During the time of the Iron and Clay Empire, a saint who melts the snow with his feet sets out to preach to the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver in A Familiar Shore. His Goliath is poverty and injustice, yet his sling holds only one stone, a minstrel who is a prolific songstress. A poet and florist named Sea, and her daughter Rain, tell of a brush with nature in years of reparation from cancer. Sea chronicles her journey as she meets Raven, a former prostitute, by the sea in Tofino, and a medicine woman of the Sto:lo band, the people of the river. Emily Isaacson features the woman identity in her art through varied time periods. Her palette of postmodern hues etches her lyric and verse into a Gregorian chant-like medium, accented by ocean thunder, and with solitude as its rest. Her poetry is both free verse with a formula and prose poetry. Eventually, the prophets will come to Mission. They will meet the First Nation's people in all their ceremony at the Longhouse. Will this be a prophetic moment when heaven touches earth? Twelve nations will play a role in this waiting for the healing.