The Daily: 6 May 2024

We have passed May Day. In traditional northern cultures this is summer. Tomorrow, the Greenleaf Moon goes dark. The Flower Moon will be a new crescent on Wednesday. The year is rolling on. But, though the days are over fourteen hours long, here in Vermont we are just now enjoying spring. We've had two solid… Continue reading The Daily: 6 May 2024

The Daily: 4 May 2024

Come, now a roundel by Arthur Rackham (1908) the thorn path she made her feathered nest in the tangled boughs of oak, ash, thorn and found mushroom echoes of moonbeams she delved for essence among the hawthorn roots and brought woven certainty to light she entered the ring where faeries are dancing and knew the… Continue reading The Daily: 4 May 2024

The Daily: 26 April 2024

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: 26 April 2024

The Daily: 25 April 2024

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 2024

The Daily: 9 April 2024

When we learn of spinning galaxies filled with billions of stars, how can we believe that one country is more important than another? Why do we even have countries at all? We are riding a living planet through space, and we are all on the same ride together. — Akiva Silver, Trees of Power (2019,… Continue reading The Daily: 9 April 2024

The Daily: 8 April 2024

A Miraculous Weather Update After weeks of darkness, the skies are absolutely clear today! Praise be! There will be eclipse viewing in Vermont! 2017 Total Solar Eclipse (NASA/Carla Thomas) It's finally here! The last full solar eclipse to pass over my part of the world in my lifetime, maybe in the lifetime of anybody currently… Continue reading The Daily: 8 April 2024

The Daily: 7 April 2024

So let me tell you about my week... Ok, maybe not. Suffice it to say that two feet of spring snow derailed all carefully laid eclipse-viewing plans, another tree in the jungle has toppled into a rather unsafe position requiring immediate and probably expensive attention, there have been too many hours without power and frozen… Continue reading The Daily: 7 April 2024

The Daily: 30 March 2024

A Confusion of Grain Gods Our culture is confused about food and farming. We believe that we are in a power-over relationship with the world, and particularly with our food. We are so enamored with dominance that we've lost sight of the inherent partnership between plants and animals, between prey and predator, between the farmer… Continue reading The Daily: 30 March 2024

The Daily: 26 March 2024

Has anyone else noticed the weather forecasting gaslighting? Or whatever is happening... Is this AI? Perhaps a computer generating models based on measured conditions maybe several days in advance and then sticking to it regardless of what actually transpires? Maybe not even based on measured conditions at all but on averages for the date? (Based… Continue reading The Daily: 26 March 2024