Featured Articles from Issue 56
We were blessed that Mom felt safe enough to share her experiences in the months and hours leading up to her transition from this world. Hers was the fourth close family death in four years. I felt that sharing the sacredness of these journeys—the before, during, and after—could help others refine their anxieties about passing and what it means to be alive. So, let us explore endings, beginnings, and continuations of soul connectivity.
I don’t have health insurance, but I bet I receive better health care than many people who do. Friends and family often understandably express concern about my lack of insurance, but I marvel at how often they then proceed to share with me the troubling experiences they have with the healthcare system: waiting months to get an appointment with their primary care doctor, not being allowed to share all their health concerns during a doctor’s appointment, and the most troubling of all, life threatening circumstances that result from overlooked diagnoses. Though well-meaning, these loved ones don’t seem to understand the relationship health insurance has to the health care—or lack there of—they are receiving.
Matthew Keating discovered tango at twenty-one and fell hard. At once both sultry and stern, playful and serious, tango evokes a powerful theatrical expression. He recalled riding his bike home from work when he first encountered a milonga (a place or event at which the tango is danced) He heard the music drifting around a corner. “Like the scent of Grandma’s pies cooling in a window, I was drawn.
As far as the eye can see, there are acres and acres of a great nature preserve. Allow yourself to be consumed by it for a moment. Let it envelope you. Let it return you back to the beginning. Maple trees stretch far overhead--taller than any worry could ever be. Streams meander through the land—a burst of movement happening in this otherwise still place. There is a quiet, here, but a quiet that causes introspection. A quiet that feels intentional. A quiet that feels connected to something bigger if only one is willing to stop and listen.
Never in human history has the pull to wholeness and spiritual awakening been as strong and omnipresent as it is today. There is a growing appetite for freedom and truth, and a longing to experience oneness. This hunger for liberation has many sources of fulfillment. Even a cursory look at the internet will reveal the plethora of options yet, it requires powerful discernment and wise and loving support to guide an aspirant through the trials and joys of awakening to True Nature.
I was surprised to see Jane sitting up when I arrived. I hadn’t seen her out of a hospital bed in the four years since she’d moved into the nursing home in Sutton’s Bay. Though her health was generally good, she could no longer walk. At well over 500 pounds, she’d developed neuropathy and recurrent infections in her legs.
Giwitatigweiasibi. Nottawaseppi. Huron. There are many names for this river birthed in a swamp, meandering south through the center of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and onward to Lake Erie. Cos-scut-e-nong, sebee,“burnt oak river,” connecting upstream and down, invites us to a wider sense of self, neighborhood, and community. I spoke with Rebecca Esselman, Executive Director, and Jason Frenzel, Director of Community Engagement, both of the Huron River Watershed Council, about our local river.
Elizabeth Kolbert has spent decades reporting from the fault lines of our planet—melting glaciers, vanishing species, rising seas, shifting microbial worlds. In Life on a Little-Known Planet: Dispatches from a Changing World, she gathers essays that feel at once intimate and planetary, investigative and philosophical. The title itself is telling. For all our satellite imagery and data modeling, Kolbert suggests we are still strangers here.
More from Issue 56
Before the calendar changes, before the jackets disappear, before adults agree that winter is finally over, kids start pointing things out. The light looks different. The sidewalk feels warmer. The air smells like wet dirt, not cold metal. Something has shifted, even if no one can quite name it yet. In Ann Arbor and surrounding areas, spring reveals itself in small, almost secret ways—and those clues teach kids something important about the world and about themselves.
Unless we spend time exploring the underlying causes of our stress, ultimately nothing will change. A yoga practice can help us do just that. One of the gifts of yoga is that it helps us cultivate greater self-awareness. By getting on your yoga mat, you are taking time to slow down, be mindful, and see what you can learn about your body. With ongoing practice, you are better able to listen to your body and give it what it needs on a daily basis.
In the early 2000s, co-owners Marcia Stroko, Patricia Barrett, and Sharon Stroko were inspired by cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien to create a place where guests could focus on self-development. In a January 2006 guest book entry, guest F. Rowe shared, “Thank you for having such a wonderful atmosphere in your home inn and surroundings,” thereby recognizing that Rustic Gate is not only a space for visitors, but also a family home
The U.S. Department of Energy states that, “enough energy from the sun hits the earth every hour to power the planet for an entire year. There are obvious advantages to solar PV technology. It produces clean energy. It has no emissions, no moving parts, it doesn’t make any noise, and it doesn’t need water or fossil fuels to produce power. And it can be located right where the power is needed, in the middle of nowhere, or it can be tied into the power grid.”
