PENZANCE, England (RNS) — On a gray afternoon in November, a group of 19 people gathered outside the Church of St. Buryan, an iconic medieval parish with a 92-foot granite tower that dominates the skyline.

Clad in raincoats, reflective vests, waterproof boots with some holding wooden staffs, these residents of Cornwall, England’s coastal southwestern county, were ready for a different kind of spiritual experience — not in the church, but a stone circle .

Carolyn Kennett, an astronomer leading a 3.2-mile hike to the stone circle Boscawen-Ûn, explained why she organized the trip for Nov. 5, the full moon. She was curious to see whether the moon rising opposite the sun cast a particular light on the taller inclining stone — the only one made of quartz.

“It would have been a really nice t

See Full Page