Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
Happy Mabon? Is it possible to unselfconsciously use the Wiccan-derived names for the quarter days? Because I can’t seem to get there. For the third quarter day of the year, they chose a rather obscure deity as their name for the holiday. I couldn’t say what the Welsh Mabon, or Maponos, the perpetually young Son… Continue reading The Daily: 23 September 2023
The sun passes the ecliptic tomorrow at 2:50am (EDT). This is the autumnal equinox. By now, those of you who tolerate my blathering know that this is not the true equinox since that day of equal length for night and day is dependent on latitude. Here where I live, day length is closest to 12… Continue reading The Daily: 22 September 2023
Today is the Feast Day of Hildegard of Bingen, one of the greatest influencers in medieval Europe. Her works were read and promulgated by bishops, kings, and popes. She led the western world in matters ranging from medicine to music, and her unique philosophy of life is still fresh and inspirational. I wrote this essay… Continue reading The Daily: 17 September 2023
Labor Day Today is Labor Day in the US. This first Monday in September is the day that our country dedicated to honoring the working class after the powers that be decided that May Day, the original Labor Day, was too closely tied to the actual labor movement. A parade of organized laborers was held… Continue reading The Daily: 4 September 2023
Today is King's Cross Day. Time to board a train and head back to Hogwarts. The kids in my town started school on Wednesday. My niece in Indiana has been in class for weeks. New Mexico started in early August as well, though when my kids were in school and when I was teaching geology… Continue reading The Daily: 1 September 2023
Full Blue Blueberry Supermoon The Blueberry Moon is full tonight at 9:36pm. This is the second full moon in August, so this is a blue moon. This is also the time of year that the moon is closest to earth, so it is a supermoon, also the second one in August. As I said earlier… Continue reading The Daily: 30 August 2023
The Feast of the Assumption It is the Feast of the Assumption. In the Church calendar, this is the day Mother Mary was taken bodily up to heaven without the inconvenience of dying first. But in the older calendar of Europe, this was the time when it was recognized that the heat of summer was… Continue reading The Daily: 15 August 2023
The Perseids are falling in the late night sky again. Once again, there is little chance that I can see them. This year that might be true of most of the country — except those trapped under that heat dome. And you all might even want to be awake at that time of night, when… Continue reading The Daily: 12 August 2023
Back in the in the last bits of the 20th century, I was involved in geology. I was basically a glorified volcanologist, but I used radiogenic isotopes to trace material movement in the mantle. So there was mathematical modeling in what I did. And there were isotopic analysis labs. Furthermore, I was in New Mexico… Continue reading The Daily: 3 August 2023
Lammas It's the probably not-terribly-ancient festival of bread, Lammas, Hlaf-mas, Loaf Mass. This holiday is possibly an English variant on the Irish first fruits and fair festival of Lughnasadh, but compacted into one day and generally lacking any ritual or narrative. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, churches in East Anglia constructed elaborate… Continue reading The Daily: 2 August 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 