All in Art and Culture

Truffle Hunting in Alba, Italy: Tasty, tricky and sometimes tense.

Fyllis Hockman
Art and Culture, Culinary Travel, cultural immersion, travel essay

by Fyllis Hockman

The dog's tail wagged impatiently. Lady -- a small, nondescript, white and brown mutt -- raced ahead to the oak tree, sprinted back and forth, nose thrust into the ground, then triumphantly started digging with gusto. Looking up with an air of satisfaction, Lady was handsomely rewarded before her master carefully scraped the loosened dirt with his pick. The five visitors observing the ritual looked on expectantly. Using his fingers to gingerly explore further, the truffle hunter delicately removed his treasure: a large, walnut-size white truffle, one of the epicurean riches of Alba, a gem of a city in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy.

Okay, let me just say that up to now the closest I had come to a truffle was in a Whitman’s Sampler box and it was covered with chocolate. And I’m pretty sure it had never been routed out by a dog. This truffle hunting is a respected art form in Alba, and proper training of the dogs is at its heart. Any breed can aspire to the job, but selection depends upon its resume. It must have a good nose (a trait the dogs presumably share with the region's prestigious wines), and trainers can ascertain that after three days. Once the dogs show promise, they attend the Barot University of Truffle Hunting Dogs, in operation since 1880, for two to three months of specialized training. Graduate school is optional.

Now let's talk truffles. Sure, to the uninitiated, it may just be a foul fungus, but to the gourmand, it represents the ultimate in gastronomic delights. It is judged by size, color, shape, texture, aroma - some would say offensive olfactory onslaught; others, fragrance of the gods -- and its overall perfection. There's a lot to be said for this smelly little mushroom.

A Musical Journey Through Spain

Jessica Kitt
Art and Culture, Personal essay, cultural immersion, travel essay

by Jessica Kitt 

When I moved to Barcelona, my knowledge of Spanish music was as narrow as that of most expats travelling to Spain:  flamenco, castanets, and … flamenco? However, as my two-year journey throughout the country proved, there is a lot more to Spanish music than just flamenco. My first partial relief of ignorance came from a student I was teaching from the region of Asturias in the North of Spain. After about the first year of teaching British English classes in Spain, I developed a certain odd nostalgia for home and my Irish heritage.

Coming from quite a traditional background, with a family of musicians and Irish dancers, I was used to being surrounded by all things Irish. Frequently, I took to listening to my father and uncle’s traditional Irish band on my MP3 player before bed. One day, during a class with my Asturian student, I indulged in a discussion about Irish music and all the “exotic” instruments we had from uilleann pipes (Irish bagpipes) to bodhrans (hand held drums). During this discussion, my student informed me that the music of both Asturias and Galicia in the North is Spain was surprisingly similar to both Irish and Celtic music. I promptly downloaded some of this music and was shocked by how similar it was. 

Traditional Asturian drummers and pipers. Photo by austinevan via flickr ccl.

This similarity between Irish and Northern Spanish music was again proven to me when I travelled to the North of Spain to work on an organic farm for a month.

Medellin, Colombia: Dance Capitol of My Heart

Paul Ross
Art and Culture, Photo Essay, cultural immersion, travel essay

story and photos by Paul Ross

“I would do anything for love, but I won’t
             dance, don’t ask me.”
                                -Meatloaf & Fred Astaire

I’m an American baby boomer who doesn’t dance. It was an awkward social activity for a lot of guys in my generation and the excuse for not doing so was that I was always playing in bands –for other people’s dancing. The story is plausible because it’s partly true.  But, somehow, there I was, salsa’ing mi cola off at midnight in Medellin, Colombia.

Salsa dancers, Medellin, Colombia.

         HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Flashback ––

         Arriving in the capital city, Bogota, in search of stories with my wife and travel partner Judie, Chef Sofia Samper whisked us like compliant egg whites off to a large local market. There she shopped for select delicacies to be incorporated into a custom lunch at her cooking school/restaurant. Music thumped in the background throughout the marketplace.

         During the subsequent lesson in Colombian cuisine at trendy Casa 95, Chef Sofia danced around her kitchen to an infectious Latin beat. And I began tapping my toe.

All That Money Can Buy?

Paul Ross
Art and Culture, Lifestyle, travel

story and photos by Paul Ross 

I suppose that, like most people, topping my “What if..?” fantasy list is the question, “What if I had a lot of money?”–So much money, that not only would I not have to worry about it, I would never even have to think about what I spent. What would I do with those kinds of assets? Support charities? Fund politicians? Gamble (and I include the stock market)? Or just buy a lot of stuff? And what form might the purchasing take? I already travel, so-- Cars? Clothes? Jewelry? Boats and planes? Art? 

$9500 bottle of wine.

In this last category, I had a chance to see what that indulgence might look like at the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in the Laurel Highlands region of Pennsylvania. Grillionaire Joseph A. Hardy made megabucks through 84 Lumber, his building supply chain store. I didn’t meet the man but, from what I heard, what I saw in images of him scattered throughout the expansive property and the nature of the complex itself, I got an impression: big, brash, determined, impulsive, self-motivated, assured beyond surety, independent and generous; in short, a real American. Let me paint the picture for you from what I experienced. See if you get the same mental image.

Finding Mario Bollag

Michael Housewright
Art and Culture, Culinary Travel, Off-the-beaten path destination, travel essay

story + photos by Michael Housewright

Brunello di Montalcino is perhaps the finest wine produced in Italy. It is made entirely from Sangiovese grapes, grown just outside the hilltop town of Montalcino, in Tuscany. It was the first wine I ever loved.

I met Mario Bollag  at a wine bar I curated in Houston, Texas. He spoke impeccable English, and was easily the most charming winemaker I had met in all my years in the business. In addition, he made outstanding Brunello at his winery, Terrlasole.  We hit it off immediately, talked, and tasted wine for several hours. He invited me to visit him and the winery as soon as I could make my way overseas.

Less than two months after Mario’s visit to Houston, I took him up on his offer, and went to Italy. With my wife in tow, and a rental Volkswagen Golf procured, we set out from Rome airport in search of Mario Bollag.  Being a frequent traveler to Italy I assumed finding Mario in tiny Montalcino would be a cakewalk. I was wrong.

Standing at the top of the Man-Made World

Jolandi Steven
Art and Culture, travel essay

by Jolandi Steven

The Arabian music and lights are soft and atmospheric, conjuring up wild desert landscapes in my imagination: falcons frozen on invisible air currents, the loping gate of a camel transporting exotic spices in the blazing heat of late summer, rolling rust-red dunes forming an undulating sea of sand, a Bedouin tent shimmering mirage-like in the softening colours of sunset. The music falls squarely in the category of elevator music, appropriately playing in a parcel-sized space that doesn’t seem to be moving, despite the digital numbers on the display screens that are hopping and skipping playfully over entire floors, teasing and tormenting my eyes. Before long, the elevator that makes the longest travel distance in the world, and travels at a speed of up to 10 metres per second, effortlessly glides to a graceful stop. Polished steel doors slide open with what sounds like a barely audible sigh. Twelve people step out on level 124.


It has taken less than a minute to reach our destination, despite the sludge-like queue that imprisoned us at the bottom for over an hour. Only a couple of handfuls of the 28, 261 glass panels that clad this marvel of engineering shield me from empty space and certain death. The sheer glass walls inexplicably negate my usual fear of heights, and I am irresistibly drawn to them. Pressing my palms and nose against the cold glass, I try to imagine the ant-like bodies of the 12,000 workers that scurried around during the height of its six year construction. I feel small and insignificant. A coward cocooned by a glass case. I gaze out towards an imagined city built out of Lego blocks. Nothing feels quite real from this height.

Song for Phil Spector

Judy Dolores Fox
Art and Culture, Loss, Personal essay, life

by Judy D. Fox

While growing up, my parents traveled between Los Angeles and Nashville three and four times a year. Living in rented houses or apartments, the four of us kids weren’t allowed to have any toys or possessions that wouldn’t fit in the car. Our clothing and bedding would be tied up in sheets and placed in the back seat and trunk of our car. The oldest child, I would often climb up into the back window. There, I would listen to the hum of the engine, make up songs and watch the sky for UFO’s. These things helped take my mind away from the thoughts of emptiness.

notes on a wire

One Friday afternoon in late spring of ‘58 in Echo Park, California - at age seven - I was babysitting my younger brother and sister in my father’s sedan while my parents shopped. We were parked behind the Pioneer Market on Sunset Boulevard. As usual I sang songs to pass the time.

On the playground that school year I learned some clapping songs. (For example, a sailor went to sea, sea, sea, etc.) As I made up the lyrics, my mind was on the cute, blonde-haired boy who recently moved next door. Even though he hadn’t shown any interest in me, I had developed a big crush. So, as thoughts of him crept into my clapping rhythms, these words emerged:

Fish and Friendship in Tokyo

Fish and Friendship in Tokyo

Jules Older
Art and Culture, Personal essay, cultural immersion, exotic travel, life, travel essay

by Jules Older

On our last visit to Japan:

  •  An American businessman told me, “A bunch of hippies got together for three days and took drugs.” He was talking about Woodstock.
  •  We looked out the window of our ryokan and gazed upon a 13th-century pagoda. On the television in our traditional Japanese room, man was taking the first steps on the moon.
  •  And our twin daughters were conceived on a futon in Tokyo.

*  *  *

It was to Tokyo we were returning, decades later. Our friends – Eipan and Hirame, Eiichi and Hiroko – still lived there, and it was way past time to re-une. And we wanted to see the city we’d been so taken with all those years before. How had it changed? How had it not?

When I tell Hirame on the phone that I’m looking for changes, she says, “Expect to see a lot of blonde Japanese.”

I chuckle. “Not your daughters, I bet.” Despite his years as a grad student (and my roommate) in New York, Eipan is very traditional, a samurai businessman with a 6th degree black belt in Judo. I can hear Hirame’s quiet smile all the way from Tokyo. “They’re brown-hair Japanese.” 

It doesn’t take long to spot other changes, other sames. First stop on the bus trip in from the airport is the La Floret Hotel. As the bus doors open, a young woman in a sharply pressed uniform bows deeply. Score one for the same. On the other hand, where the massive hotel – and dozens like it – now stand, there used to be only small shops. The Tokyo skyline has pushed skyward.

At our friends’ home, there’s a similar mixture. We still take off our shoes at the door, but Hirame greets us with a kiss, not a bow. The ofuru, the ubiquitous Japanese hot tub, still awaits, only now it’s kitted out with bubbles, programmable water jets and digital temperature controls that can be operated from the kitchen.

Getting Potted in Minnesota

Getting Potted in Minnesota

Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
Art and Culture, Personal essay, travel essay

by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde

“Hi, son, do you need any pots?”  I asked my son on the phone.  I was standing on a hillside in the beautiful St. Croix River Valley.  Dark clouds dropped cold, almost icy, droplets on us one minute; the sun shone the next.  We were bundled up against the cold spring weather we had not anticipated when we headed up to the Minneapolis area for the annual St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour over Mothers’ Day weekend.  Wooden planks which spanned sawhorses were the simple palette for a varied display of handmade ceramic pots.   

Pottery for sale on the hillside outside Guillermo Cuellar's studio overlooking the St. Croix Valley.

My son replied quickly to my inquiry.  “No, Mom, I don’t need any pots…And you don’t either!”  He was probably right, but he was talking to a confirmed pot head. My husband Michael and I love ceramics, and it had taken us years to get to the pottery tour. We’d known about the Minnesota potters for a long time. Warren Mackenzie, American pioneer studio potter, taught at the University of Minnesota for a long time and inspired many students with his simple, functional, affordable pieces. We’d admired his work, read books about him and had managed to acquire a few of his pieces over the years.

Was it necessary for us to buy another pot by Warren MacKenzie or any other accomplished potter?  To tell the truth, necessity hasn’t entered into our pursuit of fine handmade pottery since back in the late sixties when we bought our first pieces at the Ann Arbor Artist Guild sales. In more than forty years of marriage, pottery has been a passion for both of us.

PHOTO ESSAY: Myanmar by Longtail, Trishaw and Tuk-Tuk

Paul Ross
Art and Culture, Off-the-beaten path destination, Photo Essay, adventure travel, cultural immersion, exotic travel, travel

story and photos by Paul Ross        

Getting to Myanmar (Burma) is a trip, but getting around while in-country can be an adventure.  

During 18 days of travel, we rode in human-pedaled trishaws, rickety horse-drawn carriages, vintage trains, and boats of every imaginable size, shape and color. Squeezed into crowded truck-busses, we joined indigenous commuters, and used the smattering of Burmese phrases we picked up along the way to interact and become part of their day. In turn, they became part of our memories. 

Much more than transportation, these conveyances provided an intimate glimpse of everyday life, a profound sense of place, and an authentic connection to this rapidly changing country.

Traveling with Eldertreks, an adventure travel company for travelers 50 and older, my wife, Judie, and I were able to step outside the tourist bubble and travel with the locals.  

Here's the visual proof. 


An old converted bicycle, with its five-inch seat not constructed with wide-beamed Americans in mind,  and a bumpy dirt road make for a colorful experience, especially if you add in the black and blue marks on your backside. The peddler/driver's friend rode along, balancing on the bike's peg, as either a human GPS or a spare "engine."  Far from "the days of Raj" luxury (the Brits colonized Myanmar as well as India), the trishaw is a practical taxi in a bustling, developing country and ––like all taxis everywhere–– it's best to negotiate the fare in advance of the trip. You want to help the local economy but--

When You Wish Upon A Mound...

When You Wish Upon A Mound...

Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
Art and Culture, Historic Travel, Off-the-beaten path destination, Personal essay, Sacred Places

by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde

 

She was so vivacious and charismatic that I went up and introduced myself after the talk she gave.  When I told her I was from St. Louis, she immediately asked, “Have you ever been to Cahokia Mounds?”  “Well, my kids went on school trips... I’ve been meaning to go since they built the new visitor’s center...,” I muttered my reply.  “You have to go,” she urged.  “It’s one of the most wonderful, inspiring Native American sites in all of North America.  Promise me you’ll go.”  “Sure,” I said.

 

I met Judie in October 2009 when she spoke at a retreat for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College at the lovely Tamaya Resort north of Albuquerque.  Judie and I had an instant rapport, and, when we met for lunch in Santa Fe a week or so later, she again pressed us to go to Cahokia Mounds.  Again we promised.  But life intervenes, and by the time we returned to Santa Fe the following summer and called Judie to get together, we still hadn’t gone.  

Border Crossing

Nancy King
Art and Culture, Life Lessons, Personal essay

Everything was working out well. I crossed the Canadian border and passed through customs with no problems, reunited with friends I hadn’t seen in seven years, and prepared to meet my students—teachers who wanted to learn creative ways to teach literature.

The seminar coordinator was smiling, assuring me that the paper, pens, pencils, fingerpaints, and clay were all set up. She led me to the room where fifteen eager participants sat around U-shaped tables, waiting, ready to begin the first of four seminars. 

Then I saw her.

Revelations at a Convent

Revelations at a Convent

Kristine K. Mietzner
Art and Culture, Life Lessons, Personal essay, Religion, Spirituality, Transformational Travel

by Kristine Mietzner 

 

When I walked through the tall wooden doors of the Santa Sabina Center, thirty minutes north of San Francisco, I hoped for rest and revelations about what was next in my life. The former convent is tucked away in San Rafael among oaks and eucalyptus, and it is a place for quiet, contemplation, and meditation. Exactly what I needed.


On that rainy May weekend, I sought a break from navigating the litigious end of a long marriage. I was a sailor caught in a storm of emotions, seeking a safe harbor. No talking, just a place to take my tired self to bind my wounds, shed disappointments, and release anger. 

Just as I was falling into bed in a room that once housed Dominican novitiates, my cell phone rang. Why was I getting a call at 9:30 p.m. from the father of my children? I jumped to the fear that my son or daughter might be hurt, so I answered the phone. Big mistake. 

The kids were okay but he, an attorney, wanted to talk about our unsettled property issues. I didn’t. I referred him to my attorney. Before we hung up, I said, “Don’t call me again this weekend.” Sighing, I turned off the phone. 

Then I berated myself. How foolish could I be? I knew better than to take a call from my ex-husband while on a spiritual retreat. 

I stopped myself from a bitter downward spiral by recalling that the marriage had had its good years. We were blessed with two incredible children. I found some compassion for myself. It was okay that I answered the phone and besides, I had ended the call quickly.

Opening the window, I inhaled the eucalyptus-scented air, listened to the soft, steady rainfall whispering in the night, and reflected on how far I’d travelled in my post-marriage years. 

Right from the beginning of the unraveling of my marriage, I knew that forgiveness would unlock the door to my new life, but finding the key proved challenging. How could I forgive someone I perceived as trying to take advantage of me?

Have a Happy Crappy Christmas Catalonia-Style

Have a Happy Crappy Christmas Catalonia-Style

Elyn Aviva
Art and Culture, Current Events, Lifestyle, Religion, cultural immersion, holiday tradtions, travel essay

by Elyn Aviva

 

Bon Nadal and Feliç Any Nou! That’s Catalan for Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

It’s the holiday season in my home town, Girona, Catalonia, and things aren’t quite what you might expect. Yes, there are the familiar ho-ho-ho Santa Claus figures dangling from buildings, and three-foot-high Christmas trees with matching pink and purple ribbon decorations are lined up outside stores on the main shopping streets.

There are brilliant-colored lights strung across the avenues, and a glittering conical abstraction of a Christmas tree pulses on and off in the Plaza de Catalunya. Christmas carols (sometimes in English) echo through the halls, the beauty salons, and the restaurants, and carolers emote as they stroll down the pedestrian Rambla, songbooks in hand. Flame-red poinsettias are for sale in the market, and school-club fundraisers hawk chocolate bars and handmade knickknacks. And there’s the cheery Firanadal (Christmas Fair) offering artisanal goods, felt slippers, jewelry, plastic toys, and boxwood spoons.

Yes, all of this is vaguely familiar, even if gigantes (giant dancing king and queen figures), a marathon Nativity play (Els Pastorets), xuixus (pronounced “choochoos”: sugar dusted, cream-filled pastry rolls), and turrón (a kind of nougat) aren’t usual Christmas fare.


But you really know you’re in a foreign land when you seen the rows of squatting miniature figures—including SpongeBob SquarePants, flamenco dancers, Obama, Barça soccer star Messi, Queen Elizabeth II, and Death—their pants pulled down, a brown plop of poop deposited behind them, for sale for inclusion in Nativity scenes. Correction: the plop of poop behind Death is white, not brown. 

What If Something Happens?

What If Something Happens?

Sally Mckinney
Art and Culture, Off-the-beaten path destination, Personal essay, Religion, Transformational Travel, adventure travel, cultural immersion, exotic travel

by Sally McKinney

Squeezed between napping young people in a tour van, I doubted that this Virgin del Carmen dance festival weekend was a good idea. I’d finished my bottle of water. The driver was swerving down rough roads toward a Peruvian village 3,200 meters high. Weak and dehydrated from several medications, I felt nausea with each lurching switchback.

Santa Claus is Coming to School

B.J. Stolbov
Art and Culture, Foreign Language, Personal essay, cultural immersion, holiday tradtions, holiday volunteering

by B.J. Stolbov 

As the only (old) white man with a (long) white beard in my rural Filipino community of Northern Luzon, I get the exceedingly great pleasure every December of being Santa Claus.

I am a volunteer high school teacher. My first year here, I was asked to play Santa Claus at my high school’s Christmas assembly.  I excitedly volunteered.  Dressed in a red t-shirt and red jogging pants (the colors of our school), my black rubber swamp tromping boots (cleaned), a red cap with battery operated white blinking stars, my wire-rimmed glasses, and my long white beard, I, Santa Claus, appeared from the back of the stage of the school gymnasium to loud amplified blaring Christmas music. 

One thousand students went wild. This was my ultimate rock star Santa Claus moment. I strode across the stage waving, and then waded down into the roaring crowd.  Carrying a red bag filled with candy, I threw handfuls of candy everywhere.  It was almost a sugar frenzy riot. Everyone loves Santa Claus. No wonder he does this!  What a rush! I felt like Santa Claus. 

Next year, I was again invited to play Santa Claus.  But not only at my high school, where now, of course, everyone knew me; but also at an elementary school, where few, if any, of the kids knew me.  I cheerfully accepted.

I arrived at the elementary school dressed in regular clothes, with my Santa outfit hidden in my tightly folded red bag.  The principal of the school had made all the arrangements, agreeing with me that no one, except for a few teachers, would know that Santa Claus was coming to their school.  In the principal’s office, I changed into my Santa outfit. 

Use It Or Lose It: A Japanese Tea Story

Use It Or Lose It: A Japanese Tea Story

Jean Kepler Ross
Art and Culture, Culinary Travel, cultural musings

Thirty years ago, I was dazzled by my action-packed month visiting a friend and his family in Japan. They live in Fukui Prefecture near the Sea of Japan, but I gazed in wonder at the Gion Festival and temples in Kyoto, kabuki theater in Tokyo, the deer park in Nara and Himeji castle from Shogun days. The most delicate and intimate thing I recall was a tea ceremony performed by a friend of my friend at her home.

Meeting the Sultan at Topkapi

John Mole
Art and Culture, Historic Travel

by John Mole

Editor’s note: The following is by the oldest blogger we have ever published. Actually, he is more than 400 years old. Contributor, John Mole, was so taken by the diary of Thomas Dallam, who, at age 25 was charged with delivering the gift of a self-playing organ and clock from Queen Elizabeth to Sultan Mehmet III of Turkey, that he translated the work into modern English. This post, originally titled ‘The Sultan’s Organ” was written in 1599. It includes what is probably the first ever recoreded glimpse inside the Sultan’s harem by a foreigner. 

 

I set up the organ in the grandest pavilion of Topkapi palace. Inside was a little apartment. I have never seen the like for carving, gilding, paintwork and varnish. The Sultan had nineteen brothers put to death in there. It was built for the sole purpose of strangling them.

The main hall has two rows of marble pillars. The pedestals are made of brass and double gilt. The walls on three sides only go up to the eaves and the rest is open. But if there is a storm or a gale they can quickly lower cotton hangings that will keep out any kind of weather and just as quickly open them again. The fourth wall is made of porphyry so polished you can see yourself in it. On the floor are rich silk carpets. There are no chairs or tables or benches, only one royal divan. On one side is a pond full of different-coloured fish. 

***

The Sultan came over the water in his golden barge. I was ushered out of the room and the door locked behind me. I heard the Sultan arrive and the loud noise of his retinue. He sat down on his great throne and commanded silence. The Organ began to salute him.  First the clock struck the hour. Then a chime of sixteen bells played a four part melody. Two figures raised silver trumpets to their lips and blew a fanfare. Then the music started with a five part song played twice. At the top of the organ a holly bush full of blackbirds and thrushes sang and flapped their wings. Various other movements amazed the Sultan. He sat down in front of the keyboard and asked the Chief White Eunuch, the Kapi Aga, if he knew anyone who could play it. He said the man who brought it was outside the door. 

“Fetch him here,” said the Sultan.

Today’s Learning Objective: Kill a Goat

Laura Fuller
Art and Culture, Family Travel, Life Lessons, Transformational Travel, adventure travel, cultural immersion, exotic travel

by Laura Fuller

 

Ron’s blue eyes were bloodshot and watering when he returned to the group.  His cheeks were sunburned, his hair sun-bleached. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his white hooded sweatshirt, an act of 13-year-old toughness.  He and Mary had volunteered to eat the goat’s kidneys, not because they’d wanted to, but because peers’ opinions outweigh adolescent reason. Mary now smiled proudly in a pack of incredulous girls. Ron fought to put the texture of warm, raw goat kidney behind him and move on with his life, but I could see that he was struggling to gain control of his gag reflex.  Kyle offered to walk with him back to the tents, stoically, so as not to make Ron feel weak.  

I watched them walk away, their shadows long in the evening grass, and turned back to the other 20-some seventh-graders, all of them perplexed as to how to receive this cross-cultural gift. They were outlined against a horizon of royal blue Tanzanian sky, high above tufts of trees and shrubs on the rocky terrain below. The high rocks on which we stood began to glow reddish in the setting sun. This, I predicted, was both the height and the conclusion of my short, ridiculous teaching career in Dubai.  

The kids had all chosen to observe the ritual slaughter of this goat, not wanting to be cowardly among the courageous or rude to the Maasai guides.  After sixteen hours of Serengeti driving from the nearest city, we were lucky to have the Maasai patrolling our campsite’s perimeter every fifteen minutes at night to ensure our safety.  They silently taught our students to carve spears and showed us the soft cave in the bush where they held their councils. 

The seventh-graders, from Dubai – who actually came from all over the planet – were upper-class, elite, and as such, polite and appreciative. They were first inquisitive: goat slaughter? And then horrified: goat slaughter. 

Genuine or Hoax? Visiting a Crop Circle Formation at Avebury, England

Genuine or Hoax? Visiting a Crop Circle Formation at Avebury, England

Elyn Aviva
Art and Culture, Personal essay, Sacred Places

by Elyn Aviva

The news rippled through our group like a breeze through a wheat field: a crop circle had just been spotted! According to a crop circle blog, it had appeared only two days earlier, on the side of Windmill Hill, close to Avebury, in southern England. We were told it was still fresh and relatively untrammeled. Even better news was that we were nearby, since our group was visiting sacred sites in the area—including Stonehenge, Glastonbury, and Avebury, site of the largest stone circle in the UK.

Crop formations usually occur in fields of ripe cereal grains. They appear all over the world but are most prevalent during July and August in the Wiltshire district of southern England. The complex patterns range in size from just a few feet across to over 900 feet, although the average is about 200-300 feet in diameter, and they vary in elements from a few to over 400. The designs may be circular (hence “crop circle”) or based on other geometrical forms (hence “crop formation”).

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