Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
The Sap Moon went dark yesterday at 7:52am. Today begins the Greening Moon. I have not written much about this lunation. Usually I am very busy in April because of Poetry Month with its various poetry readings and, to a lesser extent, because the garden is becoming demanding during this moon of leafing out. I'm… Continue reading The Daily: 18 April 2026
If you leave a man on land which is someone else's property and tell him he is a completely free man and can work for himself, it's as if you drop him in the middle of the Atlantic and tell him he is free to go ashore. — Henry George in Tolstoy's Calendar of Wisdom… Continue reading The Daily: 12 April 2026
Today is National Dandelion Day. It's also Easter. I don't celebrate Easter in the Christian sense. I think there is quite enough suffering in the world without invoking the sacrifice of grain gods into the beginning of spring. However, I am starting to think that the secular holiday, the bits with rabbits and eggs and… Continue reading The Daily: 5 April 2026
The Daily for 29 March 2024: Hot cross buns!
Lady Day March 25th is Lady Day. This is another Marian holiday which incorporated older pagan traditions — in this case, the New Year celebrations which fell on 25 March before Julius Caesar shifted the Roman observance to the beginning of January. Lady Day is nine months before December 25th, so you can probably figure… Continue reading The Daily: 25 March 2026
Tomorrow is Lady Day. Inasmuch as I celebrate the start of a new gardening year, tomorrow is it. March 25th was also the de facto New Year's Day for most of Roman history and remained a new year celebration up until the Enlightenment in many cultures derived from Rome. So tonight is New Year's Eve.… Continue reading The Daily: 24 March 2026
The Season of Renewal This year, the Vernal Equinox happens on March 20th at 10:46am. This is, I think, the most nebulous of the solar festivals. Yes, it does mark an actual solar event, but it’s not the one we typically hear about. It’s not much of an event at all. This festival is less… Continue reading The Daily: 20 March 2026
St Joseph, Patron of Fatherhood To me Christianity seems to be rather quiet on Joseph, the husband of Mary and the step-father of their deity. That may be because I've never lived in an Italian neighborhood where Joe is the patron saint of roughly half the male population (though I did get a faint whiff… Continue reading The Daily: 19 March 2026
Today is... the equinox? Vernal Equinox Quiz True or False: The vernal equinox is when spring begins. Not exactly. The beginning of spring depends on where you live, and it is more a cultural phenomenon than a meteorological one. Tradition in Ireland has spring beginning with St Brigid’s Day on 1 February. Spring weather may… Continue reading The Daily: 17 March 2026
There are two observances today that are dear to me. I am sure that there are more, even within my culture. And of course, it's autumn down south. Which adds even more ways to celebrate the time. The Navigation of Isis In Apuleius’, The Golden Ass, we find a description of another marker of spring. The Navigium… Continue reading The Daily: 5 March 2026
By My Solitary Hearth 