Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
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 2024
All Hallows: An Entanglement It's the most wonderful time of the year... Tomorrow is 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. Friday is All Saints Day, All Hallows, the ancient new year festival called Samhaine, which is usually translated… Continue reading The Daily: 30 October 2024
I'm not feeling it this year... I have the hat. I have the broom. I have a house full of actual pumpkin spice from the bread in the oven. But... the trees are all bare... it's snowing... and I just feel grey... Hallowe'en was the best holiday of the year when my kids were young.… Continue reading The Daily: 28 October 2024
We had our first frost on October 18th, which is the beginning of St Luke's Little Summer, the traditional name for a warm string of days that usually fall around the Feast of St Luke (October 18th). This always has me asking: Do we get a St Luke's Little Summer if we haven't had winter… Continue reading The Daily: 21 October 2024
The Hunter's Moon is full at 7:26am today. This is the last full moon of my calendar. In two weeks the annual lunar cycle begins anew with the Winter Sleep Moon. This is a time of reconciliation and reckoning. It is time to say goodbye to the growing season and to turn to the resting… Continue reading The Daily: 17 October 2024
Yom Kippur begins at sundown today. This is the holiest of holy days in the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement, or more precisely, the Day of Cleansing. As this is traditionally thought to be the day when God writes down a person’s fate for the coming year in the book of life, it is… Continue reading The Daily: 11 October 2024
October 4th is the feast day of St Francis of Assisi. You might know him as the irreverent but apt moniker, St Francis of the Birdbath, because that is where many of us encounter him. Bare-headed with the monk's tonsure, dressed in rough robes and coarse rope belting, he stands with one palm out, feeding… Continue reading The Daily: 4 October 2024
The Harvest Moon goes dark tomorrow at 2:49pm here. The Hunter's Moon is new on Wednesday. However, there is an annular solar eclipse with tomorrow's dark moon, so I thought I would get the new moon post done early. Not that the eclipse is all that exciting. The moon is too close to earth right… Continue reading The Daily: 1 October 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
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
By My Solitary Hearth 