Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
On November 11th at 11 in the morning, we practice a moment of silence for two minutes to remember the day we reached an accord and agreed to lay down arms after the brutality of World War 1. A century ago we stopped fighting. Soldiers came home. It was a time very like this. A… Continue reading Martinmas
Demon Copperhead Barbara Kingsolver Harper, 2022 I preordered Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book from our local bookstore because that’s just something I do, buy Barbara Kingsolver books. I had no idea what this one was about, had only a vague notion on the title, didn’t much care. I’ve never been disappointed by her writing. And I… Continue reading Demon Copperhead & an Idea
I am usually behind the times. No help for that. I find my kitchen and garden and books and making and doing far more interesting than much of what passes for au courant. Heck, I find sitting staring out the window far more interesting. Especially if there are crows. So I'm normally not motivated to… Continue reading Unmediated?
In Tolstoy’s Calendar of Wisdom, he says that a “man” does not fear death. “Fear of death is our animal nature,” he claims. I don’t know that any part of that is accurate. To be sure, we have a very unhealthy relationship to death. We tell ourselves stories of our mastery of death, of death’s… Continue reading The Day of the Dead
It is All Saints Day, All Hallows, the ancient new year festival called Samhaine, which is usually translated as “end of summer”. Last night was the All Hallow's Eve, Hallowe'en, a new year's eve in former days with all the sweet treats, riotous good fun, and debauchery that entails. This is one of the few… Continue reading All Hallows: An Entanglement
Today is the Dark Falling Leaves Moon. Tomorrow the 13th moon of the wheel of the year, the Hunter’s Moon, begins. Next week is Halloween, All Hallow’s, and the Day of the Dead. Also Bonfire Night if one is so inclined. It is cool and damp and rather dark with not much more than 10… Continue reading Ordinary Magic
It’s been quite couple of weeks. There were two more events at work that left me numb with exhaustion and despair — and more illness, both as a result of people bringing their novel diseases into the very small and not notably well-ventilated shop in which I work and as a result of that exhaustion… Continue reading Two Rules for Happy
Or: Why this is NOT Columbus Day Here is this guy. He has several boats worth of men with him on a trip into the unknown. They are lost, hungry, tired. Many are sick. Some have died already. They probably stink worse than an open sewer riddled with rotting bodies. Which is not far off… Continue reading Clarification
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 with one palm out, feeding… Continue reading St Francis of the Birdbath
It is the season of the witch. I should be in my element. Yet I am generally... not... I just get so frustrated with modern paganism. Here, I think, is a philosophy and a way of living that has so much potential to heal, to create joy, to fix all the crap that western culture… Continue reading Magical Thinking…
By My Solitary Hearth 