Most continents have their own unique tea blends. Maté is typical to South America and Rooibose to South Africa. True tea, or camellia sinus, can be found all over Asia. For the longest time, I could not believe there was not a plant or herb that was unique to the North American continent that could be considered tea. Then, I discovered Yaupon tea while on vacation in Florida.
Cooking with Lisa
Recipes for fall 2025: Maple Roasted Delicata Squash Salad and Kale and White Bean Stew
Leaders and Followers
Variants of the phrase, “Preparing the Leaders of Tomorrow” occur regularly in ads and promotional materials for schools, businesses, the military, and other organizations. Whenever I come across it, I can’t help thinking, “What about the followers?”
German New Medicine: Exploring the New Paradigm with Briana Johnson
In recent years, German New Medicine (GNM) has risen in the alternative medicine field. First discovered in the 1970s by Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer, GNM examines how intense shocks, or conflicts, manifest in the brain and result in symptoms ranging from ear infections to cancer. I talked with Briana Johnson, a Metro Detroit GNM practitioner, who walked me through the basics of this complex healing framework.
Tulpas and Egregores: From Amadeus to Appalachia
Whether or not one believes in the Christian God, it's clear that the spirituality of Salieri is corrupt and destitute. He calls the death of his father a “miracle” as it affirms the legitimacy of the pact he’s made for the furtherance of his desire to compose music. While a Christian might say this is not the work of God but of man or the Devil himself, an occultist may look to the human psyche as well as ancient spiritual concepts to explain Salieri’s experience. One may also point out that this is a fictional story and thereby requires no such explanation, but I believe these pacts and affirmations, or betrayals of them, occur throughout human history and society. Amadeus, even if an entirely fictitious depiction of these two men and their entanglement, is realistic in its depiction of this spiritual phenomenon.
Health Coaches Support Healthy Change
In conventional medicine most people turn to a doctor first when they have a health concern. While doctors can play an important role in diagnosing and treating disease, they are just one player on the larger health care team. While a physician takes the lead on testing, medications, and treatments more often than not, lifestyle changes in addition to medications and treatments, are crucial to regaining good health.
Dirty Windows
The birds are exuberant this morning. By the dozens, tufted titmice, rose-breasted grosbeaks, cardinals, gold finches, black capped chickadees, blue jays, mourning doves, and an oriole sing and flit from branch to nearby branch in a riotous clamor just outside the living room windows. One of the delights of spring is the way one can luxuriate in the bookends of the day. Morning unfolds slowly as the light gathers until the sun crests the horizon, and then all at once the day bursts open like a flower. Evening lingers before the day finishes. It is at these times that I especially enjoy watching the birds come and go.
Kids in the Community—Abilities in Action: Resources and support for kids with special needs and their families
Raising a child with special needs comes with unique challenges, but it also brings moments of incredible growth, resilience, and joy. The proper support and strategies can make all the difference—whether it's navigating therapies, advocating at school, or creating a home environment where a child feels empowered. From practical tips to expert insights, community groups and carefully curated summer camps and classes, special needs children and their families will not just get by but will truly thrive. Every child deserves the chance to shine, and every family deserves the tools to help them do it.
A Melding of Psychology and Spirituality
Chelsie Skowyra is a Chelsea-based claircognizant, clairvoyant empath who finds great pleasure in helping others find peace in their true selves. Along with her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Sociology/Anthropology and a Masters of Marriage and Family Therapy, she’s blended in her own well-rounded spiritual mentoring approach.
Listening and Learning with Nature: Judy Liu Ramsey--Interspecies Counselor and Shamanic Healer
Living on a farm in Chelsea, Ramsey’s journey from community developer and social worker to shamanic practitioner and animal chaplain exemplifies an authentic evolution of one’s unfolding of identity, own healing, and epiphany in recognizing one’s place within the actual world contrary to the confines and misperceptions of society.
Out of My Comfort Zone: My Cat Ate My Comfort Zone
This is the story of Margot, a recently rescued tuxedo cat, and how she curled up in my heart and broke it open.
Kindred Conversations with Hilary Nichols: Phillis Engelbert, Owner of Detroit Filling Station, North Star Lounge, and Lunch Room Bakery & Cafe
“Operate from a position of generosity and humanity. Watch how it benefits your business.” This simple statement is key to the working philosophy of Phillis Engelbert, owner of the Detroit Street Filling Station, North Star Lounge, and The Lunch Room Bakery & Cafe in Ann Arbor. The concepts of generosity and humanity might not be the most common buzz words in today’s business culture, and her central tenet doesn’t come without a cost—but that is not what concerns Engelbert. She recommends it for reasons that transcend the financials.
Gardening Phenology: Planting by Nature’s Cues
As a gardener, and a general nature romantic, my heart begins to feel torn around mid-February. On one half, I want to honor the last of winter’s deep rest and on the other half, there is the burgeoning energy of spring’s return. One of my favorite activities at this time is to thumb through my seed stores, as well as the new year’s seed catalogs, and begin to plan my garden in earnest.
A Traditional Yoga School Hiding in Plain Sight on Main Street: An Interview with Angela Jamison
For the last 15 years, in the early morning between five and eight, the 200 block of South Main Street has filled with yoga practitioners who come and go before the town comes to life. It’s a diverse group, ranging from those in their teens to those in their 80s, across all sorts of life situations and physical capacities. The yoga they practice is tailored to the individual. Depending on the person, the practice might include various physical asanas, breathing techniques, and meditations. What they all have in common is that they’re all part of a school, and a community organization, called Ashtanga Yoga Ann Arbor.
Getting to Know A Complete Unknown
I recently went twice to see A Complete Unknown, the biopic about Bob Dylan’s early rise to stardom from 1961 until 1965 with Timothee Chalamet as Dylan. Both times the audience was mostly age fifty and up. I am eighty-five—two years older than Dylan. We are members of what is called, misleadingly, “The Silent Generation.” The postwar generation are Boomers, who are associated with the upheavals of the 1960s, but as Dylan puts it in his memoir, Chronicles, One, “I had very little in common with, and knew even less about, a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of.” The well-known movers of that era—Dylan, Warhol, Ginsberg, Baez, Beatles, Rolling Stones, and many others—are prewar or war babies.
No Matter Where You Go, You Are in a Watershed!
Our Southeast Michigan watersheds are the Huron River, Rouge River, Clinton River, River Raisin, and Ecorse Creek Watersheds. All of these nets of nomadic water empty into the Detroit River (which has its own watershed). Detroit River waters flow into Lake Erie, then travel through the Niagara River merging into Lake Ontario, narrowing again into the St. Lawrence River, and releasing finally into the Atlantic Ocean.
Book Review: Custodians of Wonder
In Custodians of Wonder, author Eliot Stein embarks on a captivating journey across five continents, introducing readers to ten remarkable individuals dedicated to preserving endangered cultural traditions.
Serpentine
In winter, they brumate. A word that suggests mist and fog: “La brume,” pale smoke twisting and wending, shedding tendrils and opening portals. The etymology is successive. From French, mist and fog; from Old French, winter; this derived from bruma, Latin for the Winter Solstice.
What if You Are the Plucky Comic Relief?
I’d like to think I’m a relatively bright person. By traditional measures, this is certainly true. I have a wall full of degrees and fond memories of being a professor to prove it. And yet, I continue to surprise myself with the levels of idiocy I am capable of. I’m thinking about this right now as I can’t swallow, having tried to gulp down near boiling, extra spicy kimchi soup that I overheated in the microwave. So far, I’ve been too embarrassed to go to the doctor on this one, but I’m pretty sure I have second degree burns on my upper palate and throat.
The Franklin Method® Pelvic Power
To build your pelvic power, it is vital to de-stigmatize the pelvis and its functions. No one feels uncomfortable talking about their arm, leg, or stomach muscles. There are dozens of classes and machines at the gym for building flexibility and strength in these areas—yet none for your pelvic floor.
