{"id":13567,"date":"2024-02-01T19:08:42","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T02:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13567"},"modified":"2024-05-02T21:32:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T03:32:40","slug":"imbolc-on-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13567","title":{"rendered":"Imbolc on Ice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Look south from Bennett Avenue, the bi-level main street of Cripple Creek, Colorado<\/a>, across Poverty Gulch (once lined by the saloons and brothels of Myers Avenue), and there it sits, like the citadel of the Ice King.<\/p>\n

\"\"At 9,494 feet (2,894 m.), the early February winds are still cutting and only the lengthening day suggests any turn toward spring. M. and I, plus my Pagan cousin and her partner, fortified ourselves with food and drink in a crowded restaurant and then zipped up all zippers and headed for the Ice Castle at our designated 6 p.m. entrance time.<\/p>\n

The restaurant’s Facebook page said that they were so busy with Ice Castle visitors that they were not taking reservations, but we snagged a table by showing up at 4:30, ahead of the dinner rush.<\/p>\n

This castle is a commercial venture<\/a>. I had seen earlier versions in the ski town of Silverthorne in the 20-teens,and thought it would be cool-no-pun-intended to visit, but I was always on my way to or from somewhere else. Now we had our chance at Candlemas season. I like it when the Sacred Wheel matches up with popular activities, even when the coincidence is not planned.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Daytime must be different, but at night the Ice Castle hits the same sort of Underworld vibe that I get sometimes in Taos at PASEO, the fall art festival, when clumps of dark-clad people walk dim Spanish colonial streets until suddenly illuminated by the flare of a flaming gate or a giant robot or an art work projected onto high adobe walls. (See “The Robot God and the Underworld\u00a0 Gate<\/a>.”)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So it was sort of like that but without the writhing silent-rave dancers. There was feasting and good conversation and then a chance to stock my memory with images and sensations.<\/p>\n

Cripple Creek is a small place, compared to its height c. 1900 when there were three railroads plus street cars and belching smokestacks. I walked Marco the dog around a little, strolling past some of the buildings I visited during a long-ago bout of ghost-hunting, back before the casinos came in. Those visits produced a little book, Ghost Tales of Cripple Creek<\/a>, <\/em>which in terms of copies sold is probably my biggest commercial success. Out of print now, but I see it is still on Amazon.<\/a> (The photo was taken from the driveway of astrologer Linda Goodman’s<\/a> house.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look south from Bennett Avenue, the bi-level main street of Cripple Creek, Colorado, across Poverty Gulch (once lined by the saloons and brothels of Myers Avenue), and there it sits, like the citadel of the Ice King. At 9,494 feet (2,894 m.), the early February winds are still cutting and only the lengthening day suggests […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,269,23,71,127,97,450,370,12],"class_list":["post-13567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-candlemas","tag-colorado","tag-dreams","tag-festivals","tag-ghosts","tag-imbolc","tag-underworld","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3wP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2311,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2311","url_meta":{"origin":13567,"position":0},"title":"Two Festivals at Once!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are celebrating Imbolc in the next few days, be aware that Chinese New Year falls on February 3, so you may hear some extra fireworks, depending where you are. Calculated by the Sun, Imbolc occurs at 0420 Greenwich Mean Time on February 4.","rel":"","context":"In \"festivals\"","block_context":{"text":"festivals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=festivals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7711,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7711","url_meta":{"origin":13567,"position":1},"title":"The Eagles of Candlemas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism is not the religion of the polis, but the polis (loosely defined) can support your Paganism. For the last two days, my Facebook feed has been filling up with people posting electronic clip art to the theme of \"Happy Bridget \/ Imbolc \/ Candlemas.\" Me, I spent three hours\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"birds\"","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"pueblo eagle days","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/pueblo-eagle-days.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":370,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=370","url_meta":{"origin":13567,"position":2},"title":"Forget what season it is?\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 1, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Forget what season it is? It's time (almost Candlemas\/Imbolc, in fact) for my annual plug for Archaeoastronomy.com, the site that keeps you from getting your quarters crossed.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13249,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13249","url_meta":{"origin":13567,"position":3},"title":"The Snow Geese of Candlemas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 19, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I am all for seasonal rituals, but there is also a place for celebrating the Turning of the Wheel with your larger community, your polis, taking a local event and giving it a Pagan spin. The solstices are easy: there is always something going on. Samhain \u2014 too many choices!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"birds\"","block_context":{"text":"birds","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=birds"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/snow-geese-UDWR.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/snow-geese-UDWR.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/snow-geese-UDWR.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/snow-geese-UDWR.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1273,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1273","url_meta":{"origin":13567,"position":4},"title":"One Night during the Cold War","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I was walking around today in Manitou Springs, once a spa-resort town, located in the foothills west of Colorado Springs. You should know that there are no springs in Colorado Springs--real-estate developers lied in the 1870s too. The springs are in Manitou. But Colorado Springs has several important military installations:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6986,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6986","url_meta":{"origin":13567,"position":5},"title":"A Billion-Candles Candlemas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"By the Sun, Candlemas\/Imbolc happened this evening, between 8 and 9 o'clock, Mountain Time. And I was watching an episode of PBS' American Experience called \"The Big Burn.\" Coincidence, I think not. :) (You can find it streaming on their site.) Ten minutes in, there must have been smoke in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ancestors\"","block_context":{"text":"ancestors","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ancestors"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13567"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13629,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13567\/revisions\/13629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}