Crazy Wisdom Community Journal

Pioneer High School social studies teacher Jim Robert is known to many, including his students, simply as “JR.” At age 58, he has been teaching for 25 years, 24 of them at Pioneer. In 1996, while teaching a philosophy class to seniors, he began to develop an innovative curriculum idea: how could he create an experience for students to explore self-awareness and self-examination in an academic setting, especially as our culture moves toward test results driven measures of success?

Judith Becker is Professor Emeritus of Ethnomusicology from the University of Michigan. An authority on the music of Southeast Asia, she is a co-founder of the Center for World Performance Studies at the University of Michigan and was its first director. She was also, for many years, the director of the University gamelan ensemble, which she helped establish in 1967. 

Do you know what golubki are? They’re rolls of (primarily) meat wrapped in cabbage, highly common in Russia and the countries that border it. I was born in Moscow, Russia, but my mother was born in Odessa, Ukraine. 

I received the call from my Uncle Bob on a Friday night. Now, keep in mind that this guy had never called me. I was in my late 40s at the time. So for 40-plus years, I had never received a call from him. 

In puppy kindergarten class we are working on stay. Like most of the important commands, stay is taught in stages. Stage 1 is Duration. At first, the dogs only have to stay for a second or two before we release them and reward them with treats. Then, gradually, we up the ante. The dogs have to stay for ten seconds, then thirty, then a minute before the release.

October marks my 20-year anniversary as a Master in the Usui System of Reiki Healing. Reiki is a gentle, hands-on healing practice that encourages balance on all levels of being — body, mind, and spirit. “Reiki” means universal life energy, and it is that energy that flows through the hands of a practitioner. 

Many Ann Arborites are familiar with the name Gari Stein and her acclaimed music classes and curricula for children. What families with young children may not be aware of, however, are her group classes for babies as young as three months old with their caregivers. 

I’m raising a nerd. Academic nerdom is totally supported but ultimately my daughter’s prerogative, but in terms of familial and cultural indoctrination, Lila has been knee deep in comics since birth.

When behavioral issues occur with animal friends, it can be annoying, frightening, or downright dangerous. We interpret their behaviors through our human perspectives and act accordingly. However, an animal’s behavior, influenced by survival issues and past experience, makes sense to that animal. 

It's 5 a.m. and there is a slight chill in the air. In the distance there is the faint sound of a helicopter. As it gets closer, with great frustration, I say out loud, "Really?!? Again?" As it gets even closer, I can hear the moaning and fidgeting of other sleepless souls. The helicopter hovers over the campsite for a moment and then lands, it sounds like, right outside our tent. 

In this column, Crysta Coburn writes about crazywisdom-esque people and happenings around Ann Arbor.

It was 2008, and the economy was crashing. I was scared about peak oil, climate change, and economic instability, and grasping for answers. A group of women in Ann Arbor were starting a new organization, and had heard about some of the community work I had done around sustainability. Through Transition Ann Arbor, I first hear the word “permaculture.”