Tag Archives: Colorado

A ‘Going Out of Civilization’ Sale

Posted on by

The local weekly newspaper arrived in my post office box today.

I see that a liquor store in my little mountain county is announcing a new 12/21/12 pricing plan:

Bud or Bud Light six packs will cost you two chickens or a goat . . . Canadian Mist 175’s will cost you 1,000 rounds of 12 gauge . . . All wine 750’s will be traded for five gallons of gas.

People up in the county seat must be well-armed and thirsty. I wouldn’t give more than a box  (25 total) of shotgun shells for 175 ml. of blended Canadian whisky myself .

Tempest in a Pointy Hat

Posted on by

Organizers of this year’s Pagan Pride Day in Denver, Colorado, want to set a Guinness World Record for the largest number of people dressed as pointy-hat witches.  One of the organizers posted to a statewide mailing list,

I think that we should let witches in non-black hats participate, too…I was thinking we would have the black hat witches as requested per the Guinness guidelines for our official count, but then in the front row we can have witches wearing other colors of hats—holding a banner that says “Real Witches Come in All Colors”. This way, we would be combatting the stereoptype rather than supporting it, and maybe we can persuade the Guinness folks into dropping or renaming the “dressed as witches” category—as a wise witchy lady pointed out, this is really just as offensive as having a “largest number of people dressed like Native Americans” or “largest number of people dressed like Jewish people” category…Definitely NOT what we’re going for with the Pagan Pride message! So please spread the word that the hat does not have to be black after all. We all know of course that not all witches even wear pointy hats, but let’s ease the Guinness folks into it slowly and start this year with our hats in many colors to help get the point across.

I am a little confused here, because I searched the Guinness site and cannot find anything about witches in an existing category—please let me know if I overlooked it.

Of course, someone else immediately replied,

I still think this is offensive.    The last thing I would think we want to do is to promote the stereotypical image of the classic wicked “witch” in an event that is trying to promote us to the public. . . .  My spiritual path is far more sacred to me than trying to break a world record for pointy hats.   I don’t see where that is honoring the Lady and Lord at all.

So will witches-in-pointy-hats end up in Guinness next to the “world’s fastest toilet“?  We have a long way to go to catch up with “Sikhs in turbans” or “Orthodox Jew with sidelocks,” after all. Is it worth the bother?

Talking about Tlaloc, 5

Posted on by

I think it is time to rebuild the shrine to Tlaloc under the bridge — the one that was mysteriously augmented last summer.  I had taken it down before the spring run-off, which is just a memory now.

Once the heat abates a little, I need to hike back over the ridge and leave an offering at Camera Trap Spring. The rattlesnake that has been there on my last two trips is its “guardian,” I have decided. What should I bring it, a bouquet of mice?

Actually, I owe that snake a favor, since it did not bite one of the dogs when it had all the opportunity and provocation.

Got to see if the bears have attacked the current camera, too. If they have, I may cede the territory to them for a couple of months. But I will leave an offering too

Meanwhile, the fires. As a former resident of Manitou Springs, I was sweating this Waldo Canyon Fire. As a volunteer firefighter, I can say here in my area we have had an easier time so far than last year — so far — with only one little piece of excitement on Tuesday. That, and we’ll be out patrolling this weekend, looking for illegal campfires.

It’s Time for my Winter Coat . . .

Posted on by

. . . at the Beltania festival, where the temperature is about 45° F with rain now and again.

I spent the morning at one of the volunteer fire department’s monthly training day, helping more people become familiar with the whole process of drafting water from a  creek (hydrants? we don’t need no stinking hydrants) and pumping it into our two 2,500-gallon summer storage tanks (in case the creek goes dry).

Then off to the festival, not too far away, successfully negotiating the Pagan equivalent of the TSA. Merchants Row seemed sort of forlorn — no one was buying all the colorful gauzy garments, for some odd reason. Even those who sometimes swelter under the Colorado sun while dressed for the Scottish Highlands  were wearing extra coats today.

But once the dogs are fed we will go back for the concerts — if the rain holds off.

Pagan festivals are becoming more “tribal” in one sense: you can have people doing some kind of ritual thingie while right next to it, folks are feeding their faces, drinking wine from the bottle, braiding feathers into the air, slouching around like bored teenagers if in fact they are teenagers, and just starting into the warming fires. It’s not like you have to be all churchy and attentive.

POST-CONCERT UPDATE: M. and I had to miss some of the Saturday night music, but we did hear at times the Orpheus: the Pagan Chamber Choir of Colorado, a little of S.J Tucker, Forest of Azure, and Sharon Knight and Pandemonaeon. All good. And Pandemonaeon cleared the skies before midnight—can’t beat that.

 

From Snow into Fire

Posted on by

Spring equinox sunset in "the notch."

Everyone has posted their “Happy Equinox” messages. Oh well. I live in a house that was placed by the Old Ones to line up with the equinoctial sunsets, instead. You can see how tonight the sun seemed to fit into a particular notch in the ridge to the west.  They were truly wise, the Old Ones.

And what did I do? I rolled out of bed, walked and fed the dogs, and went off to a wildland fire-training class in the next county. Actually, it was no so much a class as a demonstration/sales pitch for this product—which is a cool product if your agency has big bucks to spend.

It’s a great way to show people who live in the urban-wildland interface, which is where my little volunteer fire department is situated, exactly how a forest fire could roll up their bosky subdivision.

We’re not buying it, of course. No big bucks for the high-tech stuff.

But I also had the chance to chat with some agency people whom I needed to see, and then the other guy from my department and I stood back against the wall and muttered sotto voce about how the US Forest Service really could have used the SimTable last year, when they made a very bad fire prediction that, literally, blew up in their faces hereabouts.

Hey, no one pays us, so we can be free with our opinions.

Here is a news report about modeling last summer’s Wallow Fire in Arizona and New Mexico.

I normally post fire stuff on the other blog, but I thought that I would share a bit here. I may be at my desk editing this big book on Central and Eastern European Paganism for our book series, but now when the telephone rings, I think, Uh-oh, is this a fire call?

More Pagan Narrow-casting

Posted on by

Modern Pagan TV is a show streaming on the Web, produced in Denver.

You can watch their first programs by visiting the archives at the website.

I’m sure that this is (part of) the future, but I am not going to stop blogging, me. For one thing, I don’t have to think about what I am wearing—although, contrary to the blogger cliche, I am not wearing pajamas at this moment.

 

We Did Not Burn the Landowner After All

Posted on by

Jack o' Lantern depicting the Gunpowder Plot. Stacked barrels on the left, arches over head, Guy Fawkes with a torch at right—carved by the neighbors' daughter, an architecture student.

There is an Anglo-American couple (her from the UK, him from right here) down the road who always have a Bonfire Night party.

M. and I bumped into the American half recently, and he said that this year’s “Guy” would be a certain wealthy local hobby-rancher.

Having earned his money elsewhere, this guy is busy buying up every piece of vacant land he can find, erecting pretentious ranch gates, quarreling with the Forest Service, and possibly interfering with water rights (still unproved, but if so, it’s a hanging offense).

Unlike the actual largest landowner in this end of the county — who might be found on a mechanic’s creeper underneath one of the engines at the volunteer fire department, fixing something — he holds himself aloof from all community activities.

He has a bad case of “Texas Vertigo”—he thinks the world revolves around him. And, says the woman who waited tables down at the little steakhouse while working on her nursing degree, “He’s a two-dollar tipper.”

“All right,” I thought, on hearing my neighbor’s announcement, “it’s a real Aradia moment. Di legare il spirito del oppresore and all that.

Not the neighboring landowner but a cable TV talker.

But when M. and I walked up the neighbors’ driveway, dish in hand, to where everyone gathered around the fire pit, beer kegs, and tables of food, the “Guy” was someone else—a certain cable television political pundit.

Not nearly as interesting from a folk-magic perspective, if you ask me.

Burn! Burn!

It is still an emotionally satisfying conclusion.

Talking about Tlaloc, 4

Posted on by

Last June, as our creek began to dry up, I blogged about building a little shrine to Tlaloc, “god of the hydrological cycle” as Craig Childs described him, in a big culvert under our county road.

It snowed, nearly a foot on October 26. The combination of trees pulling up less ground water after freezing weather came, plus the melting snow, started the creek running again. On Halloween night, M. and I were walking the dogs before bed, and we heard a gurgle in the creek bed. Slowly, rock by rock, tiny pool by tiny pool, it was coming back.

By yesterday, the flow had increased. While everything in the shrine was natural (rocks) or biodegradable (turkey feathers, etc.), I thought that I should retrieve the glass jar for the votive candles, before it washed away, broke, and became litter. So I pulled on a pair of rubber boots-of-many-names and waded into the flow.

There was the little shrine, still dry. But what’s this? Here was a bundle of herbs, tied with a string. And here was a bunch of dried-out marigolds. Marigolds, hmmmm. Very traditional, but we had not grown any this year.

I took the jar and left the rest. At night, as we set out on dog walk, I remembered to ask M. if she had left those offerings.

Blank look. No, she had not.

So who did? Not the bears and raccoons. One of the neighbors—and there are not very many of them—has joined in on the cultic activity. But which?

Quick Day of the Dead Instructions—And How Things Change

Posted on by

Last Monday a notice popped up in my university email: It’s time to build an altar for the Day of the Dead. (And do it in the correct, traditional manner!)

Several professors of Spanish have organized an altar-building event in the student center for a number of years now. But the event takes its own directions. In 2007, I photographed student-made altars to American war dead, to Victorian British writers, and even an altar to Vlad the Impaler.

In 2008, Wendy Griffin of California State University-Long Beach and I presented at the American Academy of Religion about Día de los muertos celebrations at our two universities. I was taken by the sneaky Paganizatioon of the event:

Since the instructions pushed a particular cosmology and an attitude towards the dead, I (Chas) wondered, having taught classes in American religion, if the altar-building could be construed as a classic church-state issue. After all, this was a state-supported university providing very explicit directions on how to perform a ritual—not that anyone followed them precisely! (Incense-burning in the student center probably violates some regulation.) At this point, I approached my colleague, the Mexican-born, Los Angeles-raised professor of Spanish who sponsors the event. “It sounds like tax-supported Paganism to me,” I said.

“Oh no,” she replied, “It’s cultural.” And she resumed laying marigolds on her altar to Frida Kahlo.

I am putting the instructions for the traditional altar below. But I think that I will stop by the Student Center with my camera to see what the American students have done with instructions from an Ecuadorian professor about how to celebrate a Catholic-Aztec Mexican holiday.

Traditions, they are always changing.

*****

The most important thing to place on your Day of the Dead altar is a photograph of the person(s) to whom you are dedicating the altar.
The three tier altar is covered in papel picado – which is bright colored tissue paper with cut out designs. The paper can be either handmade or purchased.  Three important colors are purple (for pain) white (for hope) and pink (for the celebration).
Candles are also placed all over the altar.  Purple candles again are used to signify pain. On the top level of the altar, four candles need to be placed – signifying the four cardinal points. The light of the candle will illuminate the way for the dead upon their return.
Three candy skulls are placed on the second level.  These represent the Holy Trinity. On the center of the third level a large skull is placed – this represents the Giver of Life.
All bad spirits must be whisked away and leave a clear path for the dead soul by burning in a bracero, a small burner used to cook outside.  Or you can use a sahumerio to burn copal or incense.  A small cross of ash is made so that the ghost will expel all its guilt when it is stepped on.
The Day of the Dead bread, pan de muerto, should be accompanied by fruit and candy placed on the altar.  The pan de muerto is plain round sweet bread sprinkled with white sugar and a crisscrossed bone shape on top. Pan de muerto is available in Mexican food stores and bakeries in Pueblo. You can also add the person’s favorite food.
A towel, soap and small bowl are put on the altar so that the returning souls can wash their hands after their long trip. There is a pitcher of fresh water to quench their thirst and a bottle of liquor to remember the good times of their life.
To decorate and leave a fragrance on the altar, the traditional cempasuchil flower is placed around the other figures.  Cempasuchil comes from Nahuatl cempoalxochitl, that means the flower with four hundred lives.  The flower petals form a path for the spirits to bring them to their banquette.

*The following websites will assist you with ideas as you prepare your altars*
http://www.diademuertos.net/
http://fwww.ladayofthedead.com%2fhistory.html
http://www.ladayofthedead.com/history.html
http://www.dayofthedead.com/

Altar decorations and materials are the property of those setting up the altar, any damage done to the altar during setup, the celebration, or at take down is the responsibility of the entrants and not the responsibility of the Dia De Los Muertos committee or CSU-Pueblo.

It’s Mabon, so … canta y no llores

Posted on by

The Marquez Brothers of Pueblo, Colo., playing at the Harvest Festival at the Holy Cross Abbey in Cañon City.

My approach to the eight-festival Pagan calendar works like this: the cross-quarter days are for ritual—be that outdoor bonfires or black candles at midnight.

The quarter days—solstices and equinoxes—are for public and communal celebrations: with the whole public, not just with other Pagans.

The fall equinox offers choice of harvest festivals: the Chile & Frijoles (pinto beans) festival in Pueblo (bigger) or the Holy Cross Abbey Winery Harvest Festival in Cañon City—smaller but still crowded.

M. and I chose the latter this year, buying elderberry jam and garlicky goat cheese and drinking Abbey wines under the blazing sun.  Two guys in charro outfits up from Pueblo played a ranchera–rockbilly–soft rock mix, which is exactly what you expect from a Pueblo band.

Vineyard at Holy Cross Abbey, Cañon City, Colorado

Now the Myth-Making Begins

That stuff on the winery home page about “simple Benedictine Fathers had a dream”—sounds good, right? Don’t the grape vines just look right next to the Gothic Revival abbey?

But the Holy Cross Benedictines were not “simple.”  They were school teachers for the most part, running a well-respected secondary school for boys (boarding and day students) from the 1920s until it closed in 1985. Like so much Catholic education, it was a victim of demographics: not enough new monks and priests coming up, not enough church financial support to afford to pay lay (non-monastic) teachers, so no way to keep the doors open and the lights on.

After that, the dwindling number of elderly monks rented out their buildings to the community college and other users.

The winery, meanwhile, did not open until 2002. It employs no monks in its day-to-day operations. The monks could not have made wine for sale in the 1920s anyway because of Prohibition. Their mission was educational.

But the idea of “monks making wine” is so appealing that in a generation people will be strolling the grounds of the abbey talking about how the Benedictines came to Cañon City “a hundred years ago” to plant vineyards and bottle  some good cabernet franc. I would bet money on it.

It is not unlike saying that the local morris dancers or village harvest festival represent an unbroken survival from ancient Paganism instead of—in either case—something (re)invented by an antiquarian-minded vicar.

Of course, that Chile & Frijoles Festival—great street festival that it is—is a relatively new creation too. This was its seventeenth year.

It represents a conscious attempt by Pueblo’s elite to re-cast the city’s image as a tourist-friendly sort of Santa Fe North, instead of the grimy steel mill town that it was for decades, dominated by union Democrats with Italian and Slavic surnames.

But Pueblo does have a good climate for growing peppers.

(As to the post’s title, the musicians played “Cielito Lindo,” of course.)