IN THE AIR
Issue 26, Winter 2024-25
Osprey taking a fish home for dinner. photo by John F. Williams
IN THE AIR
Issue 26, Winter 2024-25
Managing Editor: Adelia Ritchie
(Table of Contents is below this intro)
As the seasons shift and the Salish Sea region prepares for winter’s embrace, the natural world continues its intricate dance of movement and connection. This issue invites you to explore how living things move through the air — and the air moves through living things — an often-overlooked yet vital thread that weaves together the fabric of our ecosystems. From swirling autumn leaves to clouds drifting across the morning sky, every airborne element contributes to the cycles of life that define this region.
In this first release of our Winter issue, we celebrate the movement of life in flight and flow. A video captures the kaleidoscope of bright fall leaves tossed by the wind, a fleeting yet essential redistribution of nutrients when they eventually cover the ground beneath. Poems take us into the world of seabirds navigating their coastal highways and the morning clouds seemingly just beyond reach. Even the seemingly small and insignificant, like conifer needles spiraling to the forest floor, remind us that ecosystems thrive on the continual exchange of energy and matter.
This issue also contains the first song to appear in Salish Magazine — complete with both words and an audio file you can listen to!
Male alder catkins leveraging their position in the air. photo by John F. Williams
Underlying each writer’s contribution is a unifying theme: connections. These aren’t just isolated glimpses of beauty but interwoven moments that sustain the larger web of life. Together, we take to the skies — through words, images, and reflections — and discover the profound ways in which movement shapes the ecosystems of the Salish Sea.
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Happy Winter!
Issue 26: In the Air: Table of Contents
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By the Wind Sailor
by Andy Lamb
Winter 2024-25
Air blowing across the surface of the ocean can produce waves. But it also can propel “rafts” of fascinating sailing hydroids called “by-the-wind sailors.”
Aerial Relationships
by Sarah Ottino
Winter 2024-25
Plants and air have a complex relationship. Plants exchange carbon dioxide and oxygen with the atmosphere, but the relationship some plants have with air is rooted even deeper
Eggs On a Journey
by Christina Jarvis
Winter 2024-25
How do fish get into isolated bodies of water? This beautiful art piece shows one surprising process for transporting fish. The world is an amazing and complex place!
Dance of the Fairy Moth
by Mary Johnson
Winter 2024-25
Those extravagantly long, white antennae are impossible to miss! Easily twice the length of the insect’s white striped forewings, they sway ever so slightly in a breeze.
High-flying Lichens
by Celeste Hankins
Winter 2024-25
Often mistaken for moss, fruticose lichens sway overhead like tangled tassels on the forest’s trunks and branches: witch’s hair, old man’s beard, Methuselah’s beard.
Listen to Wandering
by Meiwei
Winter 2024-25
This song invites you to spend some time wondering and wandering through nature, with a tint of metaphysical inquiry. You can read and listen, as words accompany the audio file
Poetry 26
by various poets
Winter 2024-25
Here are poems by three poets celebrating the sky and the air as well as creatures who make use of those parts of our world — even conifer needles flying in the wind.
Windblown trees
by Paul Brians
Winter 2024-25
Here’s an opportunity to spend half a minute with some beautiful trees showing their Autumn colors and blowing in the wind as filed by local photographer Paul Brians
Salish Magazine
Publisher: John F. Williams
Managing Editor: Sara Noland
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Copyright SEA-Media
All rights reserved. Reproduction or distribution, in whole or in part. without consent of copyright owner is strictly prohibited — except for brief quotations in critical reviews and other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright laws.
SEA-Media is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation
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