Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
It is All Hallows’ Eve, Hallowe’en, the first day of the ancient new year festival called Samhaine, which is usually translated as “end of summer”. This is one of the few clear remnants from at least one of the cultures we now name “Celtic”. The word, Samhaine, shows up in the Late Roman Era luna-solar… Continue reading All Hallows: An Entanglement
A key path to reducing your negative impact on the future — and to live and feel better into the bargain — is grounding yourself in the seasonal year. Eating what is fresh in your locality. Exploring your corner of the world. Experiencing the changes from one season to the next. Humans used to live in… Continue reading A Trip through the Solar Year
It is the season of the witch. Time for the maids, mothers, and crones to dance the spiral. Time to grab the broom and clean up all the messes. Time for stories and spells in the basement. Time to gather around the hearth. Time to wear midnight and sturdy boots, masks and tall hats. Time… Continue reading Wednesday Word: 27 October 2021
Still moving the books. Down to a couple dozen boxes, half of which are likely donates. I say this because they are in boxes that are left from the move from Albuquerque six years ago. Mislabeled boxes. What is inside is not what is written on the outside. You all know me well enough by… Continue reading Running Updates
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 are many games associated with the harvest season. There are the seemingly infinite varieties of grabbing and transporting things without using the hands. I’ve bobbed for apples, passed an orange down the line using just my armpits, transferred raw eggs from one person to another with popsicle sticks, grabbed an apple on a string… Continue reading Harvest Fun & Games
New England is just bonkers over autumn. It may be because we have these gorgeous sugar maples and morning mists and warm blue sky afternoons and loaded apple trees (every other year). It may be that we just like this season of impending doom. Three whole months to tune up the winter complaints. But in… Continue reading Wednesday Word: 22 September 2021
Time is telescoping again. I’m fairly certain I was just writing about Lughnasadh a few days ago, and here it is the autumnal equinox. The Full Harvest Moon will have risen and set by the time you read this. The blueberry bushes are picked bare; peaches are a sweet memory; tomatoes are just an annoyance… Continue reading Celebrating Harvest Home
All around the globe, these are days of balance. For much of the planet’s midsection, this is not a big change, but it is a shift, usually between rainy and dry seasons. For the South, summer is approaching and it is finally getting warm again, while up North, we’re heading into winter. But South or… Continue reading Balanced Time
A week or so ago the first of the maples were clearly changing colors. Maples seem to need more hours of daylight than most other trees. When day length is less than 14 hours, maples send their topmost leaves to sleep. This happens in the second week of August at Vermont latitudes. So by the… Continue reading Wednesday Word: 8 September 2021
By My Solitary Hearth 