Eliza Daley ~ Wordcraft & Musing on Home & Hope
You can achieve wisdom in three ways. The first way is meditation. This is the most noble way. The second way is the way of imitation. This is the easiest and least satisfying way. Thirdly, there is the way of experience. This is the most difficult way. — Confucius (Tolstoy's Calendar of Wisdom for 29… Continue reading The Daily: 30 January 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
How many of us like what we do for wages? Leaving aside arenas of obvious brute coercion and slavery — which I think we can all agree ought to have ended long ago and should not have been acceptable to a thinking species to begin with — how much wage work do we do willingly?… Continue reading Unnecessary Work
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
My country celebrated Memorial Day last holiday weekend. Ostensibly, the day is to honor veterans who died. Usually “for this country” is tacked on to end of the observation, but I don’t think any of us believe that anymore. From talking with my military friends and relatives, it would appear that not even those who… Continue reading Wasted Lives
As we wade into the center of February and prepare for the rites of Lupercalia and the newly rising spring, I thought I might allow Eliza Daley to take a Friday break and speak plainly as myself. Or as plainly as I am able. I do not think she is fitting for what I would… Continue reading Love Notes
It’s my week to tend to the box people. Don’t know why I signed up for a whole week in January. The Wolf Moon is the hardest time of year. But they were so grateful down in the valley when I did that I didn’t have the heart to change it. So now… forty-six years… Continue reading Box People: Winifred Mumbles
My epiphany I had an epiphany over the holidays. Or rather an epiphany that has been growing all year has finally blossomed into full brilliant light. I finally made a new religion. There are no gods. Nor priests. I did decide that ordination would be good if only to officiate at life celebrations and to… Continue reading EarthCraft
Io, Saturnalia! Today we cast off the orders imposed on us from our parasitic overlords and do as we will. Well, we would if our overlords would allow it. Which doesn’t happen any more. That should be telling. Actual slaves in Rome had more freedom than we do. We don’t even get bathroom breaks, never… Continue reading Saturnalia
I am reading Sarah Jaffe’s Work Won’t Love You Back. As you can imagine, this is rather like throwing gasoline on a flame. Jaffe’s book is packed with all the things I hate about our working world — or perhaps our not-working world — and she’s put names and vivid life stories with all the… Continue reading The Cult of Busy-ness
By My Solitary Hearth 