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.

As the Pisces waters dissolved things away, allowing entrance into Aries, sign of new beginnings, I write this column in search of those new beginnings. After 12 years (a Jupiter, Ray 2, cycle) the building housing our Astrological & Esoteric Institute, will no longer be available after April 1. The Institute, itself not closing, will be expanding and we will be looking for “all things new” as Aries promises—new buildings, new land, something great and large to build a community and college on. And so from 9 a.m. (no earlier) to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 27, there will be an Esoteric Moving Sale at the Center, 523 Center and New Streets, and in the back parking lot. What’s available? Items that absorbed 12 years of esoteric and astrological thinking, training, studies, communication, learning, meditation, visualization, new and full moons festivals, invocations and prayer—desks, drawers, computer desk, table, chairs, large pillows, couch, small refrigerator, books, white board, shelf, vacuum, various kitchen and garden things as well as the trees and plants that protected and vitalized our Center for 48 seasons.

Plus Letters to Good Times
Passion for the Protest
Ad Raises Issues

When I was 11 or so, I invited a bunch of friends to my house. We gathered in the kitchen, where I set up my little stereo system—some speakers with long, long cords and a turntable. (Am I one of the few who misses those things?) Well, there we all sat to listen to my very first “radio show.” With a portable cassette tape recorder handy—I really am dating myself—I grabbed the microphone and away we went. I took in “caller requests” from the three friends at the table. David Cassidy’s “I Can Feel Your Heartbeat” was requested. No problem. Next up: Dickie Goodman’s “Mr. Jaws” (remember that one?), followed by “Rubberband Man” and a Barry Manilow commercial medley from his double-album extravaganza. In between, I chatted with my guests about things that really mattered—that Ovaltine was better than Tang. Ah ... good times.

I support the lifting of the dog ban on a conditional basis ... if there are dog disposal stations on each block with the plastic doggy-pooper-picker-up-er, that are clearly identified, and an ordinance that penalizes people who knowingly let their dogs poop and then walk away from it. In that case I would definitely vote to lift the ban.
Steve Rosencrantz
Santa Cruz | Geologist

One of the great, unsung hassles of the nomadic life turns out to be not the actual migrations and moving, but magazine subscriptions. I need reading material almost as much as I need water. Without a good story—whether fiction or non-fiction—I begin to feel desiccated and parched. It’s just how I roll.

So driving from the Deep South to California two months ago, narrowly missing a twister in Louisiana and deeply missing the West by the time the sad oil rigs of Midland, Texas, were in the rearview mirror, I began to wish that I’d made my magazine subscription change of address a lot sooner, particularly the New Yorker. Despite the magazine’s impeccably intelligent staff of writers and editors, their subscription department (operated by Condé Nast) gets confused with all my moving. A change of address takes weeks, occasionally months, leaving me frustrated and ornery.

Saturday is Spring Equinox and International Astrology Day. Monday is World Water Day (clean water for a healthy world) at the United Nations. See link. At equinox, the Sun shines directly over Earth’s equator, having passed from southern to northern latitudes, making its way to the Tropic of Cancer (Summer Solstice). This is the astronomical Resurrection.

The night and early morning skies are filled with starry lights. To the left of Orion’s belt (three stars in a row) is Sirius (Ray 2) where Love originates. To Orion’s right are the Pleiades, Ray 3, where Intelligence originates. Turning around we see the Big Dipper (Ray 1, where Will originates), it’s seven stars and Seven Rays influencing all life on Earth. Jupiter (Ray 2) is the morning star with Mercury (Ray 4), Venus (Ray 5), Mars (Ray 6) and Saturn (Ray 3) nightlights. It’s good to introduce our selves to the stars and planets. There’s always a response.

Plus Letters to Good Times...
He Made His Bed ...
EIR or LIE?

Some foods are too tempting to pass up. That seems to be the case this week with GT’s dining scribes. In our biggest Food & Wine issue to date, our resident foodies experimented with some old favorites and also embarked on new culinary adventures. Delicious. Plus: “11 Sexy Foods.” (Spring is coming, after all.) Send us a list of your favorite local hotspots at [email protected] Tell us what local foods you can’t live without. (That might be a long list.)

The future holds for me lots of good friends lots of really healthy food and being with my family.
Susan Seaburg
Scotts Valley | Self Employed