Hello out there to anybody who happens to stumble upon my blog. I don’t come here very often these days because I’m so busy editing and writing for Whole Life Times, and editing books for Inner Traditions and various individual, fascinating authors. It’s no surprise I’m immersed in reading materials. I was raised in a family that valued books and would never tell me the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Rather, they insisted, “Look it up in the dictionary,” and indeed, Webster’s lay splayed open on the antique reading stand at all times, perhaps in the p’s at pusillanimous or peregrination, or the u’s at ubiquitous or ululate. Funny the words we remember.

To this day I savor finding unfamiliar words in whatever book I might be reading. Last night I started T. C. Boyle’s newest novel, When the Killing’s Done, and was delighted to write down two words to look up in the first 40 pages, along with something called the Lombard effect, which should make me sound extremely erudite the next time I’m in a noisy restaurant. That is, if anybody can hear me above the din.

It’s Easter Sunday, which was more meaningful when I was a child or raising a child, but now is just a lovely day in a backyard filled with geraniums, roses, bougainvillea, and a fragrant lavender-colored perennial that I keep meaning to bring to the nursery for help with identifying. There are even giant golden-yellow shoots from the aloe plants, a favorite of the hummingbirds.

Whatever else Easter may represent in the dominant religions, I perceive it as a time of rebirth, of rising from the gooey, sticky stuff we often find ourselves immersed in as a culture or individuals. New Year’s is traditionally the time for resolutions and new beginnings — often gone down the tubes by April. Perhaps such resolutions would be more successful if we stuck with the natural cycle and spent the colder, darker months devoted to the preparation that would allow us to blossom in the spring.