MARCH 6, 2026 COMMUNITY EVENTS Chinese New Year 2026 celebration at Briarwood Mall: Year of the Horse I happened to go to the Briarwood Mall on Sunday, Feb. 15, around 10 a.m. just for fun. I love looking at all the fun love decorations for Valentine’s Day, the season of love. What I saw with my own eyes was a truly happy event. The Briarwood Mall was putting on a Chinese New Year celebration. This event blew me out of the water. It was so much fun. This clearly was organized by different local Asian organizations including AnnHua Chinese Association. This was a really amazing experience for me and brought back many old memories from growing up in Seattle, Washington — “the Emerald City” and “the Gateway to the Orient.” It was fun to see the mall decorations. The very first event was a mall dance dragon and lion parade with a drill team of drummers. Many people joined in and walked the length of the mall with the golden and red dragon. The atmosphere was of excitement and drumming in the new year. The first image was the very large golden dragon followed by a smaller red dragon clearly carried by kids of all ages. The drumming ladies followed with synchronicity and drill drummings. The dragons returned and everyone CINDY GERE Groundcover vendor No. 279 gathered around the open area for the dancers in front of JC Penney with a lady in red who was the announcer for each event and dance. The tiny tots started the event with red streamers and jumping twirls, swaying to the right and left. Then the next age: sixyear-olds, with their streamers and fans. The different groups represented different ethnic regions of China and Mongolia, including three different age groups of dance Tai Chi. There was even a traditional Chinese opera ensemble in very elaborate golden costumes. The dancing went on into the afternoon with golden-agers showing the fun dance of a marriage, pretending to be a young man and woman together with a sprinkle of happy candy pitched Youth performers. into the crowd for the kids who were watching the event on the sidelines. At the end, people truly felt they had experienced Chinese New Year. And with that, like so many others, I found my way to the Panda Express Chinese food restaurant and ordered chicken barbecue and an egg roll with a yummy drink. This is the year of the horse. May all the luck of a running horse come to bring much wealth to you and peace to all the world. GROUNDCOVER NEWS 5 GET TO KNOW YDL! WHERE TO FIND US: Online at ypsilibrary.org Call us at 734-482-4110. TO GET YOUR LIBRARY CARD: 1) Fill out the easy online form at ypsilibrary.org/library-cards. 2) Call 734-482-4110 3) Or stop by any YDL location! DON’T HAVE A DRIVER’S LICENSE? We can work with a variety of IDs to get you your card. Repair Clinic Thursday | Mar 26 | 10-11:30am | YDL-Michigan In March, get help mending or sewing. Let us know if you have skills to lend, or things you’d like to see offered at a future repair clinic! FEATURED EVENT A2 Earth Day events will focus on the elements EARTH DAY PLANNING COMMITTEE The mental field upon which and within which we play and work and sweat, dance and dream is limitless! Upon this planet known as Gaia, commonly called Earth, we think — and feel — at times, “We got this.” “She’s got us,” though, is closer to the truth. Hopefully we do "Got this…" — at least enough of us to formulate the critical mass of Collective Consciousness necessary to keep the scales of justice tilted in the direction of the greater good. Mental clarity to the greatest degree we can achieve lends to our collective clarity in dealings with each other at various levels, and will lend toward our societal ability to stabilize and improve our relations with all — and with Gaia. Gaia has a mind of her own, of which we are a part. We need her, she ultimately does not need us; fortunately the current conditions at least seem to be giving us the chance to think things through. We (once again?) begin to integrate our thinking, feeling and physical being to summon our emotional fortitude to find our place in the universe, in the ethers therein. As we humble ourselves in knowing we know-not all the answers, we can be comforted in knowing all-of-the answers are there. These answers are available to us through observation; processing what we observe is possible with mental clarity; mental clarity is available with clearing; clearing is possible through meditation and silence. Not like the silence in “Silent Spring,” as so eloquently expressed by Rachel Carson in her book of that title. Eventually these writings of hers and others led to establishing Earth Day, which we will celebrate in Ann Arbor again — for an entire week this year, April 19-25. This will be in conjunction with a number of activities and events correlating with common concerns we share: Bicycle Day, Hemp Day, Arbor Day and an Earth Day event at the Leslie Science and Nature Center. Water: the element seemingly most closely related to the mental aspect of our being. Without clear circulation of clean water, our capacity to think clearly is compromised — as, I do believe, is the case with Gaia. This all delves into another dimension of the concept of thinking, which is a process of interrelated functions. Our thinking — and mental clarity — ought to lead us back to compassion, with the water circulating through our veins and her rivers to the heart, to the east and south. The east represents the spiritual aspect of our being, the south the physical, in this framework of distinction addressing these common concerns that we all share. And once we stabilize (as best we can) these aspects, we then are Phil Hale Quartet— presented by the Jazz Foundation of America Saturday | Mar 28 | 2-3pm YDL-Superior YDL welcomes the Phil Hale Jazz Quartet, featuring Phil Hale on keys, John Douglas on trumpet, John Barron on bass, and Djallo Djakate on drums. Their focus is on playing modern takes on standard jazz with a strong swing twist. prepared to look into the unknown, represented by the west, and leave the past behind, lending to more space for that clarity. Earth does this every day as Gaia, kissing the Sun good-night, in all our regions, every hour on the minute in this eternal existence where time as we know it exists-not. We have all of the time in the world, as she sails through the ethers, the universe within which we exist, and think — therefore we are.
6 Publizr Home