A Page from the Crazy Wisdom Journal — A Look at Our First 25 Years

By Kirsten Mowrey and CWJ Editorial Staff

(Editor’s Note: Kirsten Mowrey has been a steady journalistic presence on the Crazy Wisdom Journal staff for close to ten years. She has contributed numerous feature stories and interviews for us, including cover stories on Tiya Miles, professor of American Culture, Afroamerican Studies, and History at U-M, and Functional Nutritionist Coco Newton). 

Think back in time to twenty-five years ago. The year was 1995. You may have had kids, just out of school and starting your first career, or maybe you weren’t even born yet. People communicated by calling each other on landlines, though cell phones were beginning to appear. Magazines came with discs offering you a new service: America Online. When you turned on your computer (if you even owned one!), you watched it warm up, startup icon blinking for ten minutes before it was able to slowly process your requests.  

However, this article isn’t a nostalgic trip about the good old days. I’m setting the scene, reminding us of how things used to be before technology made our lives so fast and full. Before we could access information as fast as we could think of it. It's a reminder of the world that existed when the Crazy Wisdom Community Journal was born and introducing you to some of the reasons why it was ushered into this world. 

The local community connected in those early days via word of mouth, bulletin board, or flyer. Finding a holistic practitioner was a time-consuming business of searching, questioning like-minded friends, and visiting events to learn more about nutrition, bodywork, energy healing, midwifery, or anything that constituted the mystery traditions: astrology, herbalism, tarot, Kabbalah, numerology, Neopaganism, and Gnosticism, to name a few. These often denigrated disciplines had spent centuries living on the edges of western culture—never part of the mainstream, yet never fading. The counterculture of the 1960s, its interest in leftist politics and consciousness, brought awareness to these practices, along with the religions and practices of Asia: Buddhism, Hinduism, yoga, Feng shui, Zen, and meditation. All of these interests found a home at Crazy Wisdom Bookstore, founded in 1982.  The store bridged, as U-M Philosophy Professor Emeritus Richard Gull said, “the connection between the New Left and the New Age.”  

Deep Spring Founder Barbara Brodsky recalled, “When I moved to Ann Arbor in 1968, and sought people with whom to meditate, there was nothing! I was delighted to see Crazy Wisdom open its doors in 1982 and meet a few people with similar interests while browsing for books. So many of us longed for connection and dialogue. Later in the 1980s, I began to open my home to people interested in meditation instruction and to talk with Aaron (a channeled entity). It was hard to reach people in those days. Word of mouth worked best, and flyers left in the bookstore. So many of us desperately longed for a forum, a way to exchange ideas, offerings, and to get to know each other.”  

Lori Fithian

drummer and community builder

How is it possible that 25 years have gone by so fast!? It really does seem like yesterday, when I first approached Bill about offering an open drum circle in the store. It has actually been so long ago, that I can’t remember when we first started doing it—I will have to go back to the archives of the CW Journal to find out. I am glad to know that they have a hard-bound archive in the store—such a rich history of activity in our special community!

I want to say a huge public thank you to Bill and Ruth for their support, in my own path of drumming—in the store and out in the community—but mostly for offering such an important resource to Ann Arbor. The journal is like an encyclopedia of information—so many treasures to discover—nutrition, wellness, spirituality, music, people, places, events and more. And I always enjoy the interviews—I love reading the stories of how people get to where they are now. The Journal has certainly helped me maintain my ‘business’ presence in the community, listing my events and monthly drum circle dates at the store, and sometimes a feature photo—which is always a bit embarrassing! If I ever need to find a practitioner of any sort, I head to my latest copy of the Journal first, even before an internet search!

I send huge gratitude and congratulations to everyone who puts together this lovely Ann Arbor treasure, to all that support it by advertising their amazing services and products, and to all the special people who read and love it like I do! May it (and the store!) live on for many more years to come!

Nutritionist Cindy Klement remembers going to Crazy Wisdom in the very early 1990s. “In the back of the store was an 8-1/2” x 11” four-page Crazy Wisdom flyer with the names of about 80 individuals in Ann Arbor who were practicing some form of holistic healing in town. (It was called the Health and Healing Resource Guide, and had been created and produced by Jonathan Ellis.) I was honored to be one of the people on that list as an herbalist, nutritionist, and health educator.” Having a physical location was the first, and sometimes only connection, point for many in Ann Arbor in those days. Mainstream publications, newspapers, and television did not cover these areas. Sound shaman Norma Gentile said, “As a student at the University (and of all things metaphysical) I scanned the mounds of flyers on the billboard and picked out many events to attend. As I became a performer and energy healer myself, I found few resources to widely publicize events that were classified by mainstream magazines and newspapers as being within this brave new world.”

Into this brave new world, the world of the dreams of the baby boomers, hippies, spiritual seekers, and political wonks was born the Crazy Wisdom Bookstore. Over time, the store needed a voice. Flyers are good, but collecting them, merging them, and creating a chorus from the individual components—that was the needed next step. So, in the fall of 1995 those flyers on the bulletin board became a publication: the first Crazy Wisdom Calendar, put together by bookstore staffer Rachel McKee. It featured yoga, Reiki, Polarity Therapy, and a vegetarian Thanksgiving cooking class, because meatless meals were an anomaly in the Midwest. Within a year the Calendar was multiple pages and had begun featuring interviews with local practitioners.  As publisher Bill Zirinsky wrote in September 1996, “This is not northern California, but Ann Arbor’s alternative community has matured and thrived over the last twenty-five years. A new generation has arrived and added to the richness and diversity of what is being offered here. This fourth edition contains 150 listings; it's exciting to take note of just how alive this community is!”

Photography appeared in 1997, adding faces to those featured interviews, as well as quotes, book reviews, and staff biographies. Like any young being, the Journal found its legs and took off running. By 1998, the community had grown enough that advertising debuted, listing practitioners as full-blown businesses, not merely people offering an occasional lecture or class. Psychologist Cam Vozar wrote, “As a practitioner, the Journal was supportive in starting my private practice business. Twenty-five years ago EMDR and transpersonal therapies were not accepted as alternatives to more traditional psychotherapy. I could advertise a lecture for free and a business card listing for a modest price. I always felt it was a good return on my energetic investment.”

As the “alternative” community became mainstream, nationally known speakers were promoted in the Calendar: Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Marianne Williamson, Susun Weed. Williamson was even interviewed in the Calendar while she was at the Church of Today, but only because she was local. Zirinsky said, “My aspirations were to make this an intelligent magazine about these subjects, but locally focused. That's really been key. We all get to read Tricycle or SageWoman or any of the others that are national magazines about our related content. But to say [that] there’s enough interesting material in Ann Arbor and in the southeastern Michigan region that we're not going to do any sort of syndicated articles—what we're doing is pretty cool. We’re not going to have Deepak Chopra in the Crazy Wisdom Journal. Even if he comes to town. We might put his event in our Calendar section, but we're not going to feature an article about it.” 

Crazy Wisdom Bookstore moved in 1999 as if readying itself for the new millennium. Writing about the move in one of his very occasional notes in the January 1999 Crazy Wisdom Calendar, Zirinsky wrote, “We want to create a more permanent home (in a world of impermanence) for a countercultural haven.” Reflecting on the arrival of Whole Foods and the growth of the Calendar, he wrote, “In this town, the counterculture has become part of the culture, and we don’t even stop to think about it much.” Psychotherapist Brian O’Donnell agrees. He said, “I’m proud to be a member of a community that has such a well-crafted and comprehensive journal that covers the domains of consciousness, healing, and engaged civic life. This journal continues to grow and flower sprouting new branches that showcase the wide array of opportunities for well-being and contribution in our area. I often marvel at the incredible variety of offerings and practitioners that occurs here in my back yard.”

Zirinsky published sporadic personal essays, as well as comments on community and world events, until about 2010.But his voice was mostly to be found as the questioner in lengthy and in-depth interviews with local community figures. He conducted deeply engaging interviews with herbalist Brownen Gates; Jewel Heart founder and Tibetan Buddhist teacher Gehlek Rimpoche; integrative physician Dr. James Neuenschwander of BioEnergy Medical Center; Author and Psychic John Friedlander; Traktung Rinpoche and Tsochen Khandro, husband-and-wife founders of Flaming Jewel Dharma Center; legendary U-M Psychology-and-Religion Professor Richard Mann; Carole Lapidos and Sally Wisotzkey on Raising Strong and Confident Daughters; Zen Buddhist Priestess Haju Sunim; and Dr. Tariq Bel-Bahar of the U-M Center for Consciousness Science, among other notable interviews. Meanwhile, Linda Diane Feldt and Jonathan Ellis also contributed in-depth interviews with the likes of Barbara Brodsky, founder of Deep Spring Center; Dancer/Choreographer Jesse Richards; and Dr. Sara Warber, key player in the founding of the U-M Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program. 

Cindy Klement

holistic health educator and author

I am not sure if Bill wants memories from before he owned the store, but I recall going to Crazy Wisdom in the very late 1980s. At the time Aura Glaser owned the store and it was located on 4th Avenue close to People's Food Co Op.

In the back of the store she had an 8 1/2” x 11” piece of paper with the names of about 8 to 10 individuals in Ann Arbor who were practicing some form of holistic healing in town. I was honored to be one of the people on that list as an herbalist, nutritionist, and health educator.

Because of the work and passion of Bill Zirinsky, that single sheet of paper is now a robust and well-known journal across the state of Michigan and beyond. Bill has continuously featured health practitioners in the Ann Arbor area over the decades and has been a strong advocate for those of us in the healing arts. I have been extremely fortunate to have my work featured in CW twice over the past 28 years, and I remain quite grateful for those opportunities.

Please congratulate Bill for me and offer my sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed to this work!

The Journal continued to expand. Back in 2001, 4,500 copies were distributed. For the last ten years, 11,000 copies have been distributed all over southeastern Michigan. Tarot reader and sage woman Jeanne Adwani said, “Through its informative pages you can find pretty much anyone and anything that is resonant with health and well-being, to crafting the magical, and so much more in the in-between. Events, interviews, advertisements, new faces, old faces, all invite us to know our community better, and know whom to find when we are in need for alternative expertise. And also, to simply sit with a cuppa and read through the informative pages of the many incredible people and opportunities that surround us.”

In 2004 the Calendar officially became the Crazy Wisdom Community Journal. Color—the ultraviolet kind—adorned the cover as well as photographs, so artists’ work could be seen in all its original glory, though color didn’t make its way throughout the Journal until 2010. By the mid-2000s, the Journal was regularly reaching fifty pages, a ten-fold growth from its inception. Also, in 2010, the Journal came full circle with the addition of a Kids Section, giving the next generation a chance to look into a broader world. Now multi-generational and mainstream, the community publication sustained itself financially, and offered all the dreams and aspirations of the sixties to anyone receptive. Haju Sunim of the Zen Buddhist Center said, “We are so much more a community in this part of our state because of the Crazy Wisdom Journal. Our hearts and minds have been opened and many of us, discovered, through the fine articles, pictures, books, performances, and talks which have been offered.”

 O’Donnell concurs with this statement. “The Crazy Wisdom Journal, like the many expressions of wholeness it features, is also itself a healing presence. It illuminates, it integrates, it challenges, it links, and it explores what is below the surface.”

As the years went on, the publication grew into a real team effort. In the early years, the publication was largely produced by Zirinsky and Molly Nuzzo, who was the creative and dedicated Design and Production Editor for 15 years. Local psychotherapist Linda Lawson took many of the best cover photos, and the advertisements just sold themselves. And Sarah Newland, now the General Manager of the Bookstore, meticulously oversaw and edited the Calendar Section, (which she did for almost 20 years). 

Starting in 2010, two key players joined up, and the Journal began to take off. Carol Karr, who had been a longtime manager at the bookstore, became the Design and Production Editor, when Nuzzo moved to Maryland to become a professor of Art.

Karr brought new design and computer skills and talents to the look of the publication, and she provided a steady hand at the helm of the entire production process.

And Rory Russell joined up, becoming the Ad Rep, using her charm and soothing presence to double the publication’s ad sales almost right away, tapping into a well of appreciation for the local focus, journalistic integrity, and visual appeal of the Journal.

Next came some stronger and skilled editing, with Maureen McMahon, Amy Garber, Julianne Linderman, and, more recently, Jennifer Carson. McMahon, as Managing Editor, lifted the range and quality of the content, and Linderman, later on in that same role, brought a striking minimalist design sensibility to many of the page designs. Carson, now the Managing Editor, has brought with her an astonishing range of editorial and design abilities. With real verve, she jump-started The Crazy Wisdom Weeky e-Zine during the pandemic, as a complement to the print publication, which had to take a pause during the coronoavirus lockdown. 

Having stronger editors meant better writers wanted to write for the Journal, and so Rachel Urist, Sandor Slomovits, Karl Pohrt, Richard Gull, Laura Cowan, Crysta Coburn, Madeleine Diehl, Irena Nagler, Maureen McMahon, Angela Madaras and others became regular contributors and feature writers. In particular, Rachel Urist contributed sensitive and beautifully written profiles of local people who were members “in good standing” of the regional consciousness community, including cover stories on Cantor Annie Rose of Temple Beth Emeth; Anthroposophist Marian Leon of the thriving Rudolf Steiner community in town; Tantre Farm couple Deb Lentz and Richard Andres; Blue Turtle Camp founders Frank Levey and Larissa Czuchnowsky; and again, a profile of Haju Sunim of the Zen Temple, only 20 years later! 

Sandor Slomovits contributed wonderful narratives and interviews, including cover stories on Paul Tinkerhess and the Water Hill Music Festival; beloved Community Farm couple Annie Elder and Paul Bantle; Fair Food Network founder Oran Hesterman; and fifty years of the Ecology Center. And McMahon brought her keen intelligence to stories on tile craftswoman Nawal Motawi, U-M Jazz and Consciousness Professor Ed Sarath, and local Pioneer High philosophy teacher, Jim Robert.

Meanwhile, the decline of print media came with a bonus for the Journal—excellent new photographers coming on board, such as Rachael Waring, Susan Ayer, Joni Strickfaden, and Hilary Nichols, among others. All in all, the publication became thicker, more colorful, deeper, and more wide-ranging in its editorial content. A food section was added, plus travel, pets, sustainable health, green living, and yoga columns. A veritable feast of good local writing, photography, original illustrations, events, and information.

Here we are now, twenty-five years later. “Because of the work and passion of Bill Zirinsky, that four-page flyer is now a robust and well-known journal across the state of Michigan and beyond,” said Klement.  San Slomovits, of the duo Gemini and a writer for the Journal said, “I often find things in the Journal that turn out to be interesting and useful in my life.” Zirinsky himself said, “The Journal has grown into this really wonderful realization of what I wanted it to be. I was a publishing person since I was a kid. The gift that meant the most to me when I was nine was a little printing press. The rest of [the paper] was already done but you got to create the headline. I [also] played a card game with fifty cards, each card with a little face of a person and a profession. What appealed to me: it was publisher.”

Jeanne Adwani

artist and poet

Crazy Wisdom Journal is a gift of service to the whole community. Through its informative pages you can find pretty much anyone and anything that is resonant with health and well-being, to crafting the magical, and so much more in the in between.

Events, interviews, advertisements, new faces, old faces, all invite us to know our community better, know whom to find when we are in need for alternative expertise. And also, to simply sit with a cuppa and read through the informative pages of the many incredible people and opportunities that surround us. We are made better for having this service gifted to us three times a year.

I have had the honor to be part of Bill and Ruth’s journey before the advent of the Journal. My gratitude is vast for knowing them and being on the pages of this great community paper. Thanks Ruth and Bill.

It is with great love that I say thank you to all whom make this journal a true community experience.

When I contacted individuals for their memories about the Journal, drummer Lori Fithian wrote, “How is it possible that 25 years have gone by so fast!? It really does seem like yesterday when I first approached Bill about offering an open drum circle in the store. The Journal is like an encyclopedia of information—so many treasures to discover—nutrition, wellness, spirituality, music, people, places, events, and more. I always enjoy the interviews. I love reading the stories of how people get to where they are now.” Everyone I corresponded with expressed their thanks, gratitude, and appreciation of the Journal for the way it had assisted them personally and professionally, and for the benefit of the greater community as a whole.

What then, do the next twenty-five years look like? Zirinsky said, “It’s a  dream that’s been realized, but it's still evolving. I'm not tired of its evolution. It's cool what the publication is doing.” The Journal has an online presence and growing that is the current focus. “[I want] more feedback,” said Zirinsky, “That's where the online piece matters to me. And with the pandemic, Jennifer Carson started The Crazy Wisdom Weekly, a breezier online weekly e-zine. We get to do what we’re doing with the Journal still, and we’re committed to its in-depth articles and interviews, but we now also have a more timely way to engage our regional readership.”

Desires for peace, an end to war, and hopes for harmony characterized the consciousness movements of the sixties and continue to be relevant for the community. In an interview with social worker, Gae Winn, on the one-year anniversary of September 11th, she said, “I want people to wake up: to the knowledge that we are one planet and one community. We are diverse, unique, but the hatred with which we approach one another, the disdain and negativity, has got to stop for the sake of us all.” Giving voice to our hopes for harmony, internal and external, and building community around our passions, celebrations, struggles and joys, the Journal reflects our community in all its many facets.  

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