Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
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
The problem? How do you mark this day? Most years, I don’t. I’m not Hispanic. My best friend growing up was Mayan and there were complicated feelings about Mexico related to that. I never thought there was much to celebrate. We learned in grade school that it’s a commemoration of a 19th century Mexican victory… Continue reading Cinco de Mayo
the hawthorn queen she waxes full in fertile grace queen of quick and fay, she reigns in mantle green and seemly face quelling fear and mortal pains eternal mother, ever maid undying wisdom in her glance deathless wierd is on her laid to spin th' unceasing wheel of chance again, she comes in crown of… Continue reading May Day
It’s time to make Hot Cross Buns! Though there are many conflicting and confounding stories about hot cross buns in the spring, I’ve never found a satisfactory explanation for why these are associated with the middle of spring and specifically with Good Friday. Yes, I know there’s the whole “holy rood” thing. Except the tradition… Continue reading Hot Cross Buns
I’ve been having a bad week. Surprisingly, I do not have a sudden urge to buy guns and use them. It’s rather unsettling that I have no doubt that I could do that. Today. Just walk across the street from my house and buy a gun from the “vintage military” dealer over there and then… Continue reading It’s Not Enough
there is a sacred spring down the lane yea, truly, though abandoned by utility desecrated by profanity there is a tiny bit of the elysian just down the lane a spring bedight in candles, coins, rags, riches scraps of superstition supplication alms and oblation just down the lane and surreptitiously they come seeking lucidity seeking… Continue reading The Clootie Tree
Here is a story that we tell ourselves. From The Good Ancestor: “Consider the immense legacy left by our ancestors: those who sowed the first seeds in Mesopotamia 10,000 years ago, who cleared the land, built the waterways and founded the cities where we now live, who made the scientific discoveries, won the political struggles… Continue reading Is Farming the Problem?
March is upon us once again. An Old English name for March was Hlyda, meaning “loud”, presumably referring to the roaring March winds. This name survived as Lide in the West countries. Eat leeks in Lide and ramsons in May, And all the year after physicians may play. — proverb from western England Ducks wan't… Continue reading Lion and Lamb
Snow Moon The fourth moon in the lunar year is the Snow Moon, though I sometimes think it should be called the Hunger Moon. There is not always snow, but there is hunger — in both belly and mind. At this time of year, many of us become restless, wanting to be more, do more.… Continue reading New Year by Snow Moon
So what is the true meaning of this holiday? Is it all about the sheep? Is it a more general quickening of life in a more generalized belly? Do sheep have anything to do with it? Or is it maybe all about cleaning?
By My Solitary Hearth 