{"id":6209,"date":"2014-01-04T16:44:42","date_gmt":"2014-01-04T23:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6209"},"modified":"2014-01-04T21:49:15","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T04:49:15","slug":"trees-animism-and-yuletide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6209","title":{"rendered":"Trees, Animism, and Yuletide"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Christmas<\/a>

Christmas tree discarded on public land in southern Colorado. (Photo: Royal Gorge Field Office, Bureau of Land Management)<\/p><\/div>\n

I wanted to use the photo of the dumped Christmas tree with two different posts. Then I decided to combine them, so keep reading.<\/p>\n

1. “Trees” is the theme of this month’s Animist Blog Carnival, hosted by Australian blogger Jay at naturebum.<\/em><\/a> Tree totems, forest fires, Indo-European cosmology, and more!<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Is there anything grosser than building up to the orgy of gift-unwrapping on December 25 and then declaring the whole holiday season over<\/em>?A couple of days after that, and the local newspapers are telling you where you can “recycle” your Christmas tree.<\/p>\n

But a book review in the British weekly The Spectator<\/em> notes that at one time, decorations were left up until Candlemas. <\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\u2018The season of Christmastide has, in other words,\u2019 [author Nick Grooms] observes, \u2018shifted forward, as if it now expresses an impatient and premature desire for gratification. The result is that there are two cold months of winter following Christmas.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At the very least, tonight is not quite Twelfth Night, unless like one Wiccan friend of mine, you count your twelve days from the winter solstice. So the colored lights will stay on a bit longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wanted to use the photo of the dumped Christmas tree with two different posts. Then I decided to combine them, so keep reading. 1. “Trees” is the theme of this month’s Animist Blog Carnival, hosted by Australian blogger Jay at naturebum. Tree totems, forest fires, Indo-European cosmology, and more! 2. Is there anything grosser […]<\/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":[68,21,228,43],"class_list":["post-6209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animism","tag-england","tag-trees","tag-yule"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1C9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":510,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=510","url_meta":{"origin":6209,"position":0},"title":"Animism, Disney, and MorelsIt started\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Animism, Disney, and MorelsIt started when someone passed on a quote from an article in the August 2005 issue of Vanity Fair about Disneyland:I thought about everything it was and it wasn't, the cornucopia of image, illusion, and icon, and realized, very much to my delight, that Disney is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13953,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13953","url_meta":{"origin":6209,"position":1},"title":"We Love Trees, and We Live with Their Bodies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"A forestry \"masticator,\" which mulches small trees and large branches, is here used to pull a ponderosa pine trunk off a hillside. On Thursday, February 27th, M and I went on a city shopping trip, returning mid-afternoon. I heard a chainsaw running and thought it was a neighbor cutting road.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/masticator-pulling-trunk.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/masticator-pulling-trunk.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/masticator-pulling-trunk.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/masticator-pulling-trunk.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/masticator-pulling-trunk.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1280,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1280","url_meta":{"origin":6209,"position":2},"title":"A Man and an Elm Tree","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The ancestors would have made something of this story, something involving daimones and dryads.","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2278,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2278","url_meta":{"origin":6209,"position":3},"title":"Around the Pagan Blogosphere","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 9, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 Ways of leaving offerings for land wights, at Golden Trail. \u2022 Hermes versus the Internal Revenue Service (and a great poem) at The Alchemist's Garden. \u2022 \"Animist Human Diplomats\"\u00a0 at Adventures in Animism. Are you asking more than you are giving? \u2022 Still on the theme of place: Dealing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3961,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3961","url_meta":{"origin":6209,"position":4},"title":"No to “Neopagan,” plus Other Pagan Blogging","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 At Pagans for Archaeology, Yewtree makes the argument (started by Graham Harvey, as I understand) against using the term \"Neopagan.\" \u2022 Lupa at No Unsacred Place on greeting the land in a new place. \u2022 At The Alchemist's Garden, can your spirit helper be a machine? \u2022 Finally, at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6178,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6178","url_meta":{"origin":6209,"position":5},"title":"When Trees Disappear","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"First, the background story. Back in 2011, I wrote about making an offering to Tlaloc, Southwestern god of the hydrological cycle (among other things), at a tiny mountain spring near my home. The spring is high on the side of a ridge, fed by that year's snow and rain, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-dV57BkoZQRQ\/UIgi2vbiO8I\/AAAAAAAABdc\/_ixQl3ANtJA\/s400\/volcanofire.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6209","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=6209"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6219,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6209\/revisions\/6219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}