Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
I recently read a long and complicated essay on place-based adaptation to biophysical collapse. It discussed policy, transport, economics — all local, but all also rather superfluous to the human being. In talking of the inadequacy of urban housing, the author claimed that "nothing is more vital for human existence than shelter.” Except maybe food?… Continue reading The Daily: 27 October 2023
This is just a short, mostly small news brief for the week. But first the headline... Hurricane Otis made landfall over Acapulco, Mexico, yesterday morning. A hurricane in the eastern Pacific, where the coldest ocean waters are constantly upwelling, is singular enough. This is the strongest storm to hit the coast of western Mexico on… Continue reading The Daily: 26 October 2023
Magic as Wisdom I am an odd witch. Most would not consider me one at all. This is just fine with me, because most witches in history have not named themselves in that manner either, and not merely because it was rather bad for one’s health to claim the title. Most simply had no use… Continue reading The Daily: 24 October 2023
Where are all the people? My mail is sporadic. Before the flood, there were days now and then in which the box was inexplicably bare — there should be something every day because my newspaper is delivered through US Post. Which is questionable in and of itself. How much are the publishers paying for that… Continue reading The Daily: 20 October 2023
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
Ordinary Magic The 13th moon of the wheel of the year, theHunter's Moon, was new yesterday. Halloween, All Hallow’s, and the Day of the Dead — and Bonfire Night, if one is so inclined — are fast approaching, and, with these holy days, my calendar year is drawing to a close. It is cool and… Continue reading The Daily: 16 October 2023
The Old Farmer's Almanac says today is National Farmer's Day. I think this ought to be the bank holiday we celebrate in October, maybe in conjunction with Indigenous Peoples' Day — because farming for food is largely an indigenous project. (As opposed to farming for wealth, which is a colonizer project.) I have my differences… Continue reading The Daily: 12 October 2023
Today is Indigenous Peoples's Day in my part of the world. It is actually a holiday in my office, so I'm in the garden rather than at my desk. I don't know how I feel about this holiday yet. I mean, yes, by all means honor the people who were here when the colonizers showed… Continue reading The Daily: 9 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
Why is it so hard to accept that we are part of a whole? Why do we suppose that there is no consciousness but ours? Or will? Or mind? Why can't we accept limits and death? Why do we impose human qualities on everything? If there are gods and spirits, why should they resemble humanity… Continue reading The Daily: 3 October 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 