The Life Connection • From the Publisher • February 2010

On the one hand I’ve felt locked in with the name The Light Connection (TLC). I’ve always loved the name, but in the last few years especially, its felt restrictive because of what the name means to people.

We had a booth at the Earth Fair a couple of years ago, for instance, and I remember offering a copy of TLC to someone. They stepped back and said, “Oh, that’s a spiritual magazine. No thanks.” Environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr. was on the cover. I’ve had other similar responses.

You can’t please or reach everyone, of course, but I have never wanted to exclude those interested in the environment. That would be me.

I’ve always had an interest in environmental issues, writing about my own solar panels, and the energy shortage we had a few years ago numerous times. When Ocean Beach People’s Food Co-op threw the switch on their new solar panels we featured Coop manager Nancy Casady and former San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy on the cover.

We probably receive more tarot books from book publishers than any other kind but we hardly ever review them. I try to include environmental, health, and other issues of the day, but the more I researched it, the more I could see the name implied something more limited that restricted their perception of TLC in a way I had not intended.

In the last couple of months two San Diego County libraries have told us to stop delivering to them because they “cannot disseminate religious material.” At the same time they do accept a couple of other magazines that have very similar content and ads.

Some of the people who make such decisions don’t distinguish between religious and spiritual. I’ve tried to present what I would call a more non-denominational type spirituality that recognizes that we are spiritual beings, but that is taken as religious.

While “Light” is a traditional name for a publication, what’s come with this “Light” for many people I’ve talked to, is that TLC is strictly a spiritual publication.

I’ve even been told what this “spiritual” magazine should and shouldn’t cover, when I “crossed” the line. But when I hear TLC should not include an energy crisis that affects all of us, for instance, because it isn’t spiritual that puts me and us out of the world we live in. Not one complaint about health-care articles, by the way.

Labels are tough to get away from. San Diego Magazine mentioned us a few years ago and referred to us as a New Age periodical. The mention was good, but I’ve purposely never used that term to define TLC because it has as many different definitions as there are people to define it.

After that I wrote them a letter that pointed out those we had on the cover the previous year or so, and where you find those authors in the bookstore. Nicholas Perricone is in the health section. Wayne Dyer, in inspirational. John Bradshaw is in the family section.

I mentioned about five cover people and pointed out that all of them had specials on PBS, and asked if they considered PBS New Age. I appreciated their printing of it.

I thought about referring to TLC as New Age at one time and then watched a New Age woman on the 6 o’clock news. She was caked in mud, living in a cave in Malibu and waiting for the Harmonic Convergence to change the consciousness on the planet Friday next, according to the reporter. I decided against it.

When I started TLC in late 1985 I never meant it to be strictly about spiritual living or strictly a spiritual perspective. My personal journey went from courses at Humboldt State with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to the EST training, where I volunteered, and then to Terry Cole-Whittaker Ministries, where I also worked. At each step, I was focused on what I was doing to the exclusion of other avenues. It was the same year that Terry closed her ministry that I started TLC.

Doing TLC was a coming out, in a sense, to discovering all the work and approaches of other people, especially all the holistic and “take responsibility for your own health” fields that were rapidly growing.

I started with what I knew that first issue and expanded to include more and more groups and fields as I became aware of them. What I wanted to do is give people tools for living in the world—about communication, relationships, health, rejuvenation. What I’ve tried to avoid is “this is the only way” approaches.

Many say we are all one, and we are in a broad sense, but we sure have a lot of ways of expressing that oneness; a great diversity.

So we’ve been what some people call a “body-mind-spirit-type magazine” —one that includes environmental issues. It’s really impossible to separate our health from the environment we live in. Or to exclude the government or corporations when they affect our health and well-being.

I read a book called The Cultural Creatives by sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth and discovered that was the name they had for the TLC demographic—cultural creative (see experiencefestival.com). Even the political and national issues I like to write about appear consistent with their definition. It reinforced the idea that there was a community of individuals who felt as I did.

The authors state that the challenge with this demographic is that they don’t know they exist—so they often don’t connect. Connecting that community is one of the things I have been trying to do. I’ve now discovered that a different name facilitates that better.

I’m not giving up spiritual. From what I see, the desire for human expansion has never been greater—whether it is called spiritual or something else.

What I have always attempted reminds me of a story Terry Cole-Whittaker told that has stuck with me all these years. She said that when you find yourself in a rowboat a long way from shore—from where you want to be—pray, and then get to work and row like hell. My apologies if that wasn’t exactly how she said it. That’s how I took it.

Pray first, but take action. So what are the different ways to row, expand and be empowered? Take care of our bodies, without which we can’t row or participate in life? Live where the spirit of a community exists and explore how to build that?

We are affected by society, but it seems as though we’ve lost that sense of being in it together. I want to focus on that more and discover more ways we can be together.

I think participating with others is the ultimate learning experience and perhaps even a good indication of just how enlightened we are. It’s easier to go it alone or hide. I don’t think anyone would disagree that living alone is easier than being in a relationship. How about that bigger relationship—a community?

Right after I had decided to change names I glanced up at a calendar that was put on the office wall. It was sent to us and I had not paid much attention to it.

The calendar was called “Connections: Reminders About Who We Are” with photos and comments by David Winkelman. (It’s available from sales@browntrout.com and a great calendar.)

I looked up and read: Life is about our connections: with ourselves, our bodies, our own hearts and minds, our families and friends, associates and teams, clients and customers, our neighbors, communities, and other societies, with nature, spirit, the earth, energy, life.”

“Yes,” I thought, and the quality of our life is determined by the quality of those connections.

That’s what I’ve hoped to do through the years, connect people with resources that expand their lives. What are the tools we can use to expand our effectiveness, our happiness, improve our health, relieve stress, and help us enjoy and appreciate life? Whether tools or perspectives, that’s where we started the first TLC and that will continue. Let’s expand community and those connections.

It’s not my purpose here to make a unchangeable statement that will totally define The Life Connection. If I leave this and come back in half an hour I’ll find something to change or something to add. That’s life isn’t it? The truth is what we know so far, then we take another step.

The trouble is that half-truths make better headlines, which lead us to confusion. We hear too much “truth” that is really self-serving these days. We need to balance the extremes we hear. It’s easier to criticize and get upset than to find what we have in common—and too often that’s what we are presented by the media.

The other part of rowing to shore is a sense of responsibility and taking care of our selves. What actions are ours to take? What can we do to be more self-sufficient? And what can we do together that doesn’t require the massive amounts of money that Washington throws around—or too often gives back to their largest donors?

What are the alternatives? What can we do collectively on the issues on which we are united? What can we do to be more effective and fulfilled human beings? What’s next for us/US?

After I had decided to change names, a good friend of mine called and suggested I interview Payson R. Stevens. I never said I was going to give up synchronicity and the magical way the world can work.

I won’t get into him too much here, but look at that article (page 33). He has a wide variety of interests and is accomplished enough to do just what he wants personally, without connecting with others—in a sense, without connecting to life around him. Doing what he wants, however, includes a sense of community and giving back.

That’s the essence of what I want the new TLC to be about. An idea of successful that’s not about the wealth or celebrity we gain—but a success that includes knowing we are in this together, and doing something about it.

Over the past year I have looked at us/US and wrote that we seem to be in a time of redefining ourselves. I’ve been talking to me, too.

Welcome to The Life Connection,