Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
Floralia Cosiddetta Flora from the Villa di Arianna in Stabiae near Pompeii, 1st century Roman fresco The festival of Floralia is another very old holiday. It honors Flora, the Roman idea of fertility that is embodied in spring flowers. Flora is one of the oldest deities in the Roman pantheon. She is older than Rome,… Continue reading The Daily: 26 April 2024
A Red-Letter Day April 25th is a complicated date. It is St Mark’s Day, which is honored with a wide variety of celebrations; and it is Robigalia, an ancient Roman festival intended to propitiate the god — or demon — of wheat rust and thus ensure a good harvest. These disparate themes may actually be… Continue reading The Daily: 25 April 2024
April 23rd is St George's Feast Day (though in the Church of England it is moved until Monday when the 23rd falls between Palm Sunday and the Sunday after Easter). For the day, I've written a modernized tale of Andromeda, an old story of annual agricultural sacrifice. "St George and the Dragon" is a version… Continue reading The Daily: 23 April 2024
Earth Day Earth Day was created in 1970 as a direct political challenge. Wisconsin's Senator Gaylord Nelson wanted the US government to do what government is supposed to do — protect its people and lands from rapacious business. He created Earth Day and organized the first demonstrations across the country to force the hand of… Continue reading The Daily: 22 April 2024
I was talking about things that underpin our worldview yesterday. Naturally, there were responses. In reading and thinking about those responses, I discovered that I didn't make a few things more explicit. These are the frames on my own worldview, so I don't talk about them as much as I should. To be honest, that… Continue reading The Daily: 19 April 2024
Spoiler alert: I am talking about books in this essay. One is non-fiction and I don't think that revealing its contents will ruin the reading experience for anyone else. The other book, however, is a novel; surprise is essential to the narrative experience. I tried to talk about the main lesson in this story without… Continue reading The Daily: 18 April 2024
The Daily for 4 April 2024: Things To Look Forward To and a Wednesday Word
Tax Day April 15th is Tax Day for the United States. In most years taxes are due on this date, though exceptions are made for weekends and recently COVID seems to have added on extra days now and then. I don't know anyone who puts it off that late because the penalties for missing the… Continue reading The Daily: 15 April 2024
The Daily for 4 April 2024: Things To Look Forward To and a Wednesday Word
When we learn of spinning galaxies filled with billions of stars, how can we believe that one country is more important than another? Why do we even have countries at all? We are riding a living planet through space, and we are all on the same ride together. — Akiva Silver, Trees of Power (2019,… Continue reading The Daily: 9 April 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 