Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
Today is St Brigid's Eve. In traditional cultures, this is when most of the ritual for Imbolg takes place. St Brigid is welcomed into the home with rush crosses and formal family ceremony and doors thrown wide. A bed is prepared by the hearth, and oats and cream are left on the doorstep. The fires… Continue reading The Daily: 31 January 2024
I like days that have symmetry. Doesn't mean a thing, but it makes my goofy brain happy... Things to look forward to... baking something for someone My birthday is this week. It's supposed to be rainy and just above freezing. Maybe just below freezing. Either way, there are winter weather warnings for the next three… Continue reading The Daily: 24 January 24
Things to look forward to... a hot shower In my desert days, every drop from the tap was a miracle. To be able to turn on a faucet and have hot or cold water flow out was pure magic. And if we ever forgot to pay mind to the astonishing fact of flowing water in… Continue reading The Daily: 17 January 2024
Saturnalia Saturnalia begins today. This year Saturn presides over the beginning of his holiday season. Look to the west at about 5:30pm. Saturn will be sitting just above the crescent Moon. In the north, this is also the beginning of the shortest nights of the year. For the next ten days, day length in my… Continue reading The Daily: 17 December 2023
The ancient world of the Mediterranean and Near East has a great number of interesting mythological beings. Some are related to old gods and tutelary spirits. Some are fairly accurate illustrations of the anxieties of humankind — or maybe mankind, since women didn't have much of a voice. Some are just ludicrous. One of my… Continue reading The Daily: 29 September 2023
Found this while searching for something else that I'm pretty sure I never actually wrote... only planned to write... so it seemed serendipitous to throw this back out to the world. Especially since I am currently in a welter of planning. Present circumstances are just unsustainable and I need to figure that out. Meanwhile... here… Continue reading The Daily: 6 September 2023
June 15th, the Ides of June, was the last day of Vestalia. With great ceremony, the sanctuary of Vesta was cleansed and closed to the public for another year, the sustaining Vestal hearth-flame hidden behind walls that no man was allowed to pass. This is a slack time, a time when heat is intolerable and… Continue reading The Daily: 15 June 2023
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. — Friedrich Nietzsche (in the Old Farmer's Almanac 2023 Planner) I do not agree with Nietzsche on many things. Big surprise there, I'm sure. So when I saw this alongside the… Continue reading The Daily: 8 February 2023
They asked a Chinese man, "What is science?" He said, "Science is knowing people." Then they asked, "And what is virtue?" He answered, "Virtue is loving people." — Tolstoy, from his Calendar of Wisdom for 27 January Yesterday was my birthday. I am not going to say which one, but that’s more because I like… Continue reading The Daily: 27 January 2023
When an arrow does not hit its target, the marksman blames himself, not another person. A wise man behaves in the same way. — Confucius (from Tolstoy's Calendar of Wisdom for 11 January) For those who have not yet cleared away Midwinter, even in my rather northerly part of the world, day length is now… Continue reading The Daily: 11 January 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 