Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
February First Fruits & Quirinalia To highlight just how different the seasonal cycle is depending on latitude, mid-February, the last ides period of the ritual year in Rome, was a festival of the first-fruit offerings. While here in Vermont we are barely thinking about the growing season, never mind able to see actual earth, during… Continue reading The Daily: 16 February 2025
A Benediction for Lupercalia Today is Lupercalia. This is one of the oldest festivals in EuroWestern culture and, in fact, likely predates the Euro-bits. As with most ancient things, this holy time is a dense web of themes that don’t all mesh together well, but somehow make a lovely tapestry when viewed from a certain… Continue reading The Daily: 15 February 2025
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 2025
Snow Moon The Wolf Moon went dark yesterday at 7:36am and Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, began with all its riotous color and spark last night. Today, the Snow Moon, the fourth moon in my lunar year, is new. In my calendar this is the season of Imbolg, the stirring of spring in… Continue reading The Daily: 30 January 2025
New Year's Day is misplaced. This date has no real significance. It is tied to nothing in the solar year nor in the cultural year. It is historically wrong. When the Romans created these two new months in their calendar, January and February, and set their state calendars to begin on 1 January, that date… Continue reading The Daily: 1 January 2025
The weather is finally settling into winter. The highs are in the single digits and the lows don't bear repeating. I've got all the heavy curtains closed tight, and draft blockers are wedged tight against the thresholds. And yet the furnace is still running far too much for my comfort. I fear the next oil… Continue reading The Daily: 23 December 2024
Saturnalia Saturnalia begins today. This year Saturn is sharing the night sky with the much brighter upstart planetary deities, Venus and Jupiter; but Saturn is still brighter than any star in the sky, shining to the south for several hours after sunset. In my part of the world, the earliest sunsets, 4:11pm have already passed… Continue reading The Daily: 17 December 2024
“We’ll stop them,” Collum said. “They’ve always invaded and we’ve always stopped them. There has to be a way.” “Not this time,” Morgan said. “Because they’re not invading.” “Well, what the hell do you call it?!” “Emigrating,” Morgan said. “Fleeing. They can’t stay in Saxony. The sea there is rising and flooding their lands, and… Continue reading The Daily: 14 November 2024
Neptunalia Today (or tomorrow, or both) is the ancient Roman (or Phoenician) holiday of Neptunalia, one of three obscure Roman festivals that honored watery deities in the last days of July. Neptune was the Roman god of both freshwater and the seas, but this festival, which shares many similarities with the Jewish Sukkot, is focused… Continue reading The Daily: 23 July 2024
Shortly after the Ides of July (Tacitus claims the date is July 18th), sometime around 390BCE (Plutarch says 387, Polybius says 393), a small (or medium, or large) force of the Gallic people known as the Senones (possibly intermingled with Etruscans), fought a battle at the River Allia where it flows into the Tiber and… Continue reading The Daily: 18 July 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 