Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
If Candlemas be bright and clear there'll be two winters in the year. — traditional adage from Scotland Of Candles and Divinatory Beasts There are many weather marking days throughout the year. Candlemas, falling on 2 February, was the day that our ancestors began to get nervous about the spring. A fine Candlemas portends a… Continue reading The Daily: 2 February 2024
If Brigid visited your house with a blessing last night, show her your gratitude by beginning your spring cleaning in her honor. If you have a woodstove, today is a good day to clean out the ashes and begin spreading them on your garden beds. (If you live where the soils are already saline, especially… Continue reading The Daily: 1 February 2024
Things to look forward to... hugs I made it another year in this body. Those years are running by increasingly fast these days — though a day can last forever. But each anniversary of my nativity feels like a triumph of sorts. I am still alive. I am still cognizant and in mostly functional health.… Continue reading The Daily: 30 January 2024
My sons tell me to ignore the comments when these essays get posted on other websites. Never, never read the comments. Never engage with the comments. Do not even look at the comments. I read the comments... In my defense, I was looking for an image credit. The picture adorning the top of the essay… Continue reading The Daily: 26 January 2024
We live in a culture of self-harm, a culture that is antithetical to life, that is anti-life. Those of us who live in daily contact with human-built environments are immersed in toxins, in unnumbered mechanical hazards, and in an ocean of damaging electromagnetic radiation. We subject our fragile bodies to impacts and collisions ranging from… Continue reading The Daily: 23 January 2024
I feel like I have been complaining quite a bit lately. I don’t mean to be… ok, maybe I do… and why not! We should all be complaining. We should all be loudly expressing our discontent with the damage a few greedy humans have done and continue to do to our world, to our lives,… Continue reading The Daily: 19 January 2024
On Tuesday, we had an actual blizzard. It happened at 2am so I didn't bother much with it. There had been warnings and preparations had been made. I think we may have lost power for a minute or two in my town. Some places fared worse. But still, actual blizzard... So on Tuesday evening, when… Continue reading The Daily: 11 January 2024
It is Epiphany, 6 January, the close of the Christmas season and the beginning of mundane time, a shift to Imbolg and the hope of spring — after we, hopefully, survive the worst of the winter weather. This is the date the Catholic Church assigned to the arrival of the Magi and also, later, the… Continue reading The Daily: 6 January 2024
Take down all your Christmas ornaments by Twelfth Night to avoid bad luck for the rest of the year. — The Magpie and the Wardrobe by Sam McKechnie & Alexandrine Portelli I don't actually do this. I used to fret because I did not, or was not able to... because there are all these admonitions,… Continue reading The Daily: 5 January 2024
In my part of the world, this is the season of Midwinter. The nights are long and days are short. It is the time for snow angels, sledding, skiing, and ice fishing... except... it's not. Last week, ice fishers on the Upper Red Lake in northern Minnesota needed rescuing when the lake ice they stood… Continue reading The Daily: 2 January 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 