Druid has to miss Avebury Solstice
11:00am Friday 17th June 2011 in News
Druid Keeper of the Stones Terry Dobney who traditionally leads a Pagan greeting to the rising sun will be missing from the Summer Solstice celebration at Avebury on Tuesday.
Mr Dobney, 64,who lives in West Kennett and has who has been involved in the solstice celebrations at Avebury for more than 30 years, suffered a stroke and is currently recovering in the Great Western Hospital, Swindon.
There will be restricted camping only at Avebury.
Hilary Makins, the National Trust’s manager at Avebury, said: “Since Avebury is a World Heritage site our options for car parking and temporary campsites are very limited.
“We want people who come to enjoy a peaceful solstice but also to consider using some of the other official campsites nearby and coming to Avebury by public transport.”
There are campsites at Savernake Forest, Devizes and Calne all with bus links to Avebury.
Comments(10)
motherofinvention
says...
1:43pm Fri 17 Jun 11
To my knowledge,living in Avebury and then West Kennet from 1985-2000,Terry was a relative newcomer to the area and no-one but the gullible tourists took his self -appointed role seriously!
motherofinvention
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4:42pm Fri 17 Jun 11
Triton
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6:51pm Fri 17 Jun 11
ChristopherBlackwell
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1:48am Sat 18 Jun 11
Ms K
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6:54am Sat 18 Jun 11
Christmas day before Christianly ever came along was a day for the pagans to celebrate the Winter Festival known has Saturnalia. Wicca’s better known has witches today were accused of a crime randomly and then thrown into water with rocks attached to them, if they survived they were burnt to death at the stake as this was proof that they were evil, and yet if they drown then they were innocent! Throughout history organised religion and politics have caused more wars and loss of life’s then any natural disaster which mother natures may throw at us at times.
Druids dancing around stones, Christians praying in a church, Muslims praying to Allah all have their beliefs and all have good basic human rights, leaders Politicians have all used their religion for war, Tony Blair once said he prayed to God when deciding whether or not to send UK troops to Iraq, which completely disgusted me to use God name in vain to give him the right to be a war monger and send our troops to fight for what! Was he on the frontline, was his children on the front line no I fear not.
Triton
says...
3:58pm Sat 18 Jun 11
ChristopherBlackwell wrote:Oh, come on now. What isn't daft about a middle aged man dressed in bed sheets chanting some incantation whilst dancing around a megalith? You are correct in saying that most (and I would go as far as saying all) religions are a bit daft. I'm sure Anthropologists in 1000 years time will be having a great laugh at our generation of so-called modern Humans who still worship imaginary deities whilst dressed in outlandish attire. We may scoff whilst watching a documentary about African tribes and their rituals but we in the West are just as bizarre - just look what the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was wearing when he conducted the recent Royal Wedding. The whole religion thing and man's need to worship something means we haven't mentally moved on from the stone age yet - well, some of us have moved on anyway!
Nothing daft about being Druid, than being in any other religion. Ever consider that your own beliefs might look daft to others? I can assure you that to most of the world even Christianity might look a bit daft. But I think most of the others would be too polite to ever say it.
magnolia1
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3:37am Tue 21 Jun 11
magnolia1
says...
1:42pm Tue 21 Jun 11
Triton
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5:53pm Tue 21 Jun 11
magnolia1 wrote:I don't feel the need to worship anything - megaliths, trees or made up gods in the clouds or wherever. If we were indeed "created" by a omnipotent being why would he/she/it want us to worship it?
Triton: Are you perchance a self made man that worships his maker? I thought so.
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I find the whole religion thing interesting from an anthropological and philosophical point of view. The bible is the biggest load of twaddle ever written, so much so that dozens of religions have sprung up from this one collection of short stories all claiming to follow the correct path to this "god". I also find it interesting that apparently intelligent people still worship a mystical god that there is zero proof for, indeed scientific fact contradicts most of what is in the bible.
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Bottom line - all we are as Human beings is just another species of animal which has evolved over millions of years on planet Earth to become what we are today. We take ourselves far too seriously in the grand scheme of things and we have become mere parasites upon this planet as we destroy ecosystems, make animals extinct through our greed and self importance.
Granti says...
11:58am Fri 17 Jun 11