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.
Cernunnos Shrine Part 1
The building of the Shrine to Cernunnos was started in the summer 2016. But before that, we started raising money for it. In the fall of 2015, we did an Indiegogo campaign that had 26 backers and raised $3435.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cernunnos-shrine--3/x/11422658#/
If we pay contractors to build an entire Shrine, it costs $25k. In this blog and the next couple, I’m going to show the details of what it takes to build a structure that will last through time and almost any kind of weather. Because we needed to raise more money, we did a second Indiegogo campaign about a year later. It raised $660 and had 7 backers. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cernunnos-shrine-ii/x/11422658#/
As you can see, this does not add up to $25k. We’ve done two things to make the Shrine still happen. The first was to build an ongoing campaign to raise money for White Mountain Druid Sanctuary itself. We set that up through Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/wmds
We are earning about $130 a month due to three awesome patrons. We need more, so if you are moved by what you see here, please contribute. :)
The second was for Kirk to learn how to build a Shrine himself. The first step in this process was to dig and fill the foundation.
Site of Cernunnos Shrine looking East at the Stone Circle
Above you can see where they dug the hole. Below is the rebar that will hold the concrete in place.
Rebar in foundation of Cernunnos Shrine
After the rebar was in place, came the concrete.
Foundation of Cernunnos Shrine with concrete foundation in place
After the concrete dried, Kirk and friends started to place the concrete blocks that make up the wall.
Planning out the placement of the concrete blocks
After placing some of the blocks, then Kirk (blue/orange shirt) and Bob (green shirt) would pour concrete into the holes with rebar. At about this time, we placed an offering to Cernunnos into one of the holes of the concrete. It was a bottle of Deschutes Black Butte Porter and a silver. The silver was chosen because Cernunnos is an Underworld god so metals from within the earth are from his domain and it was "worked" by human hands showing attention and gratefulness towards him and the Sacred Dead of the Underworld. We think this was a common practice that the ancients did when building their Shrines too.
First few rows of wall of Cernunnos Shrine
By the end of day two of placing the blocks, they had gotten nine bricks high. “Grade” was at the 5th level.
Cernunnos wall
After stacking more bricks and repeating the process with putting concrete into the holes with rebar, the wall looked like this.
Kirk with the concrete blocks complete for Cernunnos Shrine
The concrete circle at Kirk’s feet is the foundation for the fire altar.
Next time: Part 2 of building the Cernunnos Shrine
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