"How to Speak to the Earth": Remembering Frank Barney

 I was saddened to learn that Frank Barney, the founder of the Brushwood Folklore Center  in Chautaqua County, New York, passed away.  Frank had suffered from Parkinson's disease for a long time.

"Center" - the Labyrinth at Sirius Rising

How do you celebrate a visionary and brave life that touched so very many other lives? Whose ideas,  planted where he lived in rural New York,  took root and flowered into a place and community for thousands?  I am sure that Frank's family and extended community have found many ways to remember him - this is my own small addition to the "Ancestor Mound".

Sirius Rising Bonfire -
sending prayers with the
"Thunderbird"

Frank and his family over the years, as they did for so many others, gave me a summer Home to return to, year after year,  as well as a warm and generous (and often eccentric)  community to create with in the woods and beauty of his land.   I never told him how much this often lonely wanderer appreciated it.   I feel so fortunate that I could have those "pagan summers" in Western New York, working at the festivals, building my Moss Garden shrine deep in the woods,  spending time with Frank and Darlene  and the  many people who came over the years to celebrate with ecstatic exuberance the land, Gaia, the Goddess and the God, the rising of the Dog star Sirius, the walking of the Labyrinth, the Summer Solstice, the recreation each year of little shrines and gardens at festivals like Starwood,  Sankofa and Sirius Rising, as they created big and little rituals, big and little bonfires, art and performance and music and conversaton...............so much.   Brushwood was a refuge for me, a place of renewal.  

Drum Circle (which often went on all night long)

Brushwood - photo by Theresa Barney

I have posted this interview before, and here do so again, because it was with Frank, I believe in the summer of 2005.  And because what he had to say remains so vitally important - the truth of his roots in nature  that underlay all that he created, under the Celebrations, under the Rituals, under the art.  We were riding through the “village” that bubbles up  out of the ground when the big festivals happen.   It's like I used to feel with the Renaissance Festivals when I worked at them........like Brigadoon, the festivals appear, then  disappear.   I asked Frank what it was like to live with a particular place since childhood, to raise your family there, to grow up within his environment of forests and meadows,  and eventually become  its caretaker and spiritual collaborator.    "How", I asked, "do we speak with the Earth?"

Frank (who was a dowser as his father was) answered my question as he always did in  his own round-about way. He was answering in circles, literally, as we circled the grounds in his golf cart, looking at favorite trees, niches of shrines people had made,  feeling the geomagnetic intensities of various places, the “green breath” of the forest, that watchful "presence" I always feel among the trees.

“Most of the voices of nature are small and delicate,” he told me, “and can easily be silenced. They can be made invisible, or driven underground. And when that happens, people forget that they ever existed at all. Within a short time, they forget what it was like to live in such a rich chorus of voices, among so many stories, intelligences, lives.......and then  they’re living without them in a world that has lost not only that living  population, but also its mystery and vitality. An increasingly flat world with only human voices.  And that is not only a loss, but a peril. “

“If you violate a person, be it a child or an adult, they shut up. You silence them. They withdraw - although, with human beings, the energy of that violence is likely to erupt in some future way, in some future violence. Places, like people and animals, also have voices. Violate a place, like putting a Wal-mart parking lot over it, and all the voices that belong to that place leave.  The land is silenced. ”

“What I've been trying to do” he said, “for the past 30 years is to create a place that can facilitate communion with the Earth. By treating the land with respect, by acknowledging the presence of so many other intelligences, visible and invisible, that are evolving within the immanent cycles of life, right here, on the land. On this land, with all of its uniqueness. "

"And there are different ways we've accomplished that.  For example, because we didn't have much money, we couldn't do what many people do when they acquire a piece of land. Which is to come in with big machines that level and dominate the land, bulldoze it flat, force it to do what they want it do. We didn't have the financial means to do that, even if we wanted to, so Brushwood evolved gradually, organically, according to the dictates of the land, its contours and water ways and bumps and swamps and resources. And also its energy leys and vortices. 

We bring people here who have an earth friendly ethos and mythos. They can feel safe here, they can interact and create and explore without ridicule or hostility. They come here to connect, to play, or to heal. They can do ritual, make things like art or theatre or music, wear masks or costumes, dance, have discussions, make love, get naked in the sun or rain if they like, the children can ride their bikes or play in the mud - they feel safe. So the Earth can speak through them in all the things that they say and do."

'That’s how we talk with the Earth.
 We let the Earth talk through us.”

Erecting the Thunder Bird (2008)
Throughout the week long festival, prayers and intentions were collected,
and deposited in the Thunder Bird "messenger " -  similar to the ancient
Celtic  Lammas rituals  of the burning of the Wicker Man.

The path in the Brushwood woods I walked to sit in my "moss garden". I can see Frank 

walking down it, in my mind's eye, blessing and protecting and opening the way for 

all the people, like myself, who came there.   A true Green Man, showing the Way. 

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow;
I am the diamond glints on the snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain;
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there; I did not die.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

Photos of  Sirius Rising are by, and copyright,  Roy Jones

How Do We Talk With The Earth?

I was very disappointed that circumstances forced me to return to Tucson and I was not able to remain at Brushwood for the festivals as I hoped this year.  I have come there to heal and "talk with the land" for many years, and the land (and people) always inform me of what I need to know.  I feel very fortunate that I could have all those "pagan summers" at the Brushwood Folklore Center in Western New York, working at the festivals, building my Moss Garden shrine deep in the woods,  spending time with my visionary friends Frank and Darlene Barney who created Brushwood, and their daughter Theresa and her husband Dave..........and the many people who have come there over the years to celebrate with ecstatic exuberance the land, Gaia, the Goddess and the God, the rising of the Dog star, the walking of the Labyrinth, the recreation each year of little shrines and gardens, at festivals like Starwood,  Sankofa and Sirius Rising.

For years I've been making works  I ended up calling  "Earth Shrines" or "Earth Icons".   I've made them from bird nests, twigs, and found places that seem to insist on making a little shrine.  The pieces I hang on walls always seem to have roots and eyes woven into the designs.  I finally understand that  the roots represent our inter-dependancy with all other living beings, our deep roots of nourishment in the Earth.  And the  eyes are the presence and intelligence I experience everywhere, the  conversation inherent in the woven fabric of the  entire world, in our bodies, in the trees,  in the slow dance of ecosystems,  in the breath of the sky, in the tendrils and roots that  twine and seek and speak deep under our feet.  

Frank Barney and I had a conversation a number of years ago, and I want to share it again, because it's important.  We were riding through the “village” that seems to bubble out of the ground when the big festivals happen.  It's like I used to feel with the Renaissance Festivals when I worked at them........like Brigadoon, the festivals appear, then gradually  disappear.   I asked Frank what it was like to live with a particular place since childhood, to raise your family there, to grow up within his environment of forests and meadows,  and eventually become  its caretaker and spiritual collaborator.  "How", I asked, "do we learn to  speak with the Earth?"

Frank (who is a dowser as his father was) answered my question as he always does, in his own inimitable round-about way. He was answering in circles, literally, as we toured, looking at favorite trees, niches,  feeling the geomagnetic intensities of various places, the “green breath” of the forest, that watchful "presence" I always feel among the trees.

“Most of the voices of nature are small and delicate,” he told me, “and can easily be silenced. They can be made invisible, or driven underground. And when that happens, people forget that they ever existed at all. Within a short time, they forget what it was like to live in such a rich chorus of voices, among so many stories, intelligences, lives.......and then  they’re living without them in a world that has lost not only that living  population, but also its mystery and vitality. An increasingly flat world with only human voices. “

“If you violate a person, be it a child or an adult, they shut up. You silence them. They withdraw - although, with human beings, the energy of that violence is likely to erupt in some future way, in some future violence. Places, like people and animals, also have voices. Violate a place, like putting a Wal-mart parking lot over it, and all the voices that belong to that place leave.  The land is silenced. ”

“What I've been trying to do” he said, “for the past 30 years is to create a place that can facilitate communion with the Earth. By treating the land with respect, by acknowledging the presence of so many other intelligences, visible and invisible, that are evolving within the immanent cycles of life, right here, on the land. On this land, with all of its uniqueness. "





"And there are different ways we've accomplished that.  For example, because we didn't have much money, we couldn't do what many people do when they acquire a piece of land. Which is to come in with big machines that level and dominate the land, bulldoze it flat, force it to do what they want it do. We didn't have the financial means to do that, even if we wanted to, so Brushwood evolved gradually, organically, according to the dictates of the land, its contours and water ways and bumps and swamps and resources. And also its energy leys and vortices. 

We bring people here who have an earth friendly ethos and mythos. They can feel safe here, they can interact and create and explore without ridicule or hostility. They come here to connect, to play, or to heal. They can do ritual, make things like art or theatre or music, wear masks or costumes, dance, have discussions, make love, get naked in the sun or rain if they like, the children can ride their bikes or play in the mud - they feel safe. So the Earth can speak through them in all the things that they say and do.

That’s how we talk with the Earth.
 We let the Earth talk through us.”

Erecting the Thunder Bird (2008)
Throughout the week long festival, prayers and intentions were collected,
and deposited in the Thunder Bird "messenger " -  similar to the ancient
Celtic  Lammas rituals  of the burning of the Wicker Man.

Photos of  Sirius Rising are by, and copyright,  Roy Jones

Travels Part Two

Super Full Moon reflected in pond at Brushwood on Solstice night

to know the composing of the thread
inside the spider's body
first atoms of the web
visible tomorrow

to feel the fiery future
of every matchstick in the kitchen

Nothing can be done
but by inches.  I write out my life
hour by hour, word by word
imagining the existence
of something uncreated
this poem
our lives

from "Incipience", by Adrienne Rich

 I don't know why I urgently wanted to excerpt from this 1972 poem by Adrienne Rich, except that I did.  It seems to me that traveling partakes of something this poem speaks about,  life lived between "points of departure and arrival", lived by  increments, mile by mile receding and proceeding. 

Stopping for a few weeks now.  The  familiar forest, the cluttered common studio, even the moss garden I made deep in the woods to honor a lightning struck patriarch of an old-growth maple tree, even that remains much the same after 7 years of snow, melt, rain, spring and falls.........I reflect on how we exist in a different frame of time than does the land.  Max, not even born to Teresa when I made that moss garden is now 7, tall and bright and talkative.  Frank, who suffers from Parkinsons, is no longer talkative, and every word he speaks he strains to produce and others strain to hear or comprehend - I remember our conversations in previous years......and I turn away, disturbed, a little ashamed,  not knowing what he thinks behind those tired eyes, not knowing how to communicate anymore.  Here is one who should not be left mute in old age. 

"Stump Service" in Leolyn Wood, Lilydale Spiritualist Community

Travelogue  #2:

I was happy to arrive at Lilydale Spiritualist Village in Chautaqua County, New York, several days before the Summer Solstice, where I stayed for a few days.  I immediately went to walk in Leolyn Woods, an Old Growth Grove that has been preserved there, and is an important place for their "stump services" during the summer season of Lilydale.  For me, it's the true Temple,  the tall trees and deep silence of the wood demonstrating what the entire east coast was once like before it was mostly deforested.  The trees have potency, presencee - it reminds me of the feeling I've had when I was in Muir woods, or among the Sequoias in California.  To walk in an ancient grove like that, feeling keenly the elemental powers, the breath of the world being made there, the trees silent with generations of prayers invested in them.    


Lilydale, like Brushwood Folklore Center in nearby Sherman, is a kind of home to me, and both places embody the unique qualities of Chautauqua County.  I'm not alone in feeling the "burned over zone" is another Vortex area, but fortunately, it's a pretty well kept secret!

Maplewood Hotel in Lilydale

Lilydale is, for anyone who hasn't heard of it, the oldest and largest Spiritualist community in the U.S.  For many summers people have come to this charming town, with it's haunted hotels that boast large paintings presumably manifested by spirits, the Grove with its Stump Services where the mediums come and give impromptu readings, and the beautiful Healing Temple where you can experience hands on healing.   Lilydale offers many workshops, from mediumship development to native American sweat lodges, and many Circles one can join to receive and learn how to share messages from the Spirit World.  Not to mention the crew from "Ghost Hunters", SyFy's long running reality show, who also show up yearly.  Apparently, they feel very comfortable with the mediums.

It's easy for people who know nothing about the beliefs and practices of Spiritualism to call it "Sillydale", but  if you've ever spent time at Lilydale and felt the uplifting energy of the place, you would leave with a different mind.  For myself, I'm hoping I will have time this summer to work with several of the mediums here I respect.

Circle on Lake Cassadega

Memorial stones in Leolyn Wood

Registered medium's home and sign

Stones at pet cemetary

The Stump at Stump Service

And here's a few photos from the beautiful Summer Solstice, which featured a Full Moon this year, in fact, the Moon was its closest to the earth. Real magic.   And with the odd eclectic nature of this rural area, just over the hill the nearest neighbors are an Amish family, their buggy visible from the road when one drives by.   How strange drumbeats in the woods must seem to them.........or maybe not.  Different worlds coexisting here.

Well, it's 115 degrees in Tucson right now, which, no matter how used one is to it, horrifying.  I'm very glad to be here in the green conversation of the Northeast.

Drums in the Woods and dancing the Spiral Dance

Pagan Summers....

"She changes everything She touches,

and everything She touches changes"

I find I still have little to write personally these days, but many dreams that float through my mind while I'm driving the freeways of L.A., longing for green...........perhaps most prominent are fragrant memories of summers at the Brushwood Folklore Center in Western New York, working at the festivals, building my Moss Garden shrine deep in the woods,  spending time with my visionary friends Frank and Darlene Barney who created Brushwood..........and the many people who have come there over the years to celebrate with ecstatic exuberance the land, Gaia, the Goddess and the God, the rising of the Dog star, and Community at festivals like Starwood, and Sirius Rising.

Frank and I had a conversation a number of years ago, riding through the “village” that seems to bubble out of the ground when the big festivals happen.  It's like Brigadoon appearing, then disappearing.   I asked him what it was like to live with a particular place since childhood, to grow up within his environment of forests and meadows, as Brushwood is, and eventually become  its caretaker and spiritual collaborator.  "How", I asked, "do we speak with the Earth?"

Frank answered my question as he always does, in his own inimitable round about way. He was answering in circles, literally, as we toured, looking at favorite trees, feeling the geomagnetic intensities of various places, the “green breath” of the forest.

“Most of the voices of nature are small and delicate,” he told me, “and can easily be silenced. They can be made invisible, or driven underground. And when that happens, people forget that they ever existed at all. Within a short time, they forget what it was like to live in such a rich chorus of voices, among so many stories, and they’re living without them in a world that has lost not only population, but mystery and vitality. An increasingly flat world with only human voices. “

“If you violate a person, be it a child or an adult, they shut up. You silence them. They withdraw - although, with human beings, the energy of that violence is likely to erupt in some future way, in some future violence. Places, like people and animals, also have voices. Violate a place, like putting a 
Wal-Mart parking lot over it, and all the voices that belong to that place leave.”

“What I've been trying to do” he said, “for the past 30 years is to create a place that can facilitate communion with the Earth. By treating the land with respect, by acknowledging the presence of so many other intelligences, visible and invisible, that are evolving within the immanent cycles of life, right here, on the land. On this land, with all of its uniqueness. "

"And there are different ways we've accomplished that.  For example, because we didn't have much money, we couldn't do what many people do when they acquire a piece of land. Which is to come in with big machines that level and dominate the land, bulldoze it flat, force it to do what they want it do. We didn't have the financial means to do that, even if we wanted to, so Brushwood evolved gradually, organically, according to the dictates of the land, its contours and water ways and bumps and swamps and resources. And also its energy leys and vortices. 

We bring people here who have an earth friendly ethos and mythos. They can feel safe here, they can interact and create and explore without ridicule or hostility. They come here to connect, to play, or to heal. They can do ritual, make things like art or theatre or music, wear masks or costumes, dance, have discussions, make love, get naked in the sun or rain if they like, the children can ride their bikes or play in the mud - they feel safe. So the Earth can speak through them in all the things that they say and do.

That’s how we talk with the Earth. We let the Earth talk through us.”

Erecting the Thunder Bird (2008) 

Throughout the week long festival, prayers and intentions were collected, and 
deposited in the Thunder Bird "messenger "

Photos of  Sirius Rising 2008 are by, and copyright,  Roy Jones