{"id":385,"date":"2005-02-21T04:12:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-21T04:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=385"},"modified":"2005-02-21T04:12:00","modified_gmt":"2005-02-21T04:12:00","slug":"pagan-with-a-small-p","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=385","title":{"rendered":"Pagan with a Small ‘p’"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>Pueblo, Colorado, is a perplexing city. As Pueblo Chieftain<\/em> columnist Chuck Green wrote in today’s paper<\/a>, it “suffers from a traditional inferiority complex, looking like a haggard woman when a little bit of care could reveal an attractive lady. Sometimes it seems like the city has accepted some self-fulfilling subordination imposed by outsiders.”<\/p>\n

And yet some local organizations just produced a outstanding performance of Carl Orff’s<\/a> Carmina Burana<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Go figure: it’s a shot-and-a-beer, get-pregnant-and-drop-out-of-high-school city with an equally flourishing “high culture” side.<\/p>\n

Orff (1895-1982) was a German composer<\/a> who believed in creating powerful, sensual music that could be performed by nonprofessionals. One organization still carries on his music-education principles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The “carmina” are medieval songs from a collection found in a German monastery, but their world view is not Christian. It is a frank admittance that sometimes you are up, and sometimes, no matter how you strive, the universe has decided that today is not your day. So you drink a toast to Lady Fortune, and you keep on keeping on.<\/p>\n

The gods may favor you, or they may not; meanwhile, “Hail, light of the world. Hail, rose of the world. Blanchefleur and Helen, noble Venus!”<\/p>\n

The performers ranged from professional singers to dedicated amateurs (The Pueblo Choral Society<\/a>) to university students (the solid CSU-Pueblo Percussion Ensemble<\/a>) to kids (the South High School Cecilian Choir and the Sangre de Cristo Ballet Theatre)–nearly 200 performers in all.<\/p>\n

From the first crashing notes . . . O Fortuna velut luna statu variabilis<\/em> (O Fortune, you are changeable like the Moon), I was carried away. Back to the fog-wrapped dormitory at Reed College<\/a> where I first heard the Carmina Burana<\/em> on my girlfriend’s stereo, back to the final scenes of John Boorman’s Excalibur<\/em><\/a> back to, yes, even the credit-card commercial where the barbarians invade the shopping mall. So what–Orff’ s music stands like a wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pueblo, Colorado, is a perplexing city. As Pueblo Chieftain columnist Chuck Green wrote in today’s paper, it “suffers from a traditional inferiority complex, looking like a haggard woman when a little bit of care could reveal an attractive lady. Sometimes it seems like the city has accepted some self-fulfilling subordination imposed by outsiders.” And yet […]<\/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":[],"tags":[23,34,5],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-music","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-6d","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":76,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=76","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":0},"title":"Pueblo’s Hipper Image","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 4, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Pueblo, Colorado, where I am employed, has seen its reputation slowly changing. While this column by Colorado Springs Independent columnist John Hazlehurst is actually a reproof of his own city, with Pueblo playing the role of \"noble savage,\" it's part of a trend. As the northern Colorado Front Range region\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":1377,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1377","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":1},"title":"Apollo, God of Coffeehouses","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Back when Enchant\u00e9 was a zine rather than a blog, Brightshadow did a series of articles on \u201cgods of the city.\u201d These were representations of the Old Gods in statuary, architecture, etc., primarily in New York City, where he lives. New York has no monopoly on them, of course. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"Solar Roast Coffee, 226 N. Main St., Pueblo, Colorado","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/solarroast-190x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9791,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9791","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":2},"title":"Being a Solitary Pagan Does Not Mean that You Celebrate Alone","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the fall equinox (Mabon) is nearly upon us \u2014 1:54 a.m. Universal (Greenwich) Time on Sunday the 23rd. For North Americans, that is Saturday evening. What will you do if you are a solitary Pagan? At Under the Ancient Oaks, John Beckett suggests,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/chile-festival-2.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":347,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=347","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":3},"title":"Pueblo and Colorado Springs Compare\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 8, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Pueblo and Colorado Springs Compare the \"You might be from Pueblo if\" quiz with the Colorado Springs Independent's recent feature, \"You are sooooo Colorado Springs.\" (Link may change.) I always put it this way: if you go to a party in Pueblo, you might be asked, \"Where did you go\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12453,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12453","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":4},"title":"Wines for Esotericists","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 25, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"What has been happening over at the Winery at Holy Cross Abbey, down in Ca\u00f1on City, Colorado? They have gone hermetic! M. and I celebrated equinox season today by attending the winery's Harvest Festival. It was packed. SInce the focus is on wine, many attendees turned it into a picnic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/the-alchemist-wine-239x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9057,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9057","url_meta":{"origin":385,"position":5},"title":"Can You Put Your Paganism in the Street?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Late last year, I read this in the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper: \"Pueblo Church Walks and Prays over Every Walkable Street in the City.\" About a year ago, the Rev. Jim Murray had a vision. In that vision, members of his church, the First Church of the Nazarene, 84 Stanford Ave.,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/union-ave.-1-2017-1024x936.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/union-ave.-1-2017-1024x936.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/union-ave.-1-2017-1024x936.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/union-ave.-1-2017-1024x936.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","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=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}