by Joseph Roberts

As I walked to work Tuesday on winter solstice the darkness and light of the past poured into rememberance. 2004 was both troubling and inspiring as I waited for the longest night to pass.
Walking is healthy and natural. The mind can wander and be open to inspiration without the fear and stress of driving. It is ours to commune or commute.
Steeping out onto the sidewalk, much has changed. Met visually with the bright blue recycling boxes and yellow plastic bags sponsored by the very newspapers that fill them. These are symbolic spring flowers of an industrial-realized, still somewhat unconscious, society. I remember long ago the battle to get recycling adopted.
Yes Toto we may even get the Kyoto Protocol agreed to by the Empire.
A soggy littered cigarette packet screams out from rotting teeth the warning of how using this product causes cancer. Remember the fight against the brown tobacco plague, with their slippery PR con men trying to justify the killing of millions. We persevered and forced the labeling of toxic tobacco. Yes, the cigarette industry is trying to beat its rap in the supreme court to roll back the required health protection warnings because the sobering messages are lowering consumption and cancer from smoking.
In the city become a consummate walker. Choose whenever possible to walk on grass or unpaved alleys rather than the hard monotonous concrete. The irregularities and softer surfaces are a treat. A good stroll massages the body’s joints and organs, as well as soothing a stressed-out mind.
A quarter million of us read Common Ground’s physical magazine and God knows how many read CG’s internet version at www.commonground.ca. Your global friends everywhere in the world can read CG locally, and we love receiving their letters.

Common Ground launches new initiatives for the New Year:

AWARE AND ENLIGHTENING A & E
(coming soon to a magazine near you)
Arts and Entertainment section focusing on the wonderful creations and important performances that increase Awareness and Enlightenment. A & E that is positively great music, dance, food, theatre, movies, concerts, galleries, painting, sculpture, poetry, writing, and interviews with the people who create consciousness. ETA is February so send in your leads now because, as a monthly magazine, we need lead time to fully develop the best ways to include upcoming events.

Here is what is beginning with this edition January 2005:

YOUR LETTERS WIN
Common Ground is starting a new feature committed to printing the best letters or emails each month. Response to our December John Lennon article follows. Now you know, so write down your thoughts, (concise is nice) and send those letters in!

NEW HEALTH ACTION
Kicking off our new Health Action monthly feature CG takes a tough look at the flu shot-selling season (pages 7, 16 & 29). We invite your organizations to write CG about the plague of modern times, big pharma selling us all kinds of crap we really don’t need. We have an alternative to drugs. Take personal responsibility to be fit, eat good organic food, take intelligent supplements, vitamins or herbs. Avoid the toxins and sins of junk food, drugs (recreational or otherwise), and live happy, healthy and wholly lives. May Health Action give us new knowledge and courage to choose health over fear, disease and drugs. Not a bad choice for the New Year.

THE POWER OF NOW STARTS NOW

It is with great joy we begin a new item in this edition, inspiration from Eckhart Tolle’s new paperback edition of The Power of Now.
“You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are!” – Eckhart Tolle
Each day for the next three months we get an additional three and half minutes to enjoy the gift of daylight. Make these new moments count by realizing who you are and why you are here. Now that is really something to celebrate.
Thank you for reading Common Ground and we look forward to joining you every month in 2005. May you have good health, success and happiness.

Joseph Roberts,
senior editor