Artwork by Kate Geddes
Photograph by Peter C. Fisher
Photograph by Grace Willis
A Letter from
the Curators
It is no surprise that the submissions for this issue revolved around the thoughts and dreams of an etheric realm. Some of which to throw into the fire and some to float through the sky, infusing into the collective perspective.
Stained Glass & Images by Colleen Stewart
Image by Ayn Gailey
Leaves, Diatoms, and Air
Every breath we take connects us to the whole biosphere. It’s both fact and metaphor that tiny atoms of carbon, oxygen, and other elements flow from our lungs, out into the world, and back again. These atoms become part of clouds, other creatures, plants; they ride the wind.
One of the most remarkable turnstiles for these elements are stomata, a pair of cells which form an opening on plant leaves, stems, and flowers. Stomata draw in carbon dioxide from our breaths and other sources, and release water and oxygen in the service of plant growth and survival for all living things. Stomata show up in a stunning range of shapes, textures, and designs. They are humble, beautiful, exceptionally important structures worthy of celebration.
Diatoms, also called phytoplankton, are tiny plants that make over half of the planet’s oxygen.
Images and words by Robert Dash
Primal Exchange
There’s a whole ocean in the sky:
drops sucked from lakes where we swim,
clouds at dusk that leave us breathless,
salty residues of our grief and toil.
All of it
filters through pinpoint cells on leaves and plants
over and over each year.
They barter pure air for our exhalations
in the primal exchange.
Every stomata
on all plants of the world could match in number
stars in the sky
and like stars, they need songs and sonnets of their own.
Bring a loved one out beneath the trees
send your breaths up to constellations and galaxies of stomata
and receive their breaths in reply.
What could be more intimate than the truth
that our bodies are made of each other’s atoms
And those of the world?
By Robert Dash
On An Acre Shy Of Eternity
Rituals
By John Raymond Berry
Read The Statement
In Defense of an Unpopular
Viewpoint Vol. 3
The invention of fire was a horrible mistake. I’m running out of good shows and movies to watch.
If only we hadn’t started cooking meat, we could’ve taken the necessary four million years to really enjoy eating animals raw. All of our smarts could’ve been funneled into learning the language of the INCOMPREHENSIBLE VOID instead of trying to ‘master our surroundings’ lMAO. What a gas. Fire control led to cave art, which led to TikTok. Agriculture led to factory farming, which led to the McRib. I say we should’ve nipped it in the bud, right at the outset, staying comfortably in the very same shadows of ignorance we pursue unendingly even today. Perhaps there is a nuclear arsenal somewhere that can reset the clock, but then we’ll have to deal with bears and psycho mutants. I pine for a simpler time, when you could wake up in a pile of pine-needles somewhere and hungrily chase the moon until you tire out and have a dream about meeting god. When a news network was a chattery stand of trees and I-95 was a river that you could float down easily—thanks to your recently evolved exoskeleton. Our mass insanity would be clever and unthinking, just like nature itself, as opposed to the absurdity we find ourselves in now. Which is, to put it lightly, quite tacky and smells like sulfur.
By Kique Lopez
Hope
A whispery gust
An outward thrust
From the hand came
A burst of flame
A rustle, then roar
Leaves crinkle and are no more
The hand closes,
Extinguishes the flame
The world is dark once more.
On that dark, dreary night
Hope burned like a flame
And the Great Northern Lights
Appeared
By Cienna Richardson
Painting by Martha Farish
Winter Sky’s Touch
day’s arc softens
a blush of pale apricot
seeps across horizon,
blending hours between dawn and dusk
sun’s low angle kisses
the seam between
heaven and land
night and day
this gentle gesture
filters through my window
lands on my cheeks —
their pale blush.
By Aliza Anderson-Diepenbrock
Illustration by Alexis Bouchard
Merit Died Today
old cats move slowly if they move at all on this cold night
outside
the trees
with their branches shorn of life creak with each gust of wind
to the north
an iron bell tolls faintly
the sound
only heard
when one isn’t listening
and my sister
her spirit her soul
she is here
in the fire before me
in the shifting flame
the crack and wheeze of good wood
the fleeting spark the steady ember
in the smoke that rises into the night
through the valley across the lake
to the hills of blue pine on the other side
though no longer seen in the ordinary places
she lingers here
in the secret places where spirit dwells
By Jay Kimball
10 February 1998
Images by Susan Singelton
Dancing with the Dragon
by Taryn Kuluris
Read the full article
Painting by Kate Geddes
Images by Grace Willis
Wild Yeasts:
those friends-of-mine bubbles, Always dazzling me
by their presence,
Their emphatic, aromatic dances Inside a jar,
Their Microcosmic Home.
I fed them last night
After wandering the moonlight, And today they are eager for the Hallowed metamorphosis.
Because bread, really considered, Is but the elements transmogrified,
alchemized.
Water unchlorinated
(As close to crick-water as possible).
Earth emerging grain, and so flour (Fresh-ground, not inert).
Air, with its magic-carpet lactobacilli.
And then the mighty-fire built, struck,
(Its flames the perfect poet...) Setting crust and quieting mind And feeding soul.
Recorded by Kelly Maria Francis
Montage/Painting by Ariadni Londos
Like moths to a flame, we gather in the dark winter woods. We, women of the north, peeling off layers of clothing, pretense, modesty, ego.
We tend the fire. Spark, ember, stone and steam meet and a ceremony of sweat is born.
Heat beckons within the sweet cedar sauna.
A spiraling of communion stoking a memory of our ancient selves. We’ve been here before. This was how we healed together long ago.
A flicker of light then Darkness. Silence. Breath. Deepening.
A Cracking Open.
Sending sweet grass and cedar smoke signals of prayers to ancestors and descendants, past and future; merging into moments of timeless presence.
Then it happens. The alchemy of fire, water, and spirit. We ignite. Transformation begins.
Forgetting me, remembering We.
We soften. Letting go feels so right, like balm for the soul.
The heat melts time and we forge a more malleable mind and body.
Truth telling, songs, sweat, tears, flow like melting snow finding its way to the sea.
We plunge into the pond sending our salty sweat downstream, along with our grief and rage.
Naked in the moonlight, steam rising from breast, belly, bone.
We are daughters of the earth, mothering ourselves, preparing to be elders.
Back to the heat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Seeds of desire and longing gestate deep within the dormant soil. Spring will have her way with us soon enough, but for now Winter tempers us and we surrender.
The sauna is our womb where we are reborn again and again, week after week.
In the dark the fire is the brightest. In the cold the fire is our
medicine.
