Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
In my garden planner, I have ambitiously scribbled "plant summer squash, cukes, melons, and spinach". Now that the day is here, I am reluctant to follow my schedule. It is not freezing, and it is raining — both good for germination — but it's not warm enough for cucurbit seeds to break dormancy. This family… Continue reading The Daily: 12 May 2024
The Daily for 4 April 2024: Things To Look Forward To and a Wednesday Word
The Greenleaf Moon Goes Dark Tomorrow begins the Flower Moon. There are actually flowers in my garden this year. In New Mexico, early May (and therefore Floralia and May Day) fell in a rather flowerless pause between the bulbs and the main bloom season. There were apple blossoms and sometimes roses, but not much else… Continue reading The Daily: 7 May 2024
We have passed May Day. In traditional northern cultures this is summer. Tomorrow, the Greenleaf Moon goes dark. The Flower Moon will be a new crescent on Wednesday. The year is rolling on. But, though the days are over fourteen hours long, here in Vermont we are just now enjoying spring. We've had two solid… Continue reading The Daily: 6 May 2024
Cinco de Mayo The problem? How do you mark this day? Most years, I don’t. I’m not Hispanic. My best friend growing up was from Chiapas, and there were complicated feelings about Mexico related to that. I never thought there was much to celebrate. We learned in grade school that it’s a commemoration of a… Continue reading The Daily: 5 May 2024
Come, now a roundel by Arthur Rackham (1908) the thorn path she made her feathered nest in the tangled boughs of oak, ash, thorn and found mushroom echoes of moonbeams she delved for essence among the hawthorn roots and brought woven certainty to light she entered the ring where faeries are dancing and knew the… Continue reading The Daily: 4 May 2024
Because of the emphasis luni-solar calendars place on the eve of the day, today, May 2nd, is sometimes named May Day. More properly it is named Bealtaine — the later holiday for organized (ie paid) labor, May Day, is fixed to the first of the month in keeping with labor time rules. But Bealtaine is… Continue reading The Daily: 2 May 2024
the thorn queen she waxes full in fertile grace queen of quick and fay, she reigns in mantle green and seemly face quelling fear and mortal pains eternal mother, ever maid undying wisdom in her glance deathless weird is on her laid to spin th' unceasing wheel of chance again, she comes in crown of… Continue reading The Daily: 1 May 2024
Walpurgis Night The last day of April has been a fraught time for millennia. This is a night when pranks are pulled, when spells are cast and wishes are granted, when the Good Folk pass through the veils to walk the woodlands, and when witches dance. The Beltaine fires were lit at midnight on May… Continue reading The Daily: 30 April 2024
COVID in April: it's a new tradition of mine. Not one I particularly enjoy. Each April since 2022, the virus has played havoc with nearly the entire month. It makes planting season rather fraught, though it does make for an interesting Poetry Month... This April round was bad. It started just after the solar eclipse… Continue reading The Daily: 29 April 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 