Happy Easter

             Originally posted on Multiply, April 12 2009

The picture is from last year, but the primroses, a gift from Beth, will bloom again soon.

Living with snow cover for 4 months sure makes one appreciate spring. Every year it blows me away that it is actually happening again.

If Christmas is about the return of Light in darkness, Easter is the celebration of Life returning to the land.

In mythologies the son, daughter or lover of God or Goddess rises from the underworld. Christ, Adonis, Tammuz, Kore, pick your deity of choice.

For now, this increasingly multicultural country is still doling out a long weekend during the Christian holiday. I wonder for how much longer? Why don't we just move the whole thing to the spring Equinox?

We need meaningful, spiritual celebrations that are shared by the entire community. Places with a homogeneous population can still use their local religion, but this option makes less sense in increasingly diverse modern cities.

Simply celebrating Earth's seasons is one way to bring people together that is both secular and spiritual.

We can all agree on one thing: whatever Force is responsible for this beautiful, fragile sphere we call home, it wasn't us.

Whether we credit heavenly entities breathing life into clay, or a precious lucky moment on the way from the Big Bang to the final darkness of a Universe speeding away from its center, we are Here Now. No thanks to us.

Green grass, running water, animals, flowers. Just for now, the right distance from a middling star at the right time of its life. So frail. So precious.

Happy Easter.