are a half-dozen or so full-time residents of the sanctuary who live under monastic vows of poverty and service, but their community of support swells into the hundreds for their many Earth-religious ceremonies, such as Beltaine, Samhain and Yule. Though the variety of faiths on display at Four Quarters can appear disparate — members’ religious roots range from Afro-Caribbean and Neopagan, to Gaian and Druidic — they are nearly all nature-based, putting these forested foothills at the center of their spirituality.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2015/05/06/the-250-acre-church-nurturing-faith-and-free-spirits-in-the-foothills-of-pennsylvania/