When was the last time you pushed your edge in public? Or really connected with your kids learning a new activity together? How often does your tween or teen get excited to turn off the video game and go somewhere and be active? Have you ever wished your son or daughter felt a sense of belonging in a community of peers outside of home or school?

On a bitter cold and rainy day in late April, my husband and I were inspired to do our annual trek to HillTop Greenhouse and Farms to plot this year’s garden and bask in the warmth and stunning visuals contained within the expansive space.

Since 2000, thousands of electronic music fans from around the world flock to Detroit during Memorial Day Weekend for Detroit’s internationally known electronic music festival. The festival, now called the Movement Electronic Music Festival, was created to celebrate Detroit's role as the birthplace of electronic (or “techno”) music.

This is what it’s like to be incredibly, desperately poor in America today: You live in a crowded homeless shelter with nothing but spoiled milk in the fridge. Without a permanent address, potential employers are reluctant to hire you. But you can’t get a permanent address without a job. You find a job, and it seems like a pretty good one at first, paying a little above minimum wage. But the shifts are uneven and the working conditions are unsafe, and you start getting sick. But with a job, you can get a housing subsidy, so you need the money.

Namaste, Katie — I walk ALL over campus with a lot of text books in my backpack, and my shoulders ache every day. Though I have been going to a gentle yoga class, I am struggling to find any postures that I can do when I get to class, or at home, to relieve that tightness on the front of my shoulders. Any pointers?

Driving on Gratiot headed toward Mt. Elliott Street, I was in the heart of downtown Detroit, just a mile or so away from Ford Field. It seems only small businesses are here, a Mr. Fish and a crowded shop selling second hand furniture, likely for a charity. In this place on this map, blocks of the grid are disappearing. Fallow fields sit waiting in their place. I pulled up to a bright brick church anchored strong amidst open green plots and dilapidated, boarded-up structures. There is a man sitting on a milkcrate. He is sentinel of this corner.

Martha Travers is a beloved teacher at the University of Michigan who shares the wisdom of contemplative nature-based practices with her students. Her courses are influenced by her own shamanic practices, and provide a space for students of all walks of life to listen to their inner voices.

Imagine a spiritual path which embraces the truth of our interconnectedness with the ground of being, whether it is called God, Tao, the Buddha realm, or the logos. Then imagine a spiritual path that looks at your day-by-day events, mental thought objects, reactions, and expansions to see how they relate to the depth.