{"id":8491,"date":"2017-03-20T09:44:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-20T15:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8491"},"modified":"2017-03-20T09:46:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T15:46:06","slug":"the-old-ones-built-wisely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8491","title":{"rendered":"The Old Ones Built Wisely"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"equinox

The Sun sets in Equinox Notch, one day before the actual spring equinox.<\/p><\/div>\n

My house comes with its own solar calendar, sort of. I discovered when M. and I moved here in the 1990s that the equinoctial sunset occurs in a notch formed by the ridge to the west, as viewed from the front porch.<\/p>\n

Surely the ancient builders planned this!<\/p>\n

Actually, the “ancient builder” was Alan Cook, a minister in the “New Church\u00a0 (General Convention),<\/a>” one of the Swedenborgian <\/a>denominations, who lived from 1893\u20131984.\u00a0 He was active as a minister in the 1920s, then came to Colorado to manage a summer resort in Green Mountain Falls, west of Colorado Springs. No longer a minister with a congregation, he still held some Sunday services for the tourists and wrote in a typically Swedenborgian style, which is big on correspondences between the visible world and the Unseen World.<\/p>\n

Mountains, as we know, signify exalted states of affection. And God’s love is the most high and exalted of which we know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pagan me says no, the natural world was not put here only to provide a moral lesson to us humans, although I can still feel some affinity with a man who wrote,<\/p>\n

But the man of spiritual mind should discern the far greater wealth which lies beyond mere nature [sic<\/em>] and the commercial worth of rock \u2014 he may know their soul, and, in a measure at least, he will be able to share that wealth.((Alan Cook, “A Letter from Colorado,” Ohio New-Church Bulletin<\/em>, September 1928, n.p.))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I found a photo of Alan Cook with some other books and materials stored in a crawlspace, and it hangs on the Wall of Ancestors in my study \u2014 which was his study too. We do not share theologies, but I like to think he approves the room being filled with a desk and bookcases once again.<\/p>\n

Happy Ostara!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My house comes with its own solar calendar, sort of. I discovered when M. and I moved here in the 1990s that the equinoctial sunset occurs in a notch formed by the ridge to the west, as viewed from the front porch. Surely the ancient builders planned this! Actually, the “ancient builder” was Alan Cook, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_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":[10,23,64],"class_list":["post-8491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-colorado","tag-equinox"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2cX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9791,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9791","url_meta":{"origin":8491,"position":0},"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":931,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=931","url_meta":{"origin":8491,"position":1},"title":"Feral Apples","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The equinox is for apples. First M. and walk the small ravine that cuts through our land--that is where the feral apple trees grow. I think of them as growing from apple cores tossed from someone's pickup window 50 years ago, but really I have no idea. As Sally the\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":635,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=635","url_meta":{"origin":8491,"position":2},"title":"From Vinland to 'Celtic America'\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"From Vinland to 'Celtic America' - Part 5Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4Barry Fell's America BC and subsequent books revived interest in American epigraphy, the study of inscriptions allegedly left by pre-Columbian explorers andtraders from across the Atlantic, whether Celtic, Phoenecian, or whomever.One of his key collaborators in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1085,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1085","url_meta":{"origin":8491,"position":3},"title":"Gallimaufry in Traffic","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 So M. and I are in traffic behind a Cadillac SRX with the vanity license plate \"S-N-M\" and a custom-painted \"Sanguine Addiction\" above the license-plate holder. That's a Colorado metal band, but the driver did not look like any of the musicians. Here is what we were arguing about:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8008,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8008","url_meta":{"origin":8491,"position":4},"title":"Celebrating Spring, Red Rocks, and Wine","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I look outside today and see a white landscape, with light snow falling and a couple of hungry humingbirds huddled on the sugar-water feeder like barflies staring into their whiskey glasses. Yes, it's a typical May Day in the Colorado foothills. Is any surprise that Colorado's biggest public Beltane festival\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bennett Price","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Bennett-Price.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Bennett-Price.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Bennett-Price.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4010,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4010","url_meta":{"origin":8491,"position":5},"title":"From Snow into Fire","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Everyone has posted their \"Happy Equinox\" messages. Oh well. I live in a house that was placed by the Old Ones to line up with the equinoctial sunsets, instead. You can see how tonight the sun seemed to fit into a particular notch in the ridge to the west.\u00a0 They\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\/2012\/03\/SpringEquinox2012.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SpringEquinox2012.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/SpringEquinox2012.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8491","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=8491"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8496,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8491\/revisions\/8496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}