{"id":6986,"date":"2015-02-03T21:26:12","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T04:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6986"},"modified":"2015-02-03T21:26:12","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T04:26:12","slug":"a-billion-candles-candlemas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6986","title":{"rendered":"A Billion-Candles Candlemas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/video.pbs.org\/viralplayer\/2365289852\" width=\"512\" height=\"376\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.archaeoastronomy.com\/\">By the Sun<\/a>, Candlemas\/Imbolc happened this evening, between 8 and 9 o&#8217;clock, Mountain Time.<\/p>\n<p>And I was watching an episode of PBS&#8217; <em>American Experience<\/em> called &#8220;The Big Burn.&#8221; Coincidence, I think not. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>(You can find it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/americanexperience\/films\/burn\/\">streaming on their site<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>Ten minutes in, there must have been smoke in the room or something, because I was having trouble with my eyes.<\/p>\n<p>This was my heritage as a Forest Service brat back then and as a rural volunteer firefighter today. I walked outside afterwards, Her cold white light shining through the pines, still on that knife&#8217;s edge of beauty and terror, life in the mountain West.<\/p>\n<p>One of these days I will pass again through Coeur d&#8217;Alene, and I will stop<a href=\"http:\/\/www.findagrave.com\/cgi-bin\/fg.cgi?page=gr&amp;GRid=15082518\"> at Ed Pulaski&#8217;s grave<\/a> to do a full-blown Pagan\/Shinto\/neo-shamanic <em>thing<\/em> with incense, flowers, whiskey, and the rest.<\/p>\n<p>But the way things are going, I might have to wait my turn. Firefighters, I have learned, are a ritualistic bunch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By the Sun, Candlemas\/Imbolc happened this evening, between 8 and 9 o&#8217;clock, Mountain Time. And I was watching an episode of PBS&#8217; American Experience called &#8220;The Big Burn.&#8221; Coincidence, I think not. \ud83d\ude42 (You can find it streaming on their site.) Ten minutes in, there must have been smoke in the room or something, because [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[204,211],"class_list":["post-6986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ancestors","tag-fire"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1OG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7711,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7711","url_meta":{"origin":6986,"position":0},"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":13249,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13249","url_meta":{"origin":6986,"position":1},"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":370,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=370","url_meta":{"origin":6986,"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":13567,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13567","url_meta":{"origin":6986,"position":3},"title":"Imbolc on Ice","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 1, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/DSCN0495-300x139.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/DSCN0495-300x139.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/DSCN0495-300x139.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12617,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12617","url_meta":{"origin":6986,"position":4},"title":"&#8220;W\u00e6lcyrge or Witchcraft: Identifying Heathendom in late Anglo-Danish England&#8221;","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"? Just one of many presentations from the just-finished online conference\u00a0 Performing Magic in the pre-Modern North. Here, Ross Downing deals with such issues as whether witchcraft and Heathenry were defined differently in the time of King Alfred the Great in the late 9th century, including details as the execution\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Anglo-Saxon England\"","block_context":{"text":"Anglo-Saxon England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=anglo-saxon-england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7734,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7734","url_meta":{"origin":6986,"position":5},"title":"The Eagles of Candlemas, continued","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 7, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The first part is here. As I wrote earlier this week, M. and I celebrated Candlemas by going to Eagle Days down at the state park by Pueblo Reservoir.\u00a0 (Chamber of Commerce types want you to say \"Lake Pueblo.\") Scheduling a festival around raptors is a little iffy; you can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"Diana Miller, director of the Raptor Center in Pueblo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Diana-Miller-eagle.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6986","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=6986"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6989,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6986\/revisions\/6989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}