When staff at the Meadow Brook Medical Care Facility in Bellaire, MI arrived one recent July morning, they were astonished to find a dog curled up on the couch in the waiting room. Miraculously, Scout had escaped the night before from a nearby animal shelter, managed to scale the 10-foot chain link fence and another 6-foot solid privacy fence, cross a busy highway without being … [Read more...]

About a month ago, during her summer vacation, eleven-year-old Esma Gljiva from Sarajevo, Bosnia, started creating folklore-style Barbies with Balkan costumes like headdresses and decorative aprons. The timing was interesting, given the enormous success of the new Barbie movie, released in mid-July. But Esma hadn’t seen the film. Her project was inspired, she says, by her … [Read more...]

Oakland-based Yeye Luisah Teish is a Yoruba priestess and a daughter of Oshun, the African Venus. When I first met Teish in the mid-80s at the Council of Feminine Fire in Ojai, California, she blew me away. As a newcomer to the ways of the Goddess, I’d never experienced a woman who was so in her power – not to mention her body! I soon devoured her autobiography, Jambalayah, and … [Read more...]

  “Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” –Muhammad Ali   Comedian and talk show host Dick Cavett once stopped by to see his friend Muhammad Ali being filmed in New York. “The producer said Ali was being … [Read more...]

Once upon a time in the 1830s, a young Englishman named Joseph and a young French woman named Elizabeth fell madly in love. But Elizabeth’s wealthy father, who was Joseph’s employer, refused to let them marry – and disowned his daughter when she eloped. So, the newlyweds took a brave step: They left France and hopped on a ship to the New World. After landing in Mississippi, … [Read more...]