Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
The weather is finally turning cooler. We've had overnight lows — which actually hit at about 5:30am when I am getting ready for work — in the lower 40s (°F). No frost yet, but I had to turn the heat on last Wednesday because at 55°F it was just too cold to sit in the… Continue reading The Daily: 30 September 2024
The ancient world of the Mediterranean and Near East has a great number of interesting mythological beings. Some are related to old gods and tutelary spirits. Some are fairly accurate illustrations of the anxieties of humankind — or maybe mankind, since women didn't have much of a voice. Some are just ludicrous. One of my… Continue reading The Daily: 29 September 2024
I've been reading Ross Gay for many weeks now. First The Book of Delights and now The Book of (More) Delights. One delight each morning starts my day off right. In the early essays of More Delights, Ross is finding delight in Vermont. (I imagine that he was writing these essays down at Middlebury College… Continue reading The Daily: 26 September 2024
Things to look forward to... dinner I don't eat lunch. Or rather, I don't eat both breakfast and lunch. On days when I am left to my own biorhythms, I eat the first meal of the day around noon and a smaller meal in the evening. But on weekdays, or days when I have to… Continue reading The Daily: 25 September 2024
I have been working on an essay that should have been posted today. It deals with belief and practice, orthodoxy vs orthopraxy. We have too much of the former and almost none of the latter. As you can imagine, I have much to say on this. The essay is up to 5300 words. In addition… Continue reading The Daily: 24 September 24
The sun passed the ecliptic yesterday at 8:43am (EDT). This marks the autumnal equinox, the day the sun passes that imaginary equator in the sky in its annual trek through the seasons. By now, those of you who tolerate my blathering know that this event does not mark the true equinox since that day of… Continue reading The Daily: 23 September 2024
Happy Mabon? Is it possible to unselfconsciously use the Wiccan-derived names for the quarter days? Because I can’t seem to get there. For the third quarter day of the year, they chose a rather obscure deity to name this holiday. I couldn’t say what the Cymric (Welsh) Mabon, or Maponos, the perpetually young Son of… Continue reading The Daily: 22 September 2024
I had a hell of a day... so I wrote kids' poetry instead of what I had planned. Here is a sample: the path Autumn Forest by William Trost Richards (1833-1905) Richards painted in my neck of the woods in the 19th century. He may have known the family whose heiress daughter had my house… Continue reading The Daily: 18 September 2024
The Harvest Moon is full today at 10:34pm. This moon nearest the autumnal equinox, this period of rapidly shortening days, gets its name because it appears full for several days and therefore gives evening light to those who are harvesting the fields, racing against the sunset. However true this might be, at this time of… Continue reading The Daily: 17 September 2024
I made a bittersweet discovery last week. I had been noticing little piles of chewed up green stuff on the walkways and on my porches. It looked like unripe fruit, so I thought the rodents had gotten into some deep patch of the jungle that had a stunted peach or plum or something. I am… Continue reading The Daily: 16 September 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 