The Daily: 7 November 2023

It has been nearly three years since the ideas for this blog coalesced, and one year to the day since I began posting “The Daily”. I originally thought this oh-so-clever. The daily Daley and all that. I did not consider how the name might make it feel obligatory to post something every day.

I’ve always regarded this writing project as more of a book of the daily office, a book of hours, a commonplace book. It was not supposed to be writing something every day, but writing about the significance of most days. Writing tied to the flow of days. Some days might take more words, some might take less. Some might need none at all. Or that was my notion.

It has not always been such a thing. Maybe most of you know this project only through its ranting critiques of the social systems that make it difficult to live by a book of commonplace wisdom. While that has been necessary writing and continues to be so — because it’s useless to talk about living a small, localized life without addressing the hows and whys — I really prefer to talk about food and flowers, folklore and feathers and wonder, all the minute magnificence of living in place.

So I am pulling The Daily back to its original intent. I have a schedule and I’m going to stick to it. Mostly…

Mondays will be for cooking and gardening and making home. I might finally address some of those fiber craft projects that I wanted to write about. I have tried, really, I have… I find it fiendishly difficult to write knitting and just impossible to describe spinning, but maybe I’ll get the hang of it if I keep working at it.

Tuesdays will be for natural philosophy and observations and Earthcraft things. As you know, I have the opposite problem with these topics. I can write pages about the weather or the hydrologic cycle. Not many people want to read that. So I promise I will work to keep my geological fervor in check.

Wednesdays will be the Wednesday Word. I need to write more poetry. It is my true medium. And since I host the All Poetry contest every month anyway, I might as well make use of that weekly, wordly inspiration.

Thursday will be for book talking. This may not be reviewing as much as selecting something that catches my interest and writing about it. I don’t actually like reviewing. Or, more accurately, I don’t like saying whether I like a book or not. That seems immaterial to the book’s message or worth. I’d rather talk about what intrigues me.

Friday Thoughts will continue, but maybe not every week. Or maybe it will. There seems to be a never-ending stream of provocation from the world. I wish there was less to rant on about.

I don’t think I will post if I don’t have something that fits the topic of the day of the week. Conversely, all days of the week give way to the Wheel of the Year and whatever I feel constitutes a holiday. In medieval calendars, nearly half of the year was made up of feast days and sacred observances, all tied to the seasonal round, all with their own lore and ritual. I’d like to recreate that calendar, to make time holy again. I think this is the best way to grow a grounded life, one joyously rooted in place. So I do like holidays and liberally slather them all about all throughout the year. And after all, observances and feast days are what make up a commonplace book.

Most Saturdays and nearly all days of the Dark Moon, I will not post anything. These will be my rest days. But again, if there is a holiday, then words will happen…

I am moving talk of the luna-solar months to the New Moon rather than putting all that into a Full Moon post. Full Moons will be for story-telling. New Moons will be for history and folklore and the quality of the time to come. (Seems silly to talk of the month when it is entering its waning period.) Similarly, I may post a bit on the season to come when I feel like it is beginning. (I find seasons to be a bit more nebulous than most calendars lead you to believe.)

Finally, I think I will be starting a Sunday thing. Back in Albuquerque, we had a Church of Beethoven. It consisted of music and poetry and celebratory or spiritual writing to collectively consider. I would like to try my hand at creating a virtual Church of Beethoven, though with me it might be more like a Church of Chick Corea. I don’t have a permissions staff, so it may be a spare offering, just a quote or so and a snippet from YouTube. But I like the idea of thinking about things together. Even if we’re not gathered under one roof… Or maybe especially not. Because this way, we all go about our separated lives, thinking about the same thing and spreading those common thoughts all about the globe.

I have written all this down for you mostly so I can enlist you all in keeping me on track… If I start to wander into the forest of continuous fulmination — which is so easy to do these days — I expect someone to remind me of my true path. There are enough people writing about all the ways we are breaking. I don’t think there are many people — save maybe some of the Transition Town folks — who are talking about the ways we continue to live. And maybe nobody at all who has anything to say on all the joy to be found in perseverance… I find great comfort in muddling along in my tiny part of the world. My wish is that everyone could build such a marvelously marginal life — and that is the goal of this wording project.

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©Elizabeth Anker 2023