Edited by Gary D. Schmidt and Susan M. Felch
This is my second in a four-part literary anthology about the seasons; I wrapped up Winter just in time to greet Spring! By now it is clear that these anthologists very much center the upper northern hemisphere in their selections, which I can somewhat relate to having lived in both Minnesota and New England. But I am also a native Californian, and I’ve lived in Brazil, so their choices of how to depict winter, and now spring, are anything but universal. That makes the spiritual interpretations they fashion of the seasons similarly somewhat localistic. With some nods to eastern religion they are also fairly Christian centered. That they named Purim, rather than Passover, as the quintessential Spring Jewish holiday seemed particularly tone-deaf.
But the writing is good, and it is giving me a framework for my own musings about the deeper meanings of the seasons as I experience them myself.