FREE
Season 2012
Your Guide to Vacationing on Madeline Island
Finding Inspiration in Thin Places What’s Inside . . . Map & Business Directory of Downtown La Pointe and Madeline Island
By Cindy Bielke According to ancient Celtic wisdom, “Heaven and earth are only three feet apart. In ‘thin places’ that distance is even smaller.” While “thin places” can occur anywhere — from a moment of grace in a difficult relationship to a crowded football stadium filled with like-minded fans — they most frequently are associated with beautiful landscapes.
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Playing on the Island 4–6
Enjoying Art on the Island 7 – 10, 14
Relaxing on the Island 11
Good News on the Island 12 – 13
Events Calendar 15
I’ve always felt that this island is a thin place. Madeline’s wild beauty helps to lift the veil separating us from our spiritual and creative selves. Like in the Celtic metaphor, it is a place for many where the boundary between the sacred and the everyday “feels thin.” Is it any wonder that so many talented artists make their home here? They surely find creative inspiration in the rugged rocks, sandy beaches, magnificent trees and “awayness” of it all. One of my fondest treasures is a stunning pastel painting of the beach at Town Park created by Denise Bunkert, a talented Twin Cities artist and dear friend. Denise captured those awe-inspiring and fleeting soft-as-a-petal moments when sky and water merge into oneness, delicate shades of blue and pink intertwining as the sun slowly fades for the day. Could there be any more perfect manifestation of a thin place anywhere? Of course, for many visitors Madeline Island simply offers the opportunity to retreat. Here we can step away from most of the rules of daily life. We find places on this small and mostly undeveloped island to breathe freely, to relax and to play, to explore and create, to pray, meditate or simply, to be. (continued on page 14)