Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
I need to explain something. Because there seems to be quite a bit of explication directed at my writing. Well, truly, aimed at me. Those who are explaining have normally not read what I’ve written, never mind all that I’ve read and researched on each essay topic. That is to say the explainers frequently do… Continue reading A Short Riposte
I feel like I’ve been working through first principles for a while. But I haven’t covered one big one — dualities. Our propensity to look at the extreme end points of a spectrum and not the entire spectrum. To classify everything as good or bad, when neither actually exists. I think about this quite a… Continue reading Duality and Reality
It is nearly Lughnasadh. This is my favorite time of year. Some may love midwinter twinkle; others may love the summer sun. But I live for the autumn blaze. The cooling weather, the increasing darkness, the slowing pace and renewed time for reading and introspection. The color and pageantry of fall. The scents of leaf… Continue reading Lughnasadh
It is nearly Lughnasadh, fair season. This is the time of year when we gather together to celebrate and share and boast about our handicrafts. The Irish have a such a deep passion for these crafty clan gatherings, they put a deity in charge. Lugh was the primary god of the Tribe. These days, he… Continue reading Lugh’s Blessing
In the past couple weeks I’ve encountered two new books from people who should know better claiming that our big brains and social systems are rooted in hunting. This is the bad penny of origin stories — Man the Hunter. It is time someone bites down on this one and shows once and for all… Continue reading Further Exegesis of A Man
I’ve been a practicing pagan, of a rather ecumenical nature, since I was a teenager. I’ve been more or less open about my faith for at least 30 years. At any rate, I’ve not denied it when someone happened to guess correctly, though I’ve not initiated any such conversations. I’ve never been openly ostracized and… Continue reading Solstice
One of the main thrusts of my thinking and writing is about home. The concept, the application, the economics and management. Recently, I’ve had reason to reconsider my relationship to home, to my home and to my idea of home. I wrote about this, I thought exhaustively, a few weeks ago; but it turns out… Continue reading Homeless
In the last few years I’ve seen a wide variety of people arrive at the conclusion that what we need as a society to avert self-destruction — self and everything else, that is — is a new religion. I’ve encountered sociologists (who might be predisposed), economists (who probably are not), celebrity chefs and actors, personal… Continue reading Gimme That Ol’ Time Religion
Recently, I read an essay by a high school teacher, Belle Chesler, describing her plague year. Near the end she writes this: The skills and the knowledge we promote as most valuable are tied to workforce demands — not to what should count as actual life learning or growth. When you narrow achievement to what’s… Continue reading On Education
As you are reading this, I’m moving into the first home I’ve bought. Consequentially, I’m thinking quite a bit about what home means. What it means to me, what it means in the abstract, what it means for our collective culture. Picket fence and all! Many of the common ideas about home in Euro-western culture… Continue reading Becoming Home
By My Solitary Hearth 