Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
Cut asparagus plants to the ground now. — Old Farmer's Almanac planner for 14 November My lunar year begins with the new moon that falls between 1 November and 29 November. The full moon in this first moon cycle of the lunar year falls between 15 November and 13 December. I call this month the Winter Sleep Moon because to… Continue reading The Daily: 14 November 2023
Early this morning, the Hunter's Moon went dark. I suspect that in the luna-solar calendars that tied the new year to the end of the growth season, this thirteenth dark moon in a solar cycle would have been considered New Year's Eve with the new year beginning with the sighting of the crescent moon and… Continue reading The Daily: 13 November 2023
Martinmas On November 11th at 11 in the morning, we practice a moment of silence for two minutes to remember the day we reached an accord and agreed to lay down arms after the brutality of World War 1. A century ago we stopped fighting. Soldiers came home. It was a time very like this.… Continue reading The Daily: 11 November 2023
In my part of the world this is the first day with less than 10 hours of sunlight. In my garden, shaded as it is by mountains, trees and buildings, this translates into the last day with at least nine hours of sun shining on the plants that grow there. This is effectively the end… Continue reading The Daily: 10 November 2023
It is Martinmas this weekend, an old day of remembrance for the victims of warring, created anew at the end of World War I. It is called Remembrance Day in much of the world. It is Veteran's Day in the US, reflecting perhaps our blinkered perception of who suffers and dies when men use violence… Continue reading The Daily: 8 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… Continue reading The Daily: 7 November 2023
Sunday the clocks all changed. No, I'll not use passive voice. Except for the Apple things in this house, the clocks do not change themselves. To spring forward and fall back, I have to wander around the house setting some dozen clocks, ranging from the phone system to the enormous wall clock in the dining… Continue reading The Daily: 6 November 2023
A Moon Intervention Long an irksome pull at the Math Lady lodged in my left brain, I decided I’d had enough with moon dis-logic. It is time for an intervention. Moon 101 for writers of all shades. Here is the imagery that pushed Math Lady over the edge: Facing south in the evening, she “looked… Continue reading The Daily: 4 November 2023
It is the first Friday and the third day of the eleventh calendar month, named for the ninth. It is two days before the last quarter of the last moon cycle in my wheel of the year, the Hunter's Moon. The growing season has ended here in Vermont with the hard finality of snow and… Continue reading The Daily: 3 November 2023
The Day of the Dead In Tolstoy’s Calendar of Wisdom, he says that a “man” does not fear death. “Fear of death is our animal nature,” he claims. I don’t know that any part of that is accurate. To be sure, we have a very unhealthy relationship to death. We tell ourselves stories of our… Continue reading The Daily: 2 November 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 