Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
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 kitchen rather than at my desk. For me, today is Apple Day... making apple-tomato chutney, applesauce, apple butter and probably some apple bread... because I went to Burtt's yesterday. But I'm not… Continue reading The Daily: 13 October 2025
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
The Nutting Moon goes dark tomorrow. Monday, the new Harvest Moon will be a thin crescent over the setting sun, which, in my part of the world, will be setting about due west after passing the ecliptic on its journey south at 2:19 in the afternoon. On Tuesday, the sun rises and sets at true… Continue reading The Daily: 20 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
Another fun week in paradise… The smoke has been officially “unhealthy” several times in the last thirteen days and has spent most of that time merely at “unhealthy for sensitive groups”. Temperatures hit 90°F several of those days, with lows only in the 70s, so… not cool enough to cool down the house overnight without… Continue reading The Daily: 4 August 2025
Crom Dubh Sunday In many northern communities, July is a hungry month. The spring flush of greens and quick-growing roots like radishes and beets may still be trickling out of the garden, but most have bolted and run to seed. However, those that remain are long on fiber and short on calories, and little of… Continue reading The Daily: 27 July 2025
Herself is still hiding from the world. Here is a repost of a sadly even more cogent Fourth of July themed screed. Here's hoping for a day when all this is irrelevant... A day when it might feel natural and right to celebrate the country we inhabit and daily create... Though the Fourth is probably… Continue reading The Daily: 4 July 2025
On the solstice, I began reading Robert Macfarlane’s book Is a River Alive? (seemed appropriate) which is already as elegiac and reverential as anything he has produced. Lauds can not do justice. However, there is a fundamental logical error that has not been addressed in this book yet (I am not that far in at… Continue reading The Daily: 27 June 2025
By My Solitary Hearth 