Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
June 15th, the Ides of June, was the last day of Vestalia. With great ceremony, the sanctuary of Vesta was cleansed and closed to the public for another year, the sustaining Vestal hearth-flame hidden behind walls that no man was allowed to pass. This is a slack time, a time when heat is intolerable and… Continue reading The Daily: 15 June 2024
The Flower Moon went dark yesterday morning. Now begins the Strawberry Moon and the shift to Midsummer. In the last few years I’ve seen a wide variety of people arrive at the conclusion that what we need as a society to avert self-destruction — self and everything else, that is — is a new religion.… Continue reading The Daily: 7 June 2024
The Daily for 23 May 2024: The Full Flower Moon and the Matter of Britain...
The Daily for 4 April 2024: Things To Look Forward To and a Wednesday Word
In my garden planner, I have ambitiously scribbled "plant summer squash, cukes, melons, and spinach". Now that the day is here, I am reluctant to follow my schedule. It is not freezing, and it is raining — both good for germination — but it's not warm enough for cucurbit seeds to break dormancy. This family… Continue reading The Daily: 12 May 2024
The Greenleaf Moon Goes Dark Tomorrow begins the Flower Moon. There are actually flowers in my garden this year. In New Mexico, early May (and therefore Floralia and May Day) fell in a rather flowerless pause between the bulbs and the main bloom season. There were apple blossoms and sometimes roses, but not much else… Continue reading The Daily: 7 May 2024
Cinco de Mayo The problem? How do you mark this day? Most years, I don’t. I’m not Hispanic. My best friend growing up was from Chiapas, and there were complicated feelings about Mexico related to that. I never thought there was much to celebrate. We learned in grade school that it’s a commemoration of a… Continue reading The Daily: 5 May 2024
Come, now a roundel by Arthur Rackham (1908) the thorn path she made her feathered nest in the tangled boughs of oak, ash, thorn and found mushroom echoes of moonbeams she delved for essence among the hawthorn roots and brought woven certainty to light she entered the ring where faeries are dancing and knew the… Continue reading The Daily: 4 May 2024
Because of the emphasis luni-solar calendars place on the eve of the day, today, May 2nd, is sometimes named May Day. More properly it is named Bealtaine — the later holiday for organized (ie paid) labor, May Day, is fixed to the first of the month in keeping with labor time rules. But Bealtaine is… Continue reading The Daily: 2 May 2024
the thorn queen she waxes full in fertile grace queen of quick and fay, she reigns in mantle green and seemly face quelling fear and mortal pains eternal mother, ever maid undying wisdom in her glance deathless weird is on her laid to spin th' unceasing wheel of chance again, she comes in crown of… Continue reading The Daily: 1 May 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 