Resource for Wiccans and Pagans

[Debi]

Welcome to Circle Sanctuary!

Welcome to Circle Sanctuary!

Founded in 1974 by Selena Fox, Circle Sanctuary is a 501(c)(3) non-profit Nature Spirituality church and 200-acre nature preserve dedicated to networking, community celebrations, spiritual healing and education. Circle Sanctuary sponsors gatherings and workshops at the Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve in the forested hills of southwestern Wisconsin, USA.

Our vibrant community converges in person at classes, Full Moon circles, seasonal sabbats, volunteer days, Sacred Fire Circles and at our annual week-long Pagan Spirit Gathering. Circle Sanctuary also keeps in touch with national and international Pagan communities through our email announcement lists and through our quarterly CIRCLE Magazine.

We also advocate religious freedom through the Lady Liberty League and participate in interfaith dialogues. We serve active and retired troops through our military ministries, and we also operate a 20-acre green cemetery.


Circle Sanctuary is pleased to announce that Pagan Spirit Gathering 2016 will be held from June 19 to 26, 2016, at Tall Tree Lake in Illinois. Tall Tree Lake is a beautiful 200-acre event ground located near the village of Vienna in southern Illinois. Already the host of several large events and music festivals, Tall Tree Lake will provide a spacious home for the growing Pagan Spirit Gathering community, against a backdrop of a stunning natural lake.

 

[Debi]

Circle Cemetery

What is a Green Cemetery?

Circle Cemetery, established in 1995, is one of the first Green cemeteries to be established in the United States and the first Green cemetery to be established on a Nature Preserve in Wisconsin. As with other Green cemeteries, Circle Cemetery combines preservation of Green space with burial of cremains and non-embalmed bodies.

Located just north of Barneveld, Wisconsin, Circle Cemetery is 20 acres in size and includes woodlands, a restored prairie, and a forested ridgetop. The cemetery is part of the 200-acre Circle Sanctuary Nature Preserve, owned and operated since 1983 by Circle Sanctuary.

Circle Cemetery is the final resting place for remains of Pagan practitioners of a variety of forms of Nature religion, plus those of other faiths and philosophies that honor Nature in a sacred way. The Cemetery is operated by Circle Sanctuary, an international non-profit Nature Spirituality resource center and church.

Recumbent granite markers with names, dates, and memorial messages are options for marking gravesites in some of the wooded areas of the cemetery. For natural burials, a body needs to be unembalmed and in a shroud, pine box, wicker casket, or other biodegradable container. Cremains can be scattered or interred in the woodlands of the cemetery, and can be scattered in the restored prairie.

Atop the wooded ridge of Circle Cemetery is Veterans Ridge that includes US Department of Veterans Affairs issued gravestones marking the interred cremains of Wiccan/Pagan veterans.

Circle Cemetery has several outdoor areas for memorial services and funerals, including a microlithic Stone Circle in an Oak grove atop a naturally occurring mound.

Circle Cemetery is open to visitors at a variety of events throughout the year, and at other times by advance arrangement.

For more information and to make arrangements for cremains placement, body burials, and memorial markers, please contact:

Selena Fox, Circle Cemetery Director
circle@circlesanctuary.org
(608) 924-2216