By Emilia Flor Spring is the season of Air, so I am focusing on the sacred breath of Life. Using my breath to reach stillness.Disconnecting from the external world.Disconnecting from my mental chatter.Getting still. Being quiet. Going deep within. And listen, listening.In the deepest moments of stillness and presence, it’s all there.Peace, love, safety, and…
By Daniel Hooker I have been given permission to share two experiences of COVID vaccine injury. The stories are from an Islander and a former Islander who lived here many years. Story 1: “A few months after the vaccines came out, I took the vaccine (Moderna) knowing I would soon be required to anyway (since…
By Craig Bailey, “Fiddlehead Bistro,” Saranac Lake, NY Ingredients • 2 cloves garlic, halved • 1 star anise • ½ tsp anise seed • 1 tsp coriander seed • 1 tsp cumin seed • 4 peppercorns • 1 tsp mustard seed • 1 very small piece of cinnamon stick • 1 bay leaf • 2…
By Daniel Hooker Before crowbars were invented, crows used to drink at fresh streams and rivers! ~ Q. What do you call two crows fighting on a fence? A. Attempted murder! ~ Our family name is Hooker, but it used to be Baker. For obvious reasons, we were into baking. But eventually we had to…
By Ivan SnowaTranslated by Marc J. Elzenbeck I see you on the beach so healthywith umbrella yellow and the sunheating strong and rolling overinto my skin with pleasant panic. You’re with the babies smilinglaughing but beckoning me backfrom the waves where I’m drowningI snap awake and grab the wheel. Scraping the mile marker post47 just…
Mukai Farm & Garden’s fifth annual Haiku Festival will kick off on April 1, 2024. Each year, the event draws hundreds of haiku submissions from Vashon residents and poets from abroad. In 2023, Mukai received over 500 hundred haiku submissions from Vashon residents, as well as poets from 13 countries. According to Leah Mann, Mukai…
By Claudia Hollander-Lucas I love how history can teach us – if only we’d remember it for current times – especially with rising tension around the upcoming presidential election, (re)surging wars on a global scale, and democracy under threat. This alphabet poem is in remembrance of the twentieth century when modernist art-invention, feminism, two world…
The nettles are up! All over the island, young nettles a few leaves high are there for the taking. Very soon, they will be tall and gnarly. So, if you live on or near land that has not been cleared and manicured to death, you should go gather nettles soon. Nettles and man have evolved…
By Michael Shook It is February, Black History Month. I think January and February dovetail nicely, since last month we celebrated the birthday of one of the great leaders of the twentieth century, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And as I’ve considered the history of recent years, and the legacy of Dr. King,…
By Jenny Bell Under the innocuously named “tree wire project,” Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is masking an easement program that for some will result in a 10-foot-plus wide clear-cut on Island street frontages. One reason this may be happening is to move electric poles and infrastructure from their current locations in the public right of…