Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
A Red-Letter Day April 25th is a complicated date. It is St Mark’s Day, which is honored with a wide variety of celebrations; and it is Robigalia, an ancient Roman festival intended to propitiate the god — or demon — of wheat rust and thus ensure a good harvest. These disparate themes may actually be… Continue reading The Daily: 25 April 2023
It wasn't the most productive weekend. I got some weird flu bug that created the most painful immune response I've ever endured. That lasted from Wednesday to Saturday. I was out of bed on Saturday, but I wasn't doing much but reading and writing. I did get a lot of both done, so that was… Continue reading The Daily: 24 April 2023
April 23rd is St George's Feast Day (though in the Church of England it is moved until Monday when the 23rd falls between Palm Sunday and the Sunday after Easter). For the day, I've written a modernized tale of Andromeda, an old story of annual agricultural sacrifice. 'St George and the Dragon' is a version… Continue reading The Daily: 23 April 2023
Earth Day Earth Day was created in 1970 as a direct political challenge. Wisconsin's Senator Gaylord Nelson wanted the US government to do what government is supposed to do — protect its people and lands from rapacious business. He created Earth Day and organized the first demonstrations across the country to force the hand of… Continue reading The Daily: 22 April 2023
I'm in the last third of the National Poetry Month challenge. This is when haiku and other forms of brevity start creeping in. I used to write quite a lot of these spare cut gems, but they start to lose their luster when tossed into the rule bin. Being a merry anarchist, I don't go… Continue reading The Daily: 21 April 2023
When we learn of spinning galaxies filled with billions of stars, how can we believe that one country is more important than another? Why do we even have countries at all? We are riding a living planet through space, and we are all on the same ride together. — Akiva Silver, Trees of Power (2019,… Continue reading The Daily: 20 April 2023
If you leave a man on land which is someone else's property and tell him he is a completely free man and can work for himself, it's as if you drop him in the middle of the Atlantic and tell him he is free to go ashore. — Henry George in Tolstoy's Calendar of Wisdom… Continue reading The Daily: 19 April 2023
I am not fond of spring. Of course, I like the warmth and the end of shoveling snow. I love flowers and birdsong. Bees are rather funny when they first waken in the springtime. I don't even mind the lengthening days, though I do wish the neighborhood robins would sleep in on the weekends. At… Continue reading The Daily: 18 April 2023
The weather finally caught up with the calendar — and then it ran right on into July. It was over 80°F for the last several days. This is extremely unusual for April. Burlington was setting daily record high temperatures. My town probably was also, but records aren't as complete here. For comparison, in central Vermont,… Continue reading The Daily: 17 April 2023
April 15th is Tax Day for the United States. In most years taxes are due on this date, though exceptions are made for weekends and recently COVID seems to have added on extra days. In 2023, individual tax returns must be filed by Tuesday, April 18th. I don't know anyone who puts it off that… Continue reading The Daily: 15 April 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 