There is something about being surrounded by stone. Here inside this chunky enclosure - the traditional Irish dry stone 'clochan' we are building near Seattle Washington, there is this undefinable 'sense of place'. It's something you have to experience by going inside, it's not enough to stand on the outside and imagine what it's like.
There is this 'energy'. A kind of, I dont know what. I don't want to get spooky about it, but there is something that happens. There is this grounding - this focusing of your self with the stone. Even though the structure isn't finished and the roof isn't completed yet, there is already a feeling of 'historic presence', as if the building, just by its mass and structural integrity has claimed it's rightful place in time and space and that it has somehow 'archived' itself and become part of the past, a history that is only felt, but not yet documented.
None of this could be achieved with concrete or phony stone. It definitely could not be reproduced with nonstructural veneer stonework, or any other manmade material. This is a purely natural stone phenomena, which if you're lucky enough, and the enclosure isn't too crowded or too detached and too far apart, then the stones let you know they are in agreement with their proportions. If all these things comes together, when you stand between the walls of such a structure, it wraps you in 'rightness'
