Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
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. I’ve encountered novelists and sociologists (who might be predisposed), economists (who probably are not), celebrity chefs and… Continue reading The Daily: 7 June 2023
The seventh moon of the year is the Flower Moon. It is new between 23 April and 21 May. It is full between 7 May and 4 June. This year it is full right at the tail end of its period, at 11:42pm tonight. It will rise closest to full this evening as the sun is setting, at… Continue reading The Daily: 3 June 2023
The heat promised for last week failed to materialize. It never got much above 60°F, and I've had to keep the basil covered most nights to protect it from freezing. My neighbor planted tomatoes last Sunday. They were frost-killed by mid-week. I had planned to plant carrots and cucumbers on Monday evening, but the week's… Continue reading The Daily: 29 May 2023
Ancient Rome celebrated the festival of Rosalia, also called Rosaria, on one or more days from early May to the middle of July. The Oxford Book of Days claims the Rosalia fell on 23 May, so that's what I recorded in my calendar — though it is unusual to see a rose blooming in May… Continue reading The Daily: 23 May 23
The Greenleaf Moon is full at 1:34pm today. There is a penumbral eclipse with this full moon. In this type of eclipse the moon is in Earth's penumbra, so there is a dimming of the Moon, but no shape or color change like in a partial or total eclipse. This one is visible from large… Continue reading The Daily: 5 May 2023
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 2023
Walpurgis Night The last day of April has been a fraught time for millennia. This is a night when pranks are pulled, when spells are cast and wishes are granted, when the Good Folk pass through the veils to walk the woodlands, and when witches dance. The Beltaine fires were lit at midnight on May… Continue reading The Daily: 30 April 2023
Floralia Cosiddetta Flora from the Villa di Arianna in Stabiae near Pompeii, 1st century Roman fresco The festival of Floralia is another very old holiday. It honors Flora, the Roman idea of fertility that is embodied in spring flowers. Flora is one of the oldest deities in the Roman pantheon. She is older than Rome,… Continue reading The Daily: 28 April 2023
A Red-Letter Day April 25th is a complicated date. It is St Mark’s Day, which is honored with a wide variety of celebrations; and it is Robigalia, an ancient Roman festival intended to propitiate the god — or demon — of wheat rust and thus ensure a good harvest. These disparate themes may actually be… Continue reading The Daily: 25 April 2023
April 23rd is St George's Feast Day (though in the Church of England it is moved until Monday when the 23rd falls between Palm Sunday and the Sunday after Easter). For the day, I've written a modernized tale of Andromeda, an old story of annual agricultural sacrifice. 'St George and the Dragon' is a version… Continue reading The Daily: 23 April 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 