Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
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
All Hallows: An Entanglement It is All Saints Day, All Hallows, the ancient new year festival called Samhaine, which is usually translated as “end of summer”. Last night was the All Hallow's Eve, Hallowe'en, a new year's eve in former days with all the sweet treats, riotous good fun, and debauchery that entails. This is… Continue reading The Daily: 1 November 2023
Today is All Hallows' Eve, Hallowe'en, the first night in the ancient new year's festival that Celtic language speaking people called Samhaine. We hardly remember that it was once a sacred festival, celebrating endings and beginnings, nor that it was "converted" by the Catholic Church into a day for honoring the dead. It's possible that… Continue reading The Daily: 31 October 2023
So the question of whether or not this house would be open for trick-or-treat business was answered for me. I spent Saturday doing most of the cleaning. I got all the rodent mess cleaned off the front porch in anticipation of making a spooky welcome out there. Nothing spooky about pumpkin rind gnawed up and… Continue reading The Daily: 30 October 2023
I saw the moon last night. It was almost full, shining silvery white in the early darkness of the eastern horizon. To the west there were clouds in orange and fuchsia, violet and lavender, festooning lapis skies. There were stars by the time I got home from work and my Friday night errands. I almost… Continue reading The Daily: 28 October 2023
I recently read a long and complicated essay on place-based adaptation to biophysical collapse. It discussed policy, transport, economics — all local, but all also rather superfluous to the human being. In talking of the inadequacy of urban housing, the author claimed that "nothing is more vital for human existence than shelter.” Except maybe food?… Continue reading The Daily: 27 October 2023
This is just a short, mostly small news brief for the week. But first the headline... Hurricane Otis made landfall over Acapulco, Mexico, yesterday morning. A hurricane in the eastern Pacific, where the coldest ocean waters are constantly upwelling, is singular enough. This is the strongest storm to hit the coast of western Mexico on… Continue reading The Daily: 26 October 2023
The Hunter's Moon is full on Saturday at 4:24pm. This is the 13th and last lunation of the luna-solar year. It can be full from October 28th to November 14th, so you can see that the months have shifted relative to the solar-based 12-month calendar. For most of the year, moons have been falling right… Continue reading The Daily: 25 October 2023
Magic as Wisdom I am an odd witch. Most would not consider me one at all. This is just fine with me, because most witches in history have not named themselves in that manner either, and not merely because it was rather bad for one’s health to claim the title. Most simply had no use… Continue reading The Daily: 24 October 2023
A Happy Mistake This weekend I discovered that if you accidentally pick up a quart of buttermilk and use that to make yogurt, you get a delicious cottage cheese and lots of whey. The funny thing about this mistake is that the kid at the check-out spent a long time trying to figure out how… Continue reading The Daily: 23 October 23
