Sage Tea- شاي بالميرميه- Nablus- Palestine When I first came to Canada as a refugee, the first family to truly welcome me was an Indigenous family, my neighbors. They shared the teaching of smudging and the meaning of sage: care, intention, grounding. As a Palestinian, I recognized it immediately. Back home, مرميه, we gather sage, boil it, and drink it for warmth and healing. Different lands, same plant, same wisdom. Sage tea, connecting lands, stories, and hearts. Living in Canada, I’ve...

When my feet touch the soil, and the breath of the mountains gathers me in, it feels as though the wheat fields swell with a million stories and quiet aching, as though my history rises from the land itself to unlock my hidden soul. And perhaps the moment my hands meet the dust of olives and figs, is the purest way, a body can return to the morning dew And I wonder, in such a meeting, do I become saffron too? So I breathe… until breath turns into branches, and the heart becomes the shadow of...

I walk back onto this land, and it carries its scars like old stories. The stones feel hollow, the soil tired, yet still it opens its...