The Sacred Chapter House Stones of the Abbey of Santa Maria de Ovila

In 1931, Hearst's hubris again connected him to the Grove. Famous for purchasing and moving monuments and historical artifacts from Europe and elsewhere to his estates in California (Hearst Castle in San Simeon and others), he set his sights on a disused 12th Century Spanish Cistercian Chapter House of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Ovila, near the village of Trillo, approximately ninety miles northeast of Madrid. The Monks of New Clairvaux continue the story:

"In 1931, William Randolph Hearst purchased parts of the Abbey of Santa Maria de Ovila, including the entire Chapter House, for almost $100,000. A hundred men were hired to dismantle the purchased stones, bring them out of the valley over a narrow gauge railroad laid directly to the Abbey, and carry them by mule and truck to Valencia from where 12 ships brought them to America..

"Financial problems, beginning to afflict Hearst during the Depression, caused a change in his plans to reassemble these ancient stones as part of his estate at Wyntoon, on the McCloud River near Mount Shasta. Instead he donated them to the City of San Francisco and moved them from a warehouse to Golden Gate Park.

"World War II and numerous other situations intervened to hinder reconstruction. Consequently, the stones lay unattended for many years in Golden Gate Park where they became victims of a series of fires, theft, vandalism. Some stones were used for various Park needs, as in the Arboretum and Stow Lake. Eventually, it became more and more impossible to reassemble the stones into some type of structure.

"About 1980, Dr. Margaret Burke, a national expert in medieval architecture, surveyed and made a study of the stones. Miraculously, the beautiful Chapter House stones survived the fires and vandalism and proved to be salvageable. Its reconstruction could be accomplished." (from the Monastery Web Page)

In 1941 the Stones were unceremoniously dumped in piles in and around the Monarch Bear Grove, the Bear Enclosures having been removed years before. During the intervening years, besides being victims of wear and tear, the ancient building stones were, far from being unattended, also becoming objects of attraction to many, drawn by their antiquity, their spiritual origins, and beauty.

By the mid 1990s, Dr. Rodney Karr, our Druid Chief here, had begun to use some of the smaller stones for Altars in Monarch Bear Grove. His work most weekdays includes tending to the Grove, leaving food for the creatures which inhabit it, and continuing the work on the Altars.

When the Cistercian Monks of New Clairvaux in Vina, California (the spiritual descendents of the Spanish Monks whose Chapter House was moved in 1931) conceived the idea of moving the stones and rebuilding the Chapter House at their site, negotiations were entered into with the City of San Francisco. Finally, an amicable agreement to give most of the Stones to the Monastery allowed many of the smaller ones to remain for the spiritual use of the many seekers, both Druid and others, in Monarch Bear Grove.

Thus, stones from a Medieval Abbey dedicated to the Theotokos (Bearer of God) are now being rebuilt in Vina, and also used for the celebration of Divine Wisdom (Sophia) and the Druid Path in San Francisco. The White Robed Cistercian Monks of New Clairvaux and the Bards, Ovates and Druids of Manannan mac Lir Grove and the Community of the Five Shaman Circles may seem vastly different, but through the joys and suffering manifested in the Monarch Bear Grove, they might find in this hymn to the Divine Feminine of yet another tradition, the Byzantine, a common cause of celebration:

"O Victorious Leader of Triumphant Hosts! We your people delivered from bondage, sing our grateful thanks to you O Theotokos! You posses invincible might: set us free from every calamity, that we may sing to you: Hail, O Bride and Maiden!" [Byzantine Kondak of the Annunciation (at the Spring Equinox)]