Beat the winter blues by turning your frozen summer harvest into delicious preserves! Learn tips on canning tomatoes, making zucchini bread, berry jams, and pumpkin soup with our expert guide and recipes.
Posts filed under Issue #91
Out of My comfort Zone: Making Friends with Sticks and Stones
I had spent years of calculated denial, wrapping myself in a camouflage of normality, only to be exposed by this stranger living her best life. What had she seen? I knew even then what I was, but I wasn’t sure I was ready for others to know. I am the person who walks into a room and gravitates to the saddest person. I naturally lighten the mood in a crowd. I am the person who knows who is on the other end of the phone way before Caller ID became standard. I am the person who has seashells and rocks collected in bowls and antique dishes scattered around my home.
Advertisers Highlight, January 2026, Week #4
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Pouring Pints and Punchlines: Ann Arbor’s hear.say brewing
Visit hear.say brewing + theater in Ann Arbor — where craft beer, improv comedy, live music, and community connection thrive. Owner Tony DeRosa blends West Coast-inspired brews with quirky shows in a welcoming biergarten. Family- and dog-friendly spot for laughter and pints!
Being Seen
Discover how a compassionate teacher can transform lives. Katherine Munter shares a moving story of mentorship, overcoming shame, healing from trauma, and paying it forward — inspired by Carl Jung's wisdom on the understanding heart in teaching. Who inspired you?
The Schvitz Detroit: Historic Bathhouse Revival & Wellness Oasis
Discover The Schvitz, Detroit's historic bathhouse since 1930. Revived by funeral director Paddy Lynch, this North End landmark offers saunas, steam baths, cold plunges, and communal wellness in a storied space once tied to Jewish immigrants and the Purple Gang. Unwind in an inclusive urban oasis.
Catalpa Flowers and Steadfast Branches
This night, I climbed through the dark of my confusion to somewhere near the top quarter of the tree. I braced myself to sit on one branch, hooked my foot, and hugged the main trunk. It was solid but I could just make out a slight sway. I relinquished my human decision-making to a simple “just hold on”—something I’d later find out was a common moment (or phase) for most of humanity.
The Art of Rest: 10 Tips for Winter Rejuvenation
Winter invites us inward. As colder days settle over the landscape (especially here in Michigan), everything takes on a slower pace. Trees conserve energy. Animals burrow and rest. The air itself encourages stillness. As every living thing knows, true rest isn’t laziness, it’s nourishment. Winter gives us permission to soften, restore, and rebuild energy before spring arrives. Thankfully, there are so many lovely ways to incorporate rest and relaxation into your everyday routine.
Crazy Wisdom Kids: The Moon & Me
The moon has a way of catching a child’s eye. It lingers above treetops, follows the car home, disappears for a few nights, then returns—quiet, steady, familiar. For parents, it’s a reminder to pause, to notice, and to reconnect with something simple yet deeply grounding: the rhythm of nature itself.
White Lotus Farms Café: Bread, Beauty, and Belonging— Extending the Spirit of the Farm into the Heart of the Community
The buzz had been building for months about White Lotus Farms opening a Café, and by the time you’re reading this, it is open.
Family Grimoires: Not Just For the Rich, Famous, or “Evil”
Folklore customs as well as generational practices for healing, heartbreak, and dealings with the mystical still abound. However, oral tradition of teaching family wisdom is dwindling, and family “books” for many have been reduced to genealogy charts and possibly a Bible in which obituaries or birth announcements are stuffed.
Kindred Conversations with Hilary Nichols-- The Poet and the Philosopher:The marriage of Erin Zindle and Ross Huff
When two of the most talented and prolific musicians in Ann Arbor come together, the synergy of sound and sentiment is too beautiful to miss. “We’ve been writing words and melodies to express our love story in all of its depth and magic, with the goal of sharing it with you, our dearest ones, as we celebrate our union together.”
Ann Arbor’s Zen Buddhist Temple Prepares for a New Era
As we enter the late 2020s, the American Zen community is preparing for a changing of the guard. With many of today’s Western Zen teachers trained during the 1960s and 1970s, temples and teaching centers across the country are preparing to hand leadership to a new generation of students and enter a new era of American Zen Buddhism. For the first time, the leaders will be largely Western people who were taught by other Westerners in the late 20th century--not Westerners who were taught directly by Zen teachers from Asia.
Jeff Parness and the Sanctuary at Hope Farms— How to Transform Loss into Hope and Healing
Jeff Parness is full of stories; entertaining, detailed, and animated. But this story is about Parness and his newly built home in Ann Arbor. “This property saved my life. It was the clouds,” he told me. “I found this property as I was storm chasing.”
Ojibwe Speaks: Stacie Sheldon and the Revitalization of Anishinaabemowin
Twenty years ago, Stacie Sheldon and Margaret Noodin founded the website ojibwe.net in Ann Arbor, beginning the hard work of revitalizing Anishinaabemowin language, speakers, and culture. Their work is part of greater regional shift, which in 2025 saw Detroit’s first pow wow in thirty years, a major exhibit open at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the arrival of Ann Arbor District Library’s mascot, Akako G. Shins (“little groundhog” in Ojibwe).
