The Wild Lily Institute
A Familiar Shore
"I took up my favored pen / and the meter of the salt roar, / the splendid gathering of stony shells / and aged driftwood / splashed off the pages…"
This lyrical mythic collection with its motifs of healing and nurturing will transport you to places you have never been, in the company of surprising characters and creatures.
--Violet Nesdoly
Poet, author, reviewer
To buy directly, email us and we will invoice you and mail you a copy. (220 in stock): mail[at]wildlilyinstitute.com
A Familiar Shore is the story of Sea and her child Rain, her journey as a poet and writer, and her battle with cancer. Sea chronicles her healing journey as she meets Raven, a woman by the sea in Tofino, and a medicine woman of the Stó:lō people. The stories of four women are interwoven with their poetry, parables, and myth. They eventually discover what binds them together and what heals them.
About the Author:
Emily Isaacson is a poet and author who lives in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. She founded the Wild Lily Institute, where she remains director. Isaacson has trained in nutrition in natural medicine, creative writing and restorative justice. She teaches others to use skills of conflict resolution, circle keeping, and healing through forgiveness. Her themes include the sea, healing, forgiveness, and reparation.
Isaacson’s poetry is sacred and powerful. Her poet's voice shines amid oppression and despair. She has said that hearing poetry live makes its nuances and colour come to life! She knows there is hope to overcome the obstacles in life of disease and depression. She speaks from personal experience that love is a powerful force that can free and move a nation.
The poetry on healing and the First Nations People will coincide with the exhibit at The Reach art gallery on the First Nations People and colonialism. For more information visit www.emilyisaacson.net
I wrote all day and into the evening
with a sharpened pencil,
sketching the notes of my composition,
floundering in its depths,
bringing my emotions
back from death to life,
as a killer whale returns to surface
from the undercurrents of the sea.
The words that would create
are the words of a healer
and the healing:
These words embody the power of nature
to restore, its essence
to remove impurities,
its resonance to similitude.
They thunder within the galaxy
of the cell, the microscopic layers
of mitochondria, they storm over the sea
before the nucleus of the sun.
The sky each night
grows dark with nutrients,
then silent with solitude.
Emily Isaacson, A Familiar Shore