Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
We have a fraught relationship with trees. To mask our utter dependence on the green world and to justify taking whatever we desire from the planet, we have stripped even the possibility of consciousness from other life forms, woody ones in particular. We name them resources, so that the value of trees is determined only… Continue reading Arbor 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 related. Mark the… Continue reading A Red-Letter Day
what do you see with your eyes trained on a tree? what do you hear when your ears take in birdsong? what do you feel when your fingers touch soil? turn questions around so that what becomes who when you ponder them know that they regard you we sing the same songs we bear the… Continue reading no difference
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 and the fields. Both sides… Continue reading A Confusion of Grain Gods
It is time for regeneration. Nests of new life in satiny shells — white, blue, green, pink, yellow, speckled, mottled, striped and solid. No doubt our urge to paint chicken eggs for the late spring holidays is inspired by the wondrous works of art in every nest. And it’s also not surprising that humans have… Continue reading Spring Eggs
I wrote the core of this decades ago, when I was a different person. But it seemed relevant this year... or maybe it's always been. man's loyalty they lay their robes at his feet they sang glories to his name they waved supple fronds in adulation hailing the new king — the moon waxed full… Continue reading Palm Sunday
I listen to quite a lot of music. Not much of it feels rooted or even connected to Earthly life. I'm beginning to wonder if many of our problems stem from an inability to celebrate what is life-affirming. Maybe we need an aesthetic of the hearth and home, of the constant and congenial and communitarian.… Continue reading We Need New Songs…
Common cuckoo (male). National Audubon Society. cuckoo sings out spring changeling in contented nest songs of troth betrayed A poem for 8 April , National Poetry Month, day 8. They say the cuckoo returns in mid-April, its song ushering in the season of growth. I've always found our relationship to this bird to be strange.… Continue reading cuckoo
There was ice on the garden at the beginning of the week. Today, there are snowdrops and crocuses. And honeybees! The bud scales have dropped off the apple trees and the lilacs are beginning to open. I can walk to the mailbox without a coat and I've had the curtains drawn wide all day. I'm… Continue reading The First Flowers of Spring!
he opens his heart to birdsong, feels fizz-prickle of bud fissure — a frisson of eternal expectancy. he hungers for strong summer sun but remains stoic under starlight and spring storm. he yawns limbs unfurled, sends sweet sap down to earth; must pay mycorrhizal newsboys for missed winter tidings — cold comforts for the reluctant… Continue reading the green man goes back to bed
By My Solitary Hearth 