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From the Publisher
You Are Not
Alone: If you are reading this issue of The New Times, chances are you may have already noticed the heartfelt stirrings of a great social change now taking place across the United States. On TV talk shows, during enthusiastic meetings in local cafés, at international conferences and purposeful gatherings of scholars and laypersons, and even in grocery store lines, people are fervently discussing their ideas on economic sustainability, ecological balance, tolerance and respect for diversity, spiritual awakening, and their shared desire to create a better world for our children. This passionate conversation is a prayer for a new moral and spiritual foundation for the 21st century, and the good news is that this movement is gathering momentum at a time when we need it most.
New Age Fundamentalism:
Frankly, I encourage those who think their belief system is airtight to hold fast to whatever they need to feel safe. In a world as challenging as ours, security blankets can be comforting, and sometimes a blanket full of holes can feel better than no blanket at all.
The Printed
Word and Personal Growth
StarWatch
The Urge to
Transform
The following incident helps clarify and resolve the apparent contradiction between working on ourselves and serving others: One day Socrates (my mentor as described in my book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior) and I were walking along a street by campus when we came to some posters on a wall. One was about helping oppressed peoples; another had faces of starving children; a third asked for our support in saving the whales. Reading these posters, I said, "Socrates, I sometimes feel guilty, or selfish, doing all this work on myself when there are so many people in need out there."
The New
Times
and BodyMind Academy
Toward a Science
of Meaning The application of scientific discovery to our individual comprehension of the universe often lags behind the unearthing of those discoveries themselves. In 1610, for instance, Galileo Galilei published Sidereus Nucius (The Starry Messenger), which detailed his observations of the heavens. He wrote of a moon with craters and mountains, spots on the sun, the phases of Venus, and moons orbiting the planet Jupiter, all impossible observations according to the prevailing Ptolemaic cosmology.
Life in Prison
Spice Up Your
Spiritual Life Marco Polo is credited with bringing won tons back to Europe from his travels in the East. Although the Chinese stuff their version with pork and scallions, Italians with veal and cheese, and Poles with potatoes and mushrooms, all agree it's great food! Each nationality enhanced its cuisine by recognizing a good idea and adapting it to its culture. We can spice up our spiritual paths, too, by being receptive to the teachings of other philosophies and religions.
Faery and
Human: A Healing Connection
Far from encountering a negative presence, I discovered a landscape of light inhabited by beings willing to work with me in a co-creative relationship based on mutual love and respect. They were faery beings, and that was eight years ago. Since that time, I have connected with the Faery many times to work toward health and balance in others, the planet, and myself.
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Life is
an adventure, a journey punctuated with laughter and tears, sorrows
and joys, disappointments and achievements. We take time this
month to reflect on our past and look to our future. I dedicate
this issue to the countless contributions over the past 200 issues
that energized this publication and the important work of the
community that it serves. I know of many important relationships
that exist today because of a connection that was facilitated
by The New Times (including some of my own). Many important
leaders of our day took their first public steps to success on
the pages of The New Times. Ideas that were once the exclusive
purview of publications like The New Times now find themselves
in the most mainstream publications.
Before
I say anything about New Age fundamentalism, let me say up front
that I have no clue what causes what, nor do I believe it's even
possible to know. At best, people can form opinions
about the nature of causal reality, but these opinions may or
may not have anything to do with what's actually happening.
My readers, and the readers of The New Times,
respond to an implicit invitation to discover new possibilities
in themselves. As any reader knows, when there is a fit between
published words and what is stirring in one's own psyche, the
words support and nourish new growth and authenticity. The glint
of recognition when words articulate what is felt names and validates
these feelings. Inner knowing is an aha! discovery of
what is not realized until we have words for it.
The universal
year 2002 resonates with the frequency of the number 4 (2+0+0+2=4).
The themes for this year are solidification, formulation, and
manifestation. This is the year to create a solid base of operations
for yourself so that you feel grounded and rooted in your own
being. Healing comes through putting your life in order and creating
structures that support you in your work, relationships, and
creative expression. This may look like refurbishing and/or rearranging
your home so that it is more efficient and aesthetically pleasing.
God helps those who help themselves. The urge to
transform is deep within us — call it escape from pain,
the drive to freedom, or the force of human evolution. Anaïs
Nin put it well when she wrote, "Then the day came when
the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was greater than the
risk it took to blossom."
During the past 16 years (200 months,
but who’s counting?), The New Times has built a community
of readers through its focus on healing and spirituality. Many
in this community have made these focus areas their life’s
work. For this anniversary issue, I spoke with Tom Johnston,
M.Ed., L.M.P., founder and director of the 
Soon after the World Trade Center terrorist attack,
people began asking for my reaction, "looking," as
one put it, "for the opinion of someone I respect as opposed
to newscasters and government officials." Rather than feeling
flattered, I felt puzzled. Why would my perspective on the tragedy
differ from that of newscasters and government officials? As
the letters continued to flow in, I began to understand: I wasn't
being asked the same questions that newscasters and government
officials were being asked.
As I began my first inner journey into the Faery
realm within the body of the land, I remember feeling a sense
of fear. When I thought about it later, I realized that I had
come to accept, largely unconsciously, the belief that the devil
and his minions resided in the earth, and that going there was
to be avoided at all costs.