Carolyn Turgeon

If you know Dolly Parton’s story, you know it’s something straight out of a fairy tale. Born dirt-poor in a two-room wooden shack in the mountains of Tennessee, one of twelve children, she headed to Nashville the day after high school graduation to become one of the biggest country stars in history. Most of us know her movies, her songs, her love of glitz and big hair, her sweetness and warm, self- deprecating humor (“you’d be surprised how much it costs to make a person look this cheap!”).

PHOTOGRAPHY BY KRISTIN REIMER A.K.A. PHOTOMUSE Is it possible that I, editor in chief of this very magazine, can still be blind to magic? I found out by accident, really—because when I went up to Philadelphia to hear some music last April, I phoned my longtime friend Mark Berman, whom I’ve known since college, and said it was high time for us to get together and catch up. What was he doing that Saturday?

Artist Erica Peebus believes the whole world is teeming with soul and spirit. But she’s interested in plants, especially, and creates paintings that illustrate their spirits. She calls herself a “spiritual botanical artist.” The moon is core to her spiritual practice, which is why it shows up in so many of her paintings. Under the dark moon she performs ceremonial rituals in which she coaxes herself into a trance state and communicates with plant spirits.