I Drink Time Like Water
I Drink Time Like Water is the third in a series of essays on the Spirit of Water by the Water Stewards II. Published in the Marquette Monthly November, 2024.– Brad Pickens The enterprise begins with...
Cool Water
Cool Water is the second in a series of essays on the Spirit of Water by the Water Stewards II. Published in the Marquette Monthly October, 2024.– Jeff Noble I clearly remember the best drink of...
Fall 2024 Equinox Newsletter
As far as music goes, there are special moments, I think most would agree, that have shaped each of us in unforgettable ways. In my case, there was a joy-filled accordion player during my youth. On...
Cathedrals, Water, Promise
Cathedrals, Water, Promise is the first in a series of essays on the Spirit of Water by the Water Stewards II. Published in the Marquette Monthly September, 2024.– Jon Magnuson Not long ago, I visited St....
Fall 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...
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...
Newsletter
Ecotone and Equinox Newsletters
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...
Fall 2018 Equinox Newsletter
It’s unwise to ask for trouble and heartbreak. Life has its own sure measure waiting, sooner or later, for each of us. But sometimes, in just such unwanted circumstances, a light appears glaringly bright. It changes everything. So here’s what recently happened to Nancy and Dianne who live in the tiny village of Ripley, perched on a side of a hill, covered with trees and mine tailings, two hours west of here on the edge of the Keweenaw Peninsula. June 17th, 2018. The middle of the night. A fierce, unpredicted rainstorm. Tons of rock and mud were washed of...
Spring 2018 Equinox Newsletter
In this corner of the Great Lakes Basin, the earth is awakening once again. Spring is here. A friend of mine, a retired botanist from the United States Forest Service, lives with her husband not far north of here in a log home on the shores of Lake Superior. She reminds me there’s a kind of music that we soon will be able to hear, an ever-so-faint buzzing sound made by bees and butterflies and other small winged creatures that inhabit our gardens, meadows, and streams. If we choose to make the decision to pay attention, you’ll discover a...
Winter 2018 Ecotone Newsletter
A wind is blowing outside the cabin door. The forest floor is covered with snow and ice. I’m kneeling, chilled, inside by a wood stove, with kindling and paper, ready to light a fire to create some heat on this blustery December afternoon. Chores, like this one, always prove to be anchoring experiences for me. Especially today. I’ve been traveling on and off for three months. Nights spent with bells and candles in a woodframed church with Native people up along Washington State’s Skagit River, days helping lead a retreat at a Benedictine monastery north of Santa Fe, a...
Spirituality and Environment
Articles on Spirituality and the Environment by the Institute Director along with occasional guest writers.
A Light in the Forest
A Light in the Forest Healing and Hope on the Yellow Dog from The Howl (Yellow Dog Watershed...
How Wild Salmon Might Save Us
How Wild Salmon Might Save Us By John P. Rosenberg For people of the Pacific Northwest, our deepest...
Crossing Over
Eben Alexander and the New Consciousness from Marquette Monthly December, 2016 By Jon Magnuson “More than anything else,...
Dreaming a New Peninsula
Dreaming a New Peninsula from Mining Journal July 1, 2016 By Jon Magnuson It’s tourist season. Thousands of...
The Promise
Seeds, Prayers, and Pollinators from Marquette Monthly December, 2015 By Jon Magnuson For most of us, these encroaching...
Choosing Between Your Money and Your Soul
from Indian Country Today August 19, 2015 By Jon Magnuson Twenty years ago, on a visit to Great...