Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
Like many people, I find the American version of Valentine’s Day and the saccharine and monochromatic view of love it promotes to be repulsive. In my younger days I assumed the whole farce was invented by the greeting card and gifting industry, along with the rise of all manner of fake holidays intended to get… Continue reading The Daily: 14 February 2023
If Brigid visited your house with a blessing last night, show her your gratitude by beginning your spring cleaning in her honor. If you have a woodstove, today is a good day to clean out the ashes and begin spreading them on your garden beds. (If you live where the soils are already saline, especially… Continue reading The Daily: 1 February 2023
for 17 December 2022 Io, Saturnalia! Let the dancing begin! Two feet of snow... that's the beginning of the Midwinter revels here in central Vermont. Two feet out there and snow still falling heavily over the entire state. I have tickets to the Nutcracker tonight. I wonder if that's going to happen. The plow guys,… Continue reading The Daily
for 13 December 2022 Lucy Light Shortest day, longest night —traditional English proverb Before Pope Gregory tweaked the Julian calendar and caused a great deal of confusion, 13 December was celebrated as the winter solstice in Scandinavia. The poem by the late 16th century English writer, John Donne, “A Nocturnal upon St Lucy’s Day, Being… Continue reading The Daily
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
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
It is early July. In my country, we set fire to gunpowder and other explosives wrapped in paper — which are produced almost entirely in extremely hazardous conditions outside of this country — to mimic the actual gunpowder explosions that presumably were the background for the signing of a document that declared this small group… Continue reading On the Existence of Independence
They came for me as I was grinding the last of the roasted spelt. My sisters stood by with downcast eyes. I did not know who of them believed in my innocence. I found that I was troubled by this. I would go to my death willingly, but I was unwilling to let the ravenous… Continue reading Immolation
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 novelists and sociologists (who might be predisposed), economists (who probably are not), celebrity chefs and… Continue reading Vestalia & Needful Religion
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
By My Solitary Hearth 