Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
Or: Why this is NOT Columbus Day Here is this guy. He has several boats worth of men with him on a trip into the unknown. They are lost, hungry, tired. Many are sick. Some have died already. They probably stink worse than an open sewer riddled with rotting bodies. Which is not far off… Continue reading Clarification
Odin Rides to the Rock by Arthur Rackham The Old Farmers' Almanac calls this moon cycle the Hunter's Moon, but for me the Falling Leaves Moon is full today at 4:54pm. They seem to think this moon is named for the hunting season. This is neither temporally nor mythically correct. It is not yet hunting… Continue reading Falling Leaves Moon
4 October 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 St Francis of the Birdbath
there’s a lot of advice on how we should feel and what we should think. not a lot on how to adjust the body to these changes we’re experiencing now, how to live physically. how to be in the body in this time and place. ultimately that is the only kind of living. in the… Continue reading michaelmas murmuring
The sun passes the ecliptic today at 9:04 pm (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, we have a 12-hour day… Continue reading Autumn Reflection
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 breaking. The Dog Days end… Continue reading The Feast of the Assumption
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 displays… Continue reading Lammas Muffins & Myths
It is nearly Lughnasadh. This is my favorite time of year. Some may love midwinter twinkle; others may love the summer sun. But I live for the autumn blaze. The cooling weather, the increasing darkness, the slowing pace and renewed time for reading and introspection. The color and pageantry of fall. The scents of leaf… Continue reading Lughnasadh
It is early July. In my country, we set fire to gunpowder and other explosives wrapped in paper — which are produced almost entirely in extremely hazardous conditions outside of this country — to mimic the actual gunpowder explosions that presumably were the background for the signing of a document that declared this small group… Continue reading On the Existence of Independence
Paul Bunyan statue in Bangor, Maine. (Wikipedia) It’s that special day in June again. No, not that solstice thing. No, forget graduation. No, not the wedding thing. It’s Paul Bunyan Day! A day to celebrate an absolute idiot who blundered through the north woods, wearing plaid flannel, leading a cow named Babe, and wielding an… Continue reading Paul Bunyan Day
By My Solitary Hearth 