by Joseph Roberts

This spring equinox, I was with my daughter at Chichen Itza, the ancient Mayan city of pyramids in Mexico’s Yucatan. As the sun set, it was inspiring to witness the equinox phenomenon of the Sun’s rays and the structure’s shadow inscribing the shape of the serpent body on the limestone temple’s staircase.
Our well-dressed tour guide repeated his knowledge of Mayan history through his personal and cultural filters: Catholic, Spanish, colonial, entrepreneurial and hustling professional. Focusing on the myths he was familiar with, and ignoring the realization of the moment, which connects us through eternity, he recited many factoids of Mexican history, especially history as it had been written by the conquerors. He described a reality fix that serves him and his bosses. After listening to him describe the various gods – jaguar, eagle and plumed snake – and praising their merits, I asked him if there was a single unifying force or supreme Spirit or Being. He paused and then affirmed that there is a single God, whose name is unspeakable, and that it is never carved in stone; it is the God that was there before the Sun.
If we study only one set of gods, goddesses, myths or religions, it is easy to believe that our version of history and our God is better than someone else’s God. This ignoring becomes the justification for treating others unkindly. In accepting ignorance and fooling ourselves, we treat ourselves unkindly as well and ultimately become our own fool.
Pyramids were built first by imagining the whole concept, then by believing that it was possible to create it one level, one stone, one action and one thought at a time, to manifest the result. People believed it took ages to build these houses of stone, but recent evidence shows that some of those structures were built in months, rather than over years or decades.
I sense that the greater the collective intent, joy and purpose, the quicker those buildings were created. Joy and purpose are contagious; use them wisely. Composing wonderful music is an example of intent. Music is so reflective of the mood, the vibe, the groove, the feelings, it is a focusing of life force which is a part of all universal forces, and as Yoda said, “May the Force be with you.” I used to say upon seeing a great accomplishment, like the pyramids, that it was a labour of love. Now, I can honestly say that it was a celebration of love or a creation of purpose and joy.
Nothing really represents reality 100 percent accurately except reality itself. The map is not the territory, nor is the representation the actual. Calendar systems are no different; they vary widely because what is attempting to be measured is ever changing. The Moon revolves around the Earth while the Earth orbits the Sun while the Sun travels the Milky Way, and our galaxy flies through this unimaginably large and wondrous universe. So what is actually being documented in this polyrhythmic cosmos? As well as the 24/7/365 accounting of time, there are some larger celestial happenings just around the bend.
Our modern Gregorian solar calendar uses 365 or 366 days per year and recycles every 400 years using 97 leap years to catch up. The Mayan Long Count calendar works with cycles of more than 5,000 years. According to astronomy and that Mayan calendar, December 21, 2012, will be a very special time, because for the first time in 26,000 years, the Sun conjuncts the intersection of the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic. Some mystics say this alignment with the heart of the galaxy in 2012 will transform us from our current third materialist epoch, what the Mayans call the “corn people,” to more god-like spiritual beings who will remember that we are connected to, and made in, the image of the Divine. When our solar meridian crosses the galactic equator and the Earth aligns with the galactic centre, a rebirth for the entire planet and its inhabitants could be ushered in. But processes usually start happening before they become really apparent.
The year 2012 will occur only two years after the 2010 Vancouver Olympics so it appears there is much to be done to develop a higher level of awareness and compassion. From where we stand now in 2007, a lot of foundational work has been done, including the first 25 years of Common Ground publishing. It will help if we stop allowing ourselves to be fooled. We must discern the difference between truth and lies, dedication and deception, kindness and killing, and between really paying attention from moment to moment versus being distracted every 15 seconds by sound-bites and flickering TV screens. To enjoy being tricked on April Fools Day is fun. To be fooled 24/7/365 is really unwise. We can enjoy the cosmic dance of transformation without being so attached to the form. To see through the trickery of illusion to the beauty and grace behind the mask is sublime. Underneath the assumed greed or need to deceive is a hidden call for love to heal our thoughts of lack and hurt.
When we live in resentment, blame and anger, we fool ourselves. We kill the joy and beauty in our lives by being unforgiving. Cherry trees do not fail to bloom because last year’s bees were unappreciative or lazy. The birds still sing even if no one is listening or understands their song. Forgiveness trumps resentment. Acceptance and forgiveness are healthy; they encourage healing and allow the space for joy to return.
April Aprepo Aphrodite thrills: Spring flowers say “Yes!” to life in this newest of years. The fool’s laugh rules the first day opening our mind to imagination’s promise. Renewal. Blossoms dancing in the breeze paint our path pink as we step softly. First sun on my skin this year from the darkness of winter. My body had forgotten how kind the kiss of warmth blesses my heart and soul. This same Sun arouses the bulbs, birds and earth to bloom. The exuberance of sap warming and emerging into new growth. Delightful, so full and pregnant with life anew. Here is the tulip trumpeting nature’s urge. The bluebells tinkling across the green meadows. The irrepressible dandelions shining like little suns. One generation after another dances to April Aphrodite’s sway. Plum pink flowers come first, then explode cherry blossoms (they are the trees with circular bark like birch trees). Pink snow. Lovers remember who they are and reach out to touch. Nature opens April’s gate and sets the Earth a’buzzing.
Let’s look at what has been planted in Common Ground’s garden. The soil has grown healthy over 25 years of composting and nourishing the Earth.
After launching Common Ground in 1982, for the first 11 years we published on a quarterly basis and April-related editorial was featured in our spring editions. In April 1983, co-promoted by Common Ground, the second annual Walk for Peace swelled to a river of 65,000 people from Kits beach flowing north across Burrard Street bridge downtown to Robson, bending around then heading south back on Hornby to Beach Avenue, swinging west and weaving under the Burrard Bridge where thousands more were still flowing overhead. Such a joyous cheer at that confluence as the two levels of peace walkers realized their vastness and unity.
In 1994, we switched from publishing seasonally to producing six editions a year. Our first March/April edition featured many provocative and powerful articles, including Michael Crichton decrying the extinction of American media with its Jurassic journalists and their polarized junk food journalism. A few of the people who wrote for us in that particular edition are no longer with us in the physical realm, including artist Toni Onley, who shared with us the insight that when he sat down with an empty of sheet of paper, everything was possible, and my brother David, who, in loving memory of Sant Kirpal Singh’s 100th birthday, provided the perspective of fellow vegetarians Henry David Thoreau and George Bernard Shaw.
Our next March/April edition in 1995 featured Wade Davis, Deepak Chopra, Ben Parfitt, stories about Burma where Aung San Sun Kyi was under house arrest, Pulpwood Friction, Echinacea and Canada Earth Save. The following year in 1996, we went monthly and published our first dedicated April edition. Our cover highlighted the art of Vancouver artist Lori-Ann Latremouille, who said that her first April cover art for Common Ground was like diving into the subconscious, unfiltered by the chains of reason. In that same issue, spiritual ecologist Father Thomas Berry wrote about the voice of the universe in Dream of the Earth, and Earth Day founder Denis Hayes reminded everyone that the Earth needs us now. Joe Foy from WCWC wrote about saving the wilderness and his friend Randy Stoltmann who had recently been killed in a skiing accident. Yuana and Sook Hexamer, Sandra Sammartino and Ann Wigmore extolled the benefits of wheatgrass and other juices, while Sunrise Tofu offered alternatives to Mad Cow. ORCALAB founder Paul Spong spoke on behalf of Corky, a well-loved orca, stating that she should be relocated from San Diego Sea World to rejoin her family in the ocean.
Artist and sculptor Bill Reid graced our April 1998 cover with his favourite photograph showing him tucked under the wing of his carving Raven and the First Men at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. In April 2000, we ran an interview with Jane Jacobs, author of The Nature of Economies. For our Earth Day edition in 2000, Guy Dauncey was guest editor and Michael Abraham’s playful oil on canvas Uphill/Downhill expressed the joys of biking on our cover.

More April highlights:
2001: Earth vs. the FTAA; the unbearable heaviness of being global.
2003: Douglas Kennedy’s Artists in Our Midst and Kareen Zebroff’s walking meditation. Robert Muller and Helen Caldicott on world peace compiled by Merlin Saint Germain.
2004: “Healthy Person, Healthy Planet” theme with Severn Cullis-Suzuki.
2005: Celebration of Bill Hicks’ legacy of political philosophy and conscious comedy. Dr. Michael Odent, the pioneer of home-like birthing centres, discussed the way humanity develops the capacity to love, especially in the moments surrounding birth. The European patent office blocked the bio-piracy of neem tree benefits and John Restakis wrote about how co-ops empower employees and nurture community.
2006: We added “Healthy Democracy” as a third component of our “Healthy People, Health Planet” theme. This April issue featured Luc Montagnier, Eve Ensler, Abram Hoffer, Chris Kilham, Alan Cassels and Rumi.
The first 25 years of Common Ground were built one edition at a time. For 25 Earth Days, Common Ground’s April edition has supported this special prayer for the world. While in this retrospective, space did not permit us to mention every contributor, or even every April edition, they were all wonderfully unique. To obtain a back issue, please call us at 604-733-2215.

Seeing through the illusion
Many illusions are reinforced by naive denial. Denial falsely promises that if we ignore certain behaviour or cultural beliefs, we will be safe, happy and pain-free. One such denial is ignoring the deceit of politicians, globally, such as George Bush, who lied about WMDs in Iraq as an excuse for war, or locally, David Emerson from Vancouver-Kingsway who tricked voters into electing him as a Liberal and then quickly switched over to the Conservative party before parliament sat.
Sometimes the only thing that keeps politicians going is the level of apathy they can engender in disenchanted voters. Impeachment would certainly be healthier for democracy.
Denial happens on both sides: The fooler who believes that it’s okay to do what he does and the fooled who allows it. When one side stops denying, a crisis in the myth happens. Usually the perpetrator cranks up the sham attempting to overpower realization and bully the fooled into compliance.
At its worst, the deceiver condemns the one who sees through their lies, calling him uncool, a backslider, crazy, a witch, hypocrite, heretic, revisionist, unpatriotic, criminal or terrorist. In short, a danger to society who must be punished to protect true believers or myth-abiding citizens.
Empires and religions both have their torturous ways of dealing with the uncompromising non-conformist, but no matter how powerful an emperor is, thank God he doesn’t run the universe.
At 5:30 AM, I sit by the beach writing. The Sun’s rays burst forth in the partly-cloudy, pre-morning sunrise and I find myself deep in thought.
The children’s sandcastles from yesterday have slumped down. Like every empire’s castles and pyramids — past, present and future – all are washed away by the sands of time: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Inca, Aztec, Byzantine, French, British, Austro-Hungarian, Soviet and now American, all had their day in the Sun. The beginning of William Blake’s poem Auguries of Innocence floats into my memory:
“To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.”

April 1: This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty four.
– Mark Twain

April Fool’s Day
The most widespread theory about the origin of April Fool’s Day (also known as All Fools Day) involves the Gregorian calendar reform of the late 16th century. While many theories abound about the origin of this custom, it appears to be a relic of the once-universal festivities that were held at the vernal equinox that began on March 25 – the original New Year’s Day – and ended on April 2.
It has been suggested that Europe derived its April-fooling from the French. In 1564, France was one of the first nations to make January 1 the official New Year’s Day. The gift-giving and celebrations of the New Year, which had previously been a feature of April 1, became associated with the first day of January. Those who were not happy about the change, or who had not heard about it, were fair game for those wits that sent mock presents and extended false felicitations on April 1.
Although the first of April appears to have been observed in ancient Great Britain as a general festival, it was apparently not until the beginning of the 18th century that the making of April fools was a common custom. In Scotland, the custom was known as “hunting the gowk,” i.e. the cuckoo, and April fools were “April-gowks.” As in many other countries, the cuckoo was a term of contempt in Scotland. In France, the person fooled is known as poisson d’avril. The French traditionally celebrated this holiday by placing a dead fish on their friends’ backs. Today, the fish is substituted by a paper cut out.
Many media organizations have either unwittingly or deliberately propagated hoaxes on April Fool’s Day. Even normally serious news media consider April Fool’s Day hoaxes fair game and spotting them has become an annual pastime. One famous hoax occurred in 1957 during an episode of BBC’s TV show Panorama, in which the Swiss were shown harvesting spaghetti from trees. They had claimed that the despised pest the spaghetti weevil had been eradicated. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees.