{"id":7734,"date":"2016-02-07T11:54:37","date_gmt":"2016-02-07T18:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7734"},"modified":"2016-02-07T12:02:27","modified_gmt":"2016-02-07T19:02:27","slug":"the-eagles-of-candlemas-continued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7734","title":{"rendered":"The Eagles of Candlemas, continued"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Diana<\/a>

Raptor center director Diana Miller with a female golden eagle.<\/p><\/div>\n

The first part is here.<\/a><\/p>\n

As I wrote earlier this week, M. and I celebrated Candlemas by going to Eagle Days down at the state park by Pueblo Reservoir<\/a>.\u00a0 (Chamber of Commerce types want you to say “Lake Pueblo.”)<\/p>\n

Scheduling a festival around raptors is a little iffy; you can expect sandhill cranes, for instance, to show up on time for their<\/em><\/a> festival<\/a>, but eagles?<\/p>\n

So the director of the local raptor-rehabilitation center<\/a> and her volunteers always show up with plenty of “education birds,” those being birds whose injuries or some cases habituation to humans keeps them from being released into the wild.<\/p>\n

M. and I are volunteers too, in that our work as “wildlife transporters” for Colorado Parks & Wildlife often means bringing in hawks, owls, and vultures to the center. Once in a while, we get to release one as our reward. (The survival rate for injured raptors, unfortunately, is not too high.)<\/p>\n

We caught part of the U.S. Air Force Academy falconers’ demonstration, an Indian pow-wow dance group’s eagle dance, looked at the birds. We had seen one golden eagle on the drive to the lake, and Diana said a certain spot farther down the Arkansas River might have some bald eagles, but I had another plan that had worked before, which involved driving upstream, into the state wildlife area, and then hiking with spotting scope and tripod to an overlook.<\/p>\n

There, at the edge of the ice (the lake being half-frozen), was a black dot, which at 20x quickly resolved into a bald eagle, just hanging out.<\/p>\n

It was not my spirit bird, nor did it bring me a message. It was just an eagle doing eagle stuff, another inhabitant of the upper Arkansas River.<\/p>\n

It’s funny how we have to have a special day, with costumes, handouts, museum exhibits, captive birds, pizza, and cookies just to celebrate letting the wild be wild (and the wheel of the year), but that is how we roll. And if it build connections, I am all for it.<\/p>\n

I care less and less for fancy metaphysics, dazzling Neoplatonic pyramids, recycled Theosophy, and all of that. I like my Paganism close to the ground. I know that that puts me at odds with all the One God\/One Prophet\/One Book people out there as well, but I gave up on monotheism many decades ago because it never told me how to live alongside the eagle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 expect sandhill cranes, for instance, […]<\/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_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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[68,221,23,142],"class_list":["post-7734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animism","tag-birds","tag-colorado","tag-monotheism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-20K","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7711,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7711","url_meta":{"origin":7734,"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":7734,"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":13134,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13134","url_meta":{"origin":7734,"position":2},"title":"Back for the Yule Log \u2014\u00a0Now with Goats!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"After two years' hiatus, the Yule Log was hunted again last Sunday in Beulah, Colorado, a small town in the foothills of the Wet Mountains. This hunt is a twentieth-century revival, passed (along with log splinters) from Lake Placid, New York to Palmer Lake, Colorado to Beulah, where the tradition\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\/2022\/12\/huntsman-and-companions.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6986,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6986","url_meta":{"origin":7734,"position":3},"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":[]},{"id":370,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=370","url_meta":{"origin":7734,"position":4},"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":7734,"position":5},"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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7734","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=7734"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7741,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7734\/revisions\/7741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}