Greetings from
The Publisher . . .
Busy Times; Flying Over & Under;
Hope for a “New”RealityThanksgiving seemed to come earlier this year—a couple of months early, is how it felt here. With the elections, the war escalating, the holiday season and trying to fit more in seemingly speeding up time, we hope we have a few things this issue to make life easier.
We have an article about year-end financial planning from Sarah Tarver-Wahlquist at Co-op America that looks at something we all face, but this comes from the perspective of helping our communities and our environmental interests, as well as ourselves.
If things look bad and you're down, don't miss reading My Story by Louise Hay. She's had quite a life and accomplished a lot. I've never really thought a lot about what it took to do what she has. She shows us how raising her consciousness and becoming more aware of herself was an essential ingredient. Her story is very inspiring and gives us hope about what is possible.
This is certainly the time of year when it's nice to have tools to rejuvenate and ways of looking at life to enable us to cope with the chaos and demands of our sped up information age.
It feels good to know that those are the people who advertise with us and write for us—the ones offering pathways for living more effective, responsible and healthy lives while paying attention to the effect we have on our common environment. Responsible in the sense of being as responsible as we can be for our lives, instead of victims of circumstances. And yes, there are times, it seems, we are along for the ride. Then we get to look for the silver lining, find the perfection or perhaps, discover an opportunity.
I mention that because it's an anniversary for us. The first issue of The Light Connection (TLC ) was December 1985. This is issue number 252, meaning 21 years of issues behind us; and that—the above paragraph—is what we're up to.
The other part we have grown into is applying what has traditionally been a solitary or inside focus to creating the kind of world we want to live in. Having a non-poisonous environment is an obvious and clear example why it's important to be a part of the world and not apart from it.
One article we have this month is full of great ideas for giving gifts that support people and causes while supporting the environment. In addition we have included more books and music reviews that we usually do to give you more gift ideas.
It's exciting to watch as science catches up with the ancient texts and teachings and include them in TLC . Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics is a classic work that points out how the Bhagavad Gita and physics intertwine in concept if not language. One of his later books, The Web of Life , has also become a classic that relates the trends and leading edge research in science in many fields to our society and ecology.
One of those discoveries that I especially enjoyed was that the flock of birds that we've always heard is following the leader, really isn't. When the majority of birds shift in a certain direction, the “leader” does also and everyone else follows too. The latest information says they operate as a democracy.
In a similar way, many in our society are saying they don't want leaders as much as they want representatives. A representative government was the intention in the beginning anyway, right?
It's interesting to me when I sometimes get a call about being too political. It doesn't really happen a lot, but when it does I am surprised by what people think of as political. For me, I think I am applying the latest concepts that science is embracing—the laws of energy, quantum physics, etc.
David Hawkins, for instance, has distinguished between force and power. Force is trying to control with externally pressure and it simply doesn't work. The concept that actions invite an equal and opposite reaction, is not new. Many of these concepts are not universally understood, but isn't it time we started to apply the principles that describe reality to our society?
Trying to control a another country's population when it only takes one nut case to blow things up may not be an option no matter how many troops we ask to go to Iraq again, again and again. Talk about the chosen few? It's hard to find fairness in that policy. Did you hear that we passed a timetable recently? The US entered WWII and beat the Axis countries in a shorter time than we have been in Iraq.
Is it pro-immigrant or anti-immigrant to point out the fallacies of building a fence along the border? I received one letter that accused me of being pro-immigrant.
I was just wondering about the fence being a solution—especially a $17 billion fence that will only be about 12 feet high. Half of the illegal immigrants entering the US now fly in and that fence just won't be high enough. Once it's built, the half that walks across just might try another way, don't you think? There is little chance it will cut the numbers in half.
It's better to remove the attraction, if we feel we have to change things. There is a lot to evaluate, however, and one day they may actually study it—rather than make political moves.
Just as in the building projects in Iraq, the bottom line is someone will make a lot of money, especially if they use cheap labor along the border.
Control is a hard one to give up or transmute into other energy flows.
The good news is this last year or two has been full of examples that people are applying the “new reality” to their world. Look at the new movies that have come out: What the Bleep , The Celestine Prophecy , Conversations with God , The Peaceful Warrior and now The Secret . The challenge is the traditional media doesn't understand the phenomenon and often ignores it or misses the point. The good news is the collective consciousness of these'“realities” is growing as technology is democratizing movie making.
One area we hope will not remain too obscure is the challenge with voting machines. I talked with several people who were elated by the election results, but I'm not sure why. Yes there is the possibility for more moderation and cooperation in Congress, but the voting margin is now very narrow. Unless the problems with electronic voting are resolved it may be a temporary margin.
To put it in perspective, nothing really happened this election that has not almost always happened. When not running, the President in power loses House and Senate seats, especially in his second term, just about the way it happened.
If anything is unusual, it is that the polls were everywhere and every but 51-49. Didn't we hear about 80% and 70% disapproval ratings? The prediction everyone agreed with, even the Republicans, was that Republicans were about to take a beating. How did that translate into a narrow victory for Dems? Isn't that more than just odd? It wasn't as bad as the SDU-T headline though: “Democrats Seize the Senate” they printed. It wasn't a coup, people voted.
Think about it: the Senate race that ultimately decided who controlled the Senate was in Virginia, where the winner won by about one percent of the votes cast—and there is no paper trail to recount the votes even if they wanted.
If the Democrats and Republicans don't come up with an honest method of counting votes and fix this, somebody will fix it good—for them—at the expense of our democracy and to the benefit of incumbents.
Some attention is now being paid to the House race in Florida that was “won' by 369 votes. Another 18,000 votes were'“undervotes”(left blank on the ballot).In three of the counties in the district the undervotes ranged from 2.2% to 5.3%. In the fourth county there were 15% undervotes, or 18,000.
For the most part this area still seems to be flying under the radar. And yes, there has always been some cheating. I'm just not sure why we want to give the cheaters better tools. Follow the CalTech MIT Voting Technology Project at www.vote.caltech.edu for a full picture.
Unless more of we birds in the flock begin to look in a new direction, the promised moderation may be but a respite that brings “new and improved” machines.
Have in a Great month,
Steve
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