SWCAMBORNE

Last night I was trying to impress my relatives by showing them photos of my henges and telling them about clonehenge.com. At the same time Christine was impressing everyone by carrying a bag of a few dozen knitted bears that were being given to charity. At the end of the evening we built one trialith with three of the bears. This morning I woke up with a brilliant idea. I’ll get some of the knitters I know to knit grey stones another to a green carpet and voilà. Knit Henge. It will be magnificant. And will certainly win the clonehenge contest.
The synthesis of henges and knitting is definetly “out of the needle” thinking for both activities.

I was helping my nephew Matt move a couch last week.  And passed a Monterey style home on Indian Hill Blvd in Claremont, CA that had a mini-henge.

After delivering the couch I of course circled back to take some pictures.  The house is a classical tile roofed Monterey  with a dramatic ten foot trilithon and a very mysterious hitching stone in front.

The hitching stone in the parkway has large iron bolt and what appears to be an ancient Anasazi snail design.

The single trilithon is a beauty.

Well done.

“No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married more than a quarter century.”

Mark Twain

Well while I dithered a couple of brilliant people have started Clone Henge.  The site focuses on henges around the world.  They found me through Flickr and featured our post about Laptop Henge.

Carrothenge by Rachel B

I am adding them to my blog roll and I highly recommend their posts on:

• Foam Henge
• Bamboo Henge
• and Pez Henge

Maryhill, Washington

Here is a second order idea.  How about a henge of henges?

I made a list of henge ideas a few years ago that I never posted.  Its still in my pending list of blog posts.  I did suggest some Microhenges.  The list could be submitted to the virtual henge web site mentioned on clonehenge.

And finally, I promise, a word about henge etymology.  Stonehenge is not called Stone henge.  It is about the spaces.  To be etymologically correct Clonehenge should not be called Clone henge.  In fact I will take a bold stand on this issue if it has a space (ie pez henge) it is not a henge.

BTW Etymology is the study of word usage.  Entomology is the study of insects.  Grasshopperhenge?

Here are two more examples of mysterious structure.

Flotsam and jetsam (I don’t know the difference and neither do you) have been been put on a piece of driftwood in the middle of a beautiful Caribbean beach.

Stone piles have been built in Eaton Canyon Park in Pasadena.  These piles are near where the trail that leads to the waterfall and Henninger Flats crosses the stream

and are being built by school groups.  I admit to building some of them a few weeks ago when I first had this idea  just to see if they would become self perpetuating.  Within a week of my building four or five piles there were a dozen more.  Last week I observed a school group on a tour from the nature center.  The leader of the group asked the students to help build the “guiding stones.” And they did.

Building monuments like henges, pyramids and totem poles is the penultimate example of the harnessing of this human instinct to create mysterious structures.  The fairy homes, rock piles and driftwood collections I have shown are evidence that this instinct is common in people and can be harnessed by group leaders.  So if you are leading a group and are charged with keeping them busy, make up a story about ancient peoples or fairies and have the group use found materials to build homes or trees or stone piles.  It sounds crazy but it will work.