Customers wait patiently outside until the doors are finally unlocked at 11 a.m. One step into Crazy Wisdom Bookstore & Tea Room on Main Street and soothing tunes comfort the ears; the scent of burning incense fills the nose. Among the bookshelves lie jewelry, candles, calendars, incense and cards. From upstairs, sounds of grinding coffee and steaming milk invite customers to enjoy the quaint tearoom above. Crazy Wisdom is a truly Ann Arbor location whose new-age offerings are losing their outlandish feel in an increasingly new age-accepting city.
While industries are making organic living more accessible to consumers, the gradual shift toward holistic practices is becoming a lucrative market. Despite the increase in corporate support for this lifestyle, the slow change occurred thanks to local businesses providing opportunities for new-age exploration even when holistic practices were not popular.
Crazy Wisdom is one such holistic lifestyle-pioneering business: It has been a defining aspect of Ann Arbor culture since it opened in 1982.
Originally owned by Aura Glaser, Crazy Wisdom was bought by current owners, husband and wife Bill Zirinsky and Ruth Schekter, in 1989. The shop moved to its current Main Street location in 1999. The store exclusively hosts local events, provides holistic products and publishes information about holistic healing and related topics through its journal available at CrazyWisdom.net.
After 20 years of owning the store, Zirinsky is aware of the continual growth of the holistic community.
“One way to think of this business is the outgrowth of a 40-year process that began in the ’60s,” Zirinsky said. “When I was a student at U of M in 1971, there was a small food co-op, but ideas about organic food, eating whole grains — those were new ideas in the society. Thirty-seven years later, you have hundreds of Whole Foods supermarkets around the country.”
Zirinsky continued, “Essentially, what was new, what was kind of nascent, what was a seed, has now sprouted.”
Crazy Wisdom describes itself as “a bookstore about consciousness.” This once seemed strange. But in a town like Ann Arbor and in a society that’s now unafraid of trying out new ideas, Zirinsky knows the store is no longer as “out there” as it used to be.
“What we are selling here is no longer new or avant-garde or cutting edge. It has really spread throughout the society,” Zirinsky said. “We see new customers all the time who are in the fairly early stages of their exploring.”
Although naturalistic ideas appear to be spreading throughout society, many students still don’t know places like Crazy Wisdom exist within their community — even when it’s the student presence that allows these businesses to thrive.
“We are a quintessentially Ann Arbor institution that could exist only probably in major university towns around the country,” Zirinsky said. “I think the reason is because in a town like Ann Arbor you have many, many people who are interested in the kind of themes that we are interested in.”
Although Crazy Wisdom has much to offer, Zirinsky and Schekter understand, as Michigan alums, how far away Main Street feels for the student population.
“I know that when I was a student here at U of M, I didn’t have a car,” Schekter said. “I did have a bike, but I didn’t have that much of a reason to come down to Main Street. I wasn’t on a restaurant budget, and actually, Main Street was much sleepier than it is today. It felt far.”
Realistically, it takes less time to walk to Crazy Wisdom from the Diag than it does to trek to the Big House, but University alum and local musician Alex Greiner agrees that Crazy Wisdom’s location proves to be a bit of a hindrance for students.
“Crazy Wisdom is not terribly well-known around campus, for though it be an ideal and quaint study spot, it is quite a hike from the Diag and the student slums,” Greiner said. “It is well respected by locals, as well as students who have ventured so far north of Main Street’s restaurant blocks.”
Despite its distance, Main Street is an important part of the University’s community. It provides a location for venues like The Ark. Included in this scene is Crazy Wisdom, which is often left untapped by students. The store hosts numerous local artists’ readings in its tearoom, providing an atmosphere unattainable at most performance venues.
“Crazy Wisdom is swimmingly cozy — earthy. With the implied haze of incense in the air, even the rare shriek of steaming milk for a cappuccino sounds muted and mellow,” Greiner said. “The tearoom offers artists a venue ripe for storytelling with a snug audience, such as one might remember from their elementary school librarian.”
With such a diverse and comforting environment, Crazy Wisdom rests as one of the landmarks of true Ann Arbor culture. It’s more than just a bookstore or teahouse; it’s a community space used by yogis, massage therapists, psychics, artists and even a local Alcoholics Anonymous group. It’s an atmosphere directly connected to the students of Ann Arbor and the growing organic-living craze conquering the country.