Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
Odds are few of you are as involved in the pagan community as I am. Though this is the fastest growing spiritual path, both in the world and in my own country, it is still a very small community. Moreover, even within this small community, I am in the minority in thinking that it might… Continue reading The Daily: 28 October 2025
It is the time of year when I am increasingly compelled to define my path. What does a witch do? What does a witch believe? What does it mean to be a witch? I find that the definition often leads to more words in need of definition, bound up as they are with the world… Continue reading The Daily: 23 October 2025
Ever since reading Becoming Native to This Place by Wes Jackson back in the late 1990s, I have sought to define what that means for me. Wes defines it mostly in terms of food production, but there are also elements of spirituality and philosophy even as he writes about farming. Food is certainly the central… Continue reading The Daily: 15 October 2025
October 4th 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 The Daily: 4 October 2024
Sunday’s ramble into dark corners of mythography was triggered by yet another authoritative assertion that the Harvest Lord used to be a bloody sacrifice. But it was also, more subconsciously, inspired by much of the reading I’ve been doing in the blogosphere lately where many people are wrestling with questions of who we are. What… Continue reading The Daily: 30 September 2025
I read quite a lot of folklore, mostly tied to the ritual year in temperate climates, mostly those regions where I understand the languages and cultures, mostly places I have lived or have personally known through family and friends. So, mostly those places influenced or reshaped (as in my own country) by EuroWestern colonial culture.… Continue reading The Daily: 28 September 2025
In nearly every culture — except the one I live within — there is some form of ancestor veneration. Honoring your forebears seems to be human instinct. Though we could never verify this with those whose interiority is hidden from our perception, there is reason to believe that ancestor worship is part of every being's… Continue reading The Daily: 23 September 2025
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. This essay was inspired… Continue reading The Daily: 17 September 2025
On the “worst inventions of mankind”… Recently, there has been a flurry of essays and lists naming the worst tools and ideas of humanity. This seems to be a cyclical thing, periodically popping up in bursts from all directions and listing all sorts of things, though notably never the driver behind bad inventing. There are… Continue reading The Daily: 12 September 2025
I was thinking about the symbols of Lughnasadh and how to short-hand the description of time and seasonal energy. The idea set that best works is that of the elements, but I’m reluctant to use that language because it carries such woo-woo magickal baggage that it puts up walls in the mind of any practical… Continue reading The Daily: 31 July 2025
By My Solitary Hearth 