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Offerings at stones
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Merrick
Merrick
2148 posts

Re: Offerings at stones
May 12, 2006, 14:17
Despite my inital posting, I think I agree with Littlestone more than Goffik here. We should indeed understand the spirit in which things have been left. There is a clear difference between general litter and offerings, and so on the whole I think I'm against the blunderbussing of folk who leave offerings.

We all came from 20th century consumerist culture, and we have to respect and encourage others on their journey away from it rather than attack them.

But as I said in the first post, tidying up the offerings of others does not affect the spirit in which the offering was made; 'it's like clearing the burned candles from the Catholic altar or dead flowers from a grave'.

Were I to see someone leaving something, I'd talk to them about it as I suspect that most people who leave that stuff haven't really thought about what it'll be like if everyone does it, or what it'll be like as the stuff rots (or the plastic, ceramic and metal fails to).

BuckyE, which offerings count as physically nondestructive? The biodegradable stuff stinks and slimes all over the sacred place, the nonbiodegradable stays forever, and both types poison the wildlife. Not wanting that to happen isn't being antisocial; on the contrary, doing it is.

The difference between tourists who don't like other tourists - or Littlestone's chattering fellow visitors - is that people go away. Plastic ribbons do not. Even a cherry tomato and a Twix left on a stone at Winterbourne Abbas will take months.

Leaving offerings imposes your view on everyone who comes after you. Leaving a clear site lets all types of understanding and enjoyment co-exist. Instead of those who come later getting the site and your view of it whether they want it or not, it lets the site do the talking for itself.
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