The Holiday Issue:
Healthy, Wealthy and Wise
Geez, are we really looking at a new year? It feels as though we were just wrapping up our Holiday issue in anticipation of 2012, but that was two years ago! It is said that youngsters experience the passage of time more gradually than adults, but I wonder if we’re collectively trapped in a general acceleration. In other words, does a 10-year-old today experience time more quickly than a 10-year-old experienced it in a previous era?
I should have put that question to Ken Wilber, who is the current Common Ground interviewee. He’s brilliant. Once I had heard that Bill Clinton considered Ken the brightest man he’d ever encountered, but Ken could not corroborate. In speaking with Ken, I got the feeling I could ask him anything, and he’d have a thorough answer from both a relative (scientific) perspective and an absolute (trans-rational intuitive) point of view. How staggeringly rare. I encourage you to read our interview and investigate his integral theory.
In this issue, we were inspired to consider the comparisons between Saint Francis of Assisi and Pope Francis I. There’s a lot of excitement about the new pope, and Timothy Conway has examined why this excitement appears to be justified. He’s a pope of the people and a progressive. I hope he comes to visit San Francisco, his namesake city.
Whereas at Common Ground, we’ve tended to navigate Eastern philosophical traditions, we decided to pay homage to Christian mysticism in this issue, principally via a wonderful pictorial and some selected quotes from great seekers. Concurrently, our yoga friend Christa Reynolds wanted to contribute an essay about leading a yoga expedition to Spain to walk the famed Camino. This all happened spontaneously, but we think you’ll appreciate our nod to Christian mysticism and appreciate its fit for the holiday season.
We have a contribution from spiritual teacher Gangaji titled “The Limitless Treasure of Who You Are.” The Reverend Karyl Huntley gives us “Celebrate the Winter Solstice in the Ancient Way,” while Tarra Christoff invites us to “Awaken Our Soul Vows and Sacred Intentions for 2014.”
From a more physical health perspective, Kris Carr of Crazy, Sexy Kitchen fame shares “Burn, Baby, Burn: Inflammation Nation,” and Heather McFarlin writes about her “Journey into Chi Nei Tsang: The Ancient Taoist Art of Abdominal Massage.” Shankari Kate Sadowsky explains the Ayurvedic technique of oil pulling, while Elizabeth Daniels writes about the health benefits of “Turmeric: The Curry Cure.”
We hope you enjoyed last month’s Humor issue. It generated a positive reception. By including comics, we suddenly began to attract a much younger readership, which is heartening.
We look forward to seeing you at the Yoga Journal Conference in January. In the meantime, we’ll circle back in February for our Love issue. As ever, if you want to show your appreciation for Common Ground, do so by patronizing our advertisers.
Feliz Ano Nuevo,
ROB SIDON, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF