Swinside and Sighthill in Stellarium

I’ve just made two new stone circle landscapes for Stellarium, the free planetarium software. It’s been quite a while since I created a Stellarium landscape, and I’d forgotten quite how much fiddling around was involved. It does become quite time-consuming, but it’s very satisfying when you do get it to work. This time round, I used two programs that I hadn’t used before, and I actually found the process much easier than previous attempts. There are two main parts to making a landscape – the first is to create a panoramic image from a series of photographs taken from the … Continue reading Swinside and Sighthill in Stellarium

A Labyrinth For Glasgow

(and a stone circle too!) There have been some considerable developments to Glasgow City Council’s plan to redevelop Sighthill park into an athlete’s village for the 2018 Youth Olympics. Having lost their bid to host the event, the athlete’s village idea has been abandoned but the Council are still planning to proceed with a housing development in the area, necessitating the removal of the stone circle. However, largely as a result of pressure from the community and discussions between circle builder Duncan Lunan and the Council, a compromise agreement has been reached whereby the circle will be removed and reconstructed … Continue reading A Labyrinth For Glasgow

Touchstones for Today

Touchstones for Today – Designing for Earth Harmony with Stone Arrangements by Alanna Moore The subtitle of this new book by Alanna Moore is ‘Designing for Earth Harmony with Stone Arrangements’, but it could equally well be ‘Everything You Need to Know About Stones’, such is the range of the subject matter. This is an updated and greatly expanded version of her 2005 book ‘The Magic of Menhirs & Circles of Stone’. The first part of the book looks at the traditional uses of stones and stone formations in cultures around the world, from the healing (and cursing) stones and … Continue reading Touchstones for Today

Saving Sighthill Stones

The Sighthill Stone Circle is a modern astronomically-aligned stone ring that was designed and built in 1979 under the direction of local astronomer and SF writer Duncan Lunan. It is situated in the centre of Glasgow right next to the M8 motorway, and is almost certainly the first astronomically-aligned circle built in Scotland for over 3000 years (I have blogged about it before here and here). When I first dowsed the circle many years ago, it looked pretty neglected and I was unable to dowse any earth energies of interest within it. All ancient stone rings (as well as many … Continue reading Saving Sighthill Stones