A local skeptic goes on a cosmic quest for a reason to believe in astrology

Look, before we get into this, let me put one thing on the table: I’m the last person on Earth who has the right to judge anyone for being “out there.” I mean, I’m named after a freaking constellation—all by itself, that qualifies me as a full-fledged frosted flake in a lot of people’s minds. I couldn’t count the times I’ve seen that sardonic little twinkle in someone’s eyes when I’ve introduced myself: the one that says, “So very nice to meet you, Mr. Orion. I’m Hawkfart Thunderbunny, and this is my beloved, Moonclover Space Omelette. Listen, I’ve got a magic unicorn out back—wanna fly to Care-a-Lot Forest with us?”

"I do” isn’t the hard part.

Finding someone to usher you along on that white wedding day is where couples can sometimes get stumped. Say he’s a Buddhist and she’s a Christian. What then? Who marries them? For some lovebirds, it’s an easy decision. But for those in a quandary, here’s an easy answer: Meet Rev. Rochelle Knight.

Steeped in family and tradition, the Coonerty clan takes the little bookseller that could into its milestone year

She made quantum leaps with the indie hit ‘What the Bleep Do We Know?!’ Now, JZ Knight, the woman the channels Ramtha, preps for the re-release of the ‘Bleep’ in extended format and hopes to take people farther down the rabbit hole on her world tour

In the amount of time it takes the average person to order a soy latte and walk out of the crowded coffeehouse sipping it—10 minutes and 22 seconds—JZ Knight can reveal why the mind is extraordinary. Well, more or less. Follow along …

First off, know this: “The extraordinary is in you.” From there, consider that God, however you want to say it, is “that which you are.” Given that, then what are the mechanics of the divine mind and what can the divine mind do? Basically, it’s like this: You have to learn the components of “creating a fantastic reality.” Here it might be best to sidestep the full diagnostic summary of what consciousness is and that nobody seems to know what it really is, because when all is said and done—after all that scientific rigor—you will ultimately discover that “everything is alive.”

He bashes the Bush Administration and holds his own over the hot issue of global warming.
Inside the fiery mind of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Why his visit to Santa Cruz is destined to turn heads.

The biggest concern is George Bush, and if you ask any of the leaders in the environmental community five years ago what was the biggest concern, they’d give you a range of issues from global warming, habitat destruction and overpopulation. Today, they’ll all tell you the same thing—that it’s this White House.

A New Year's Romance To Remember

I am 600 feet in the air stuffed inside a petite blue and white Cessna cruising over the Pacific, and I am about to get married. Married. Me? I can hardly believe it. Neither can my friends. But it is going to happen. By the time I land, I will be a married man.

As the plane, which seats four, rattles further over the water, leaving the Watsonville Airport behind us, I gaze down at the cerulean sea. I take my lover’s hand and give it an affectionate squeeze. After all the stops and starts, after all the years together—the highs, the lows, the breakups, the makeups, the emotional forks in the roads, not to mention the thousands of therapy dollars doled out for sumptuous sanity checks—I would have never realized it would culminate here … in the air, with the breezes kissing the plane and the seagulls romancing the open sky below us.

My partner—perfect. We’ve registered. We’ve gone to the county clerk for a marriage license. We’re ready to get married—in the air, above the world, somewhere where we can see “the bigger picture.”

This is an unconventional wedding ceremony, yes. And I sense that everything after my honeymoon with my beloved, everything about this particular marriage, will also be “unconventional.” By its very design, it has to be. I’m marrying myself.

His holidays will never be same

Charlie Price shot himself a long, hard look in the rearview mirror of the convertible mustang he had just rented near Chicago O’Hare airport. “OK,” he tried to convince himself. “You can do this. You can do this.”

True. He could. But somewhere deep inside Charlie’s mixed up, coming-off-the-loss-of-a-pathetic-love-affair mind, he was painfully aware of one thing: He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to spend three long, gonna-retain-water days with his family during the holidays. In fact, if he was smart and actually used the almost-acquired psych degree back in college, he’d return the damn convertible to the asinine rental clerk who’d just mocked him because he insisted on renting a convertible in the middle of December in the first place. Then he’d hop back on the drafty shuttle bus and head right back to Santa Cruz; back home, where all his neuroses would be waiting—naked, unwrapped and ready for the taking—under some sort of imaginary mistletoe. But Charlie was far from home. He was just home.