The Gift of Water: Music & Reading Encore
Monday, July 8, 2024, 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. in the Community Room of the Peter White Public Library In celebration of Lake Appreciation Month, PWPL hosts a special evening of music and words highlighting water conservation and...
Spring 2024 Equinox Newsletter
I’m sitting in the office of a 45-year-old police officer. We’re in a modest brick building a few hundred yards up a ridge overlooking the harbor of a small fishing town in Alaska. I’m curious how...
Troubled Waters: Health and Hope
The Cedar Tree Institute Presents AN EVENING WITH THE INTERFAITH WATER STEWARDS Thursday Evening, April 18, 7-8:30 pmMessiah Lutheran Church: 305 W Magnetic St., Marquette Michigan Introducing a two-year initiative to help protect and ensure good...
Spirit of Place 2024: Experiences of Engaged Spirituality
Spirit of Place 2024 Experiences of Engaged Spirituality We are offering two retreats this year as part of our ongoing series “Spirit of Place.” The first retreat, set in Michigan, focuses on the critical role of...
Tai Chi Sword
Unity yoga co-op and Cedar Tree institute Present: TAI CHI SWORD A Mind / Body Contemplative Practice A concentrated, focused instruction of the Tai Chi Yang Saber Form. Based on a lyrical 13-line Chinese poem, this...
Tai Chi Schedule 2024
WEEKLY TAI CHI PRACTICE With Jon & Diana Magnuson, Instructors During Autumn, Winter, and Spring months (September – May) The Cedar Tree Institute offers Tai Chi classes EACH WEDNESDAY from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. $10 per...
Winter 2024 Ecotone Newsletter
We are part of sacred work of which we may never see the ending. -Oscar Romero, Bishop of El Salvador.Outspoken advocate for the poor. Assassinated 1980. I have a friend who lives on the Pacific Coast...
Newsletter
Ecotone and Equinox Newsletters
Fall 2020 Equinox Newsletter
There are deep rhythms that shape individuals far more than outward clamor of politics and economics. Among them, transitions between life and death. Sometimes, such moments carry extraordinary glimpses of beauty. And hope. In July, I received a phone call regarding a 92-year-old Japanese-American who, her daughter informed me, was nearing the end of life. The daughter, along with her husband and son, invited me to accompany them during her mother’s final days. The woman’s daughter and I met on a patio outside our community’s newly constructed hospice facility. She related her mother’s onset of symptoms, their recent trip...
Spring 2020 Equinox Newsletter
A few weeks ago, prior to the “shelter-in-place” mandate from State and Federal authorities, I spent an afternoon as part of a medical team meeting with individuals struggling with challenges of opioid addiction. A physician led the team. Along with a nurse practitioner and an experienced LPN, I joined them as a representative of the faith community. Our meeting room had no windows, but was clean and comfortable. An examining table, a desk with a computer, blood pressure monitoring equipment, and other sterilized devices were neatly arranged. Patient interviews and check-ups, part of a biweekly and monthly routine, took...
Winter 2020 Ecotone Newsletter
I’m making my way up two flights of wooden stairs to a modest apartment where a colleague, a former social worker, is living with his wife. Gifted with uncanny instincts on how to collaborate with diverse agencies and deal with difficult personalities, he’s worked most of his professional life, quietly, behind the scenes, in shadows of prestige and power. Now, day-by-day, he’s approaching the end of his life having carried the diagnosis of serious illness over the past four years. I knock on the door. It’s unlatched, slightly ajar, as if expecting guests. He and his wife welcome me...
Fall 2019 Equinox Newsletter
A few days ago, a young man was referred to me via the public defender’s office in a nearby county. He’s scheduled for a court hearing. The 21-year-old is preparing, as best he can, for an encounter that will carry significant consequences. He gave me permission to pass along this portion of our conversation. “It’s never been,” he said, “an easy or simple road for me.” The small harbor village where he grew up, once a thriving commercial fishing and lumber town, now struggles, like most of rural America, with alcohol addiction, high unemployment and illegal drug use. He...
Spring 2019 Equinox Newsletter
Snowshoes are being hauled up from our basement, tools collected, sleds prepared, buckets and taps cleaned. There’s been unusually heavy snowfall this winter. Maple syrup season is later than usual. Always dependent on the weather, perhaps this year it will last only a few days. A peculiar, magical equation frames the making of maple syrup in this North Country. Temperatures need to fall below freezing during the nights, then rise into the high 30’s or low 40’s F. during the days. Either you collect the sap in this specific window Mother Nature has given us, or you wait another...
Winter 2019 Ecotone Newsletter
There’s plenty of news about DNA ancestry going on these days. Individuals from all walks of life are tracking down their family history. The people who own these DNA search engine companies are getting rich. Millions more are finding surprises about who their biological descendants may have been. There’s a downside, psychologically and spiritually, to this high-tech trend. That’s important to acknowledge. First, as a skeptical, wise relative of mine in Seattle quipped, “You need to watch out for this stuff. The testing is imperfect. It overlooks recessive genes. There are lab errors. It’s a bad parlor game.” A...
Spirituality and Environment
Articles on Spirituality and the Environment by the Institute Director along with occasional guest writers.
Giving Thanks
*This article, written by the Cedar Tree Director, was published in the Marquette Monthly December, 2019 The Secret...
Climate Change and the Children’s Crusade
*This article, written by the Cedar Tree Director, was published in the Mining Journal September, 2019 Climate Change...
Into the Mystic
*This article, written by the Cedar Tree Director, was published in the Marquette Monthly December, 2018 Into the...
A Kingdom Within
*This article, written by the Cedar Tree Director, is adapted from the Living Lutheran November, 2018, a national...
Via Dolorosa: Despair and Prayer among Seattle’s Homeless
Via Dolorosa Despair and Prayer among Seattle’s Homeless An abridged version of this article by Jon Magnuson appears...
The Other Upper Peninsula: A View From The Wardrobe
he Other Upper Peninsula A View From The Wardrobe from Marquette Monthly December, 2017 By Jon Magnuson This...