Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
There is still no frost. In all the horrible news of the last ten days or so, this is what is troubling me right now. It is not that I am unaffected by the lurid headlines. I am sickened and disgusted and enraged and so very tired of idiots with large guns and larger egos… Continue reading The Daily: 17 October 2023
A Brief Literary Exhortation You will want to go find a copy of Starling House by Alix Harrow. You may want to buy this perfect rendition of the Southern Gothic because you will likely read it two or three times in quick succession and then come back to it several months hence, to savor such… Continue reading The Daily: 10 October 2023
St Francis of the Birdbath 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… Continue reading The Daily: 4 October 2023
The moonrise tonight is the closest to the Full Harvest Moon which happens at 5:58 tomorrow morning. In my part of the world, moonrise tonight is at 6:30pm, a few minutes before the sun sets. This ought to be one moonrise that most of New England can see, though thin clouds might dim the Full… Continue reading The Daily: 28 September 2023
Happy Mabon? Is it possible to unselfconsciously use the Wiccan-derived names for the quarter days? Because I can’t seem to get there. For the third quarter day of the year, they chose a rather obscure deity as their name for the holiday. I couldn’t say what the Welsh Mabon, or Maponos, the perpetually young Son… Continue reading The Daily: 23 September 2023
The sun passes the ecliptic tomorrow at 2:50am (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, day length is closest to 12… Continue reading The Daily: 22 September 2023
My post on the hygge garden sort of tipped over into esoterica before I could talk about an actual garden. In my defense, I was very tired. I was also writing in WordPress which tends to get very buggy and slow at about 1000 words. It's hard to complete any thoughts when the text you… Continue reading The Daily: 20 September 2023
Today is the Feast Day of Hildegard of Bingen, one of the greatest influencers in medieval Europe. Her works were read and promulgated by bishops, kings, and popes. She led the western world in matters ranging from medicine to music, and her unique philosophy of life is still fresh and inspirational. I wrote this essay… Continue reading The Daily: 17 September 2023
The year is full of seasonal rewards and splendors, momentary splashes of perfection in time before time flows on to new climes. Winter is crystalline, it is the season of icy airs and scintillating stars. Even where there is no snow, winter is drained of color, austere and structural, as growing things slumber. Spring is… Continue reading The Daily: 5 September 2023
The Feast of the Assumption 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… Continue reading The Daily: 15 August 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 