The End

I recently published my first edited book,  Labor of Love: A Literary Mama Staff Anthology ,  with  Small Harbor Publishing . It's an anthology of writing from  Literary Mama  staff over the past 20 years. It's a beautiful collection and I am proud of the writers and proud to share the book.  It seems a fitting moment, as I pondered sharing about the book here on the blog, to reflect on my life as a blogger, and acknowledge that it is time to officially end this blog.   I started blogging in about 2007, when my baby was learning to toddle, when I was learning how to be a mother and stepmother, when I was just starting to see my way as a writer. I needed it back then. I craved it. I had a variety of blog iterations--family, art, creativity, writing things I delved into. There's a freedom in blogging, a casualness, an easy familiarity that's lacking (for me anyway) in other kinds of writing. I loved blogging and the words came pouring out.  Over the years since then, some
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The Berenstain Bears and the Real Easter Eggs

The Berenstain Bears are dear to my heart. When I was growing up I had most of the ones that existed back then, and The Messy Room is seared into my memory. My stepdaughter Talya learned to read on these books, years ago. These days we have just about every one in our house, and Cedar is beginning to be able to read them as well. 

 With this weekend's upcoming holiday, and my child's growing enthusiasm for it, I realize that I have been struggling with Easter for years. Having been raised Presbyterian, moved with personal intent toward Buddhism, and slowly settled on Humanism in my adulthood, I somehow still find Easter a holiday I feel obligated to celebrate. But Easter is an overtly religious holiday. And more so than Christmas, it is hard to separate the religious aspects from the lighter, secular parts. 

 I want it to be about spring and Mother Earth coming to life again after a long winter (and this one was a really long winter). Cedar loves the egg dying and hunting, and the joyful and colorful basket of candy and chocolate bunnies on a random spring morning is hard to discount. Yet I've never known how to explain this holiday, minus all the jelly beans and minus Jesus.

 I have known for a while that The Berenstain Bears had a Christian series within the series (which I avoid like the ten plagues), but imagine my surprise when I stumbled across a secular Easter one for us nature lovers- The Berenstain Bears and the Real Easter Eggs. I glanced over it in the store, expecting some reference to Jesus, or sacrifice, or shining lights breaking through the clouds, but to my delighted joy, none of these things infiltrated the book. 

 Somehow, The Berenstain Bears captured exactly what I feel about Easter. And allowed me a way to explain through words and pictures to Cedar what Easter really is. It's a time for a change of seasons and nature awakening to springtime. In a way, I guess that's not so far off from what the religious folks think about Easter. Only, I want to celebrate the literal solid Earth that supports my body, the rain that soaks in to keep me alive, the fresh air that blows through the fields, and yes, that warm sun breaking through the clouds to allow plant and animal alike to sprout up with joy at the chance to open and grow and thrive again. 

 That, and a chocolate bunny or two can't hurt.

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