Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
Tomorrow is the first 10-hour day in central Vermont. Despite Punxsutawney Phil's forecast for six more weeks of winter in 2025, it is time to start thinking about the growing season. For me, it is time to sort the seeds, check the seed potatoes, toss the inevitable pantry rot, and clean up the weeks of… Continue reading The Daily: 3 February 2025
If Candlemas be bright and clear there'll be two winters in the year. — traditional adage from Scotland Of Candles and Divinatory Beasts There are many weather marking days throughout the year. Candlemas, falling on 2 February, was the day that our ancestors began to get nervous about the spring. A fine Candlemas portends a… Continue reading The Daily: 2 February 2025
If Brigid visited your house with a blessing last night, show her your gratitude by beginning your spring cleaning in her honor. If you have a woodstove, today is a good day to clean out the ashes and begin spreading them on your garden beds. (If you live where the soils are already saline, especially… Continue reading The Daily: 1 February 2025
Today is St Brigid's Eve. Brigid (also Bride, Brighid, Breeshey, Ffraid, Britgantia or Bridget) was a goddess with unusually broad distribution throughout the lands of Celtic-language peoples. Along with Lugh (who was not her consort, nor even related...), she seems to have been the principal idea of deity for these peoples, and because both are… Continue reading The Daily: 31 January 2025
The Feast of St Brigid, or Imbolg, is an ancient holiday that falls on 1 February, midway between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. Brigid’s Feast Day is said to be set to this date at her request so that her day would precede the Marian Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, or… Continue reading The Daily: 30 January 2025
Snow Moon The Wolf Moon went dark yesterday at 7:36am and Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, began with all its riotous color and spark last night. Today, the Snow Moon, the fourth moon in my lunar year, is new. In my calendar this is the season of Imbolg, the stirring of spring in… Continue reading The Daily: 30 January 2025
The Wolf Moon goes dark today at 7:36am (what happened to this month!), so the crescent Snow Moon might be visible tonight at sunset, though it would be faint and you'd need a very flat western horizon to see it. In traditional lunisolar calendars, the Moon is not new until you can see that crescent.… Continue reading The Daily: 29 January 2025
It seems to me that when people talk about voluntary simplicity, they are talking about refusing to engage with wasteful lifestyle patterns. Which is well and good at face value. But then they go on, and you notice the way they are defining the definition, heavy on the stylizing, a bit more fuzzy on what… Continue reading The Daily: 28 January 2025
It's that time of year when I have to remind myself to eat... at least once a day. I'm just not that hungry in the late winter, especially in the morning. Breakfast is right out. Dinner is more of a snack. And there are some days when I am getting ready to brush my teeth… Continue reading The Daily: 27 January 2025
Something about technology that doesn’t work properly just sets me off. I know I’m overreacting, but that doesn’t stop me. I can fume about it for hours, and even for days if it’s not resolved. I just expect things to work, or to be simple to correct when they don’t. When you buy something, I’ve… Continue reading The Daily: 24 January 2025
By My Solitary Hearth 