I grew up in a religious Shinto famiy and we would visit homes of sick people and hospitals and give them healing prayers, prayers for healing. And that's been done in my family since my great great grandparents. I'm Japanese American Nisei.
Joy Takahashi
Santa Cruz | play therapist
 

The late New York Times columnist William Safire once predicted the end of a civil public debate by citing a key fact understood by commercial businesses – and ignored by the politicians.

What businesses understand is that there’s no percentage in disparaging the product of a competitor. If a Corn Flakes manufacturer, for example, trashes another company’s similar breakfast cereal, the prospective customer remembers only one thing — that that breakfast cereal is bad.

Plus Letters to Good Times...
More Jobs, Please
Abortion and Health Care
Knowing the Gulch

Surfing is such a big part of Santa Cruz culture, but how many of us really know its origins here? This week’s cover story, penned by Geoffrey Dunn and Kim Stoner sheds light on Santa Cruz’s surfing history in such a unique way, that you can actually envision what life may have been like back in the late-1800s, when all things surf here seemed to have begun.

My idea of heaven is the life
that we create on earth.
Kevin Contreras
Watsonville | Conservationist

In the Christian liturgy this week, Thursday is celebrated as Holy Thursday, the day of the Last Supper, when Christ (Archangel from Sirius, where Love originates) gathered His students (disciples) in an “upper room” (higher mental plane) and instituted the priesthood and Holy Eucharist, the new dispensation (Pisces Law of sacrifice, the heart of which is Love). No longer was humanity to sacrifice (offering) the blood of humans or animals on the temple altars. Instead, the “sacrifice” was the in the form of bread (Christ’s body—form/matter, Ray 3) and wine (blood, the Spirit, Ray 1).

Good Friday is the day of Christ’s Crucifixion, the 4th Initiation, the Great Renunciation, the “dying” into spirit or into our “essential nature.” Holy Saturday, the candles are extinguished in the church; there is no light, commemorating the death of Christ in the tomb of matter. While in the tomb, Christ entered the underworld and released the earth spirits from their involutionary (deeper into matter) path. Humanity was released also from 18 million years of isolation.

Sunday is Easter, which always follows the Aries Full moon. This festival of Resurrection recognizes the new spiritual year in humanity. It’s the Festival of Love; of new life coming forth in all kingdoms each year.

Plus Letters to Good Times...
Walking the FRSC Plank
Change the Focus

As the last week of March rolls in, it won’t hurt to take stock of our own personal progress thus far. How is 2010 treating you? How are you treating it? I am bringing this up because most of our issue this week focuses on the external home and gardens in your life. And, since I am a fan of waxing philosophical and diving into deep emotional waters—I can hear my mother chucking at how “California” I might sound—I think it’s also fitting to ask: Well, what are we doing with our inner sanctuaries? Any screws loose? What’s blooming inside? Are you re-arranging the furniture in the living room of your mind? (Usually a good thing.) Lately, I’ve realized that in order to maintain some delicious balance in my life, I have to be in nature more often. To that end, I’ve been re-discovering the mecca in which we all live—the beaches, the forests and more. And now that the days are longer, I’m also apt to take more walks in the evening. It is Spring, after all, and there’s plenty to see and enjoy. Try it. See what shows up for you.

For contributing to there being no more war.
Josh Brooks
Santa Cruz | Job Hunter

What is environmentalism? Does the word encourage learning about the natural world, or is it more about not building on that vacant lot near my own home?

This issue is playing out again in that undeveloped area between Santa Cruz and Live Oak known as the Arana Gulch greenbelt. It’s a fascinating battle, one that pits environmentalists versus environmentalists—cycling advocates versus those opposed to any development there at all.

Center stage in the drama is the Santa Cruz Tarplant, a native species that’s part of the sunflower family. The inoffensive and endangered plant is the focus of a debate as to whether a bike path connecting Brommer Street to Broadway ought to be built.

I’d like to invite every “housed” person in our community to join me in a “thought experiment.” It’s pretty simple. When you climb into bed tonight, pull the covers over you and look up at the ceiling, pause for a moment and imagine that you are homeless.

Imagine you’re about to go to sleep under a tree or a bridge somewhere … you’re on a piece of damp cardboard with a couple of dirty blankets. You haven’t had a shower in several days (you had one after waiting for a few hours at the homeless center last week). As you try to go to sleep, think about what you’re wearing: the same clothes you wore all day today…and yesterday and the day before. Imagine how safe you are feeling with no walls around you and no door to lock. Imagine that every material thing you have is in a single bag, which you are using as a pillow. Now imagine that it’s starting to rain…and you hear footsteps approaching.