The future looks good according to a few different predictions. We seem to be called to not only let our dysfunctions go, but to replace them with love. One of my favourite people is Chuck Spezzano. I’ve quoted him before. His June newsletter (found at www.psychologyofvision.com), for instance, tells us we can come into accord and embrace love, and that love is the glue to fix our problems. When we’ve moved to the next level, “There will be a great deal more abundance. We will recognize ... dilemmas ... and transcend them. ... We will know that bonding and friendship to all are two of the ways to save the world. ... Now it is time to commit to that birth and place your future in the Hands of God.”

John Ptacek, in his article in this issue, “There is no U in love”, sums up Krishnamurti’s stance, that it “arises in the space created by your absence. Love is where you are not.” Hard to grasp in some way, isn’t it? It seems that everyone has that issue, as John also tells us, “In those moments of stillness during wedding ceremonies we contemplate the endlessness of human possibility, but only seconds later we are contemplating the endless flow of free beer at the reception. It’s as if such grand visions of love are too unattainable to sustain our attention.”

Hope is at hand, according to Stella Woods, in her astrology column in Ripple this issue – flip the magazine over and turn to page 12. You will be delighted with her predictions for the period we are just entering, and which does not conclude until the middle of next year. So it seems that, with the help of the planets, we may just transcend our ego-based fears and foibles and our lack of love. Woohoo!

I was discussing with my friend Mihael the article on page 6, summing up the Dalai Lama’s talk. I was lamenting that I could not understand where the balance was between holding a vision for what I wanted to bring into my life (here, especially see Juliet Martine’s article on page 5 and Jennifer Jianjun Wang’s article on page 20), and what the Terry Bishop suggested about the detachment of His Holiness from outcomes of his good works. It threw me into a tizz to have both these seemingly conflicting ideas in the one magazine.

Luckily Mihael is wise and told me that detachment is a spiritual or metaphysical thing while organising work, life and thinking to get certain outcomes is physical, of a different plane. He reminded me of the quote in the Bible where Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”. While Jesus was talking specifically about taxes at that point, it applies to all of life. Oh dear, and there we are back to that favourite quote of mine – one which I keep dragging up from time to time in this editorial – and have done so for 22 years now: “Trust in God AND tether your camel”.

It’s always bugged me – how far do I trust God and how tightly do I tether the camel? I wonder if my whole life is about finding that answer.

I often imagine before I came into this existence I was given the choice of lives. So I’m walking along with these wise beings and looking at my past records and eyeing off these various lives that are available in the future. One guy pipes up, for some reason in a proper, even a bit imperious, English voice, “Mmmm... you still haven’t mastered trust in God versus doing it your own way, have you!? Maybe you’d be well advised to take a life that gives you that dilemma to wrestle with, something that helps you really nut it out. Oh, I know, look at this one – you could be a magazine editor and publisher. You will be constantly wrestling with tying up your camel in the form of keeping to deadlines, keeping the books balanced, the distribution up to date, the articles edited, the advertisers happy and the readers satisfied, not to mention keeping your team productive and creative.”

I ask, “Well, how does that help me to trust in God?”.

His reply, “Oh, this is the very sweetest point – you will not only have faith in God yourself, but the magazine will be all about that. So you will be swamped in it. What’s more, it will be hard work – you’ll have to forego things like friends, parties, money at times, because you’ll want to do it your own way. You’ll be constantly trying to work out how much you should extend yourself to meet a deadline versus how much to ‘let go and let God’. Oh yes, this is the very one for you my dear.”

Chuck Spezzano says that it is important to recognise that all our problems – whatever the symptoms – reflect a fear of going forward and a fear of change. We should instead learn that the next step always brings a better life. Does this apply to problems meeting deadlines and having to stay up all night? Where’s the camel? Where’s God. Gees... I still haven’t learnt.

Mihael and I were driving. We were talking about trust in God and keeping the various concerns in the right places – as per giving Caesar his and God his – and Mihael came up with a great analogy. He reminded me that I was not afraid to drive, not afraid that there might be a disaster around the next corner, not afraid that I would not get to my destination. I simply had faith and did what I knew how to do – drive the car. In fact, I had the ability to talk and reason and even put my lipstick on while driving because I knew what I was doing (Caesar’s thing) and I trusted the outcome (God’s thing).

Aha! a little light. So I know how to run a magazine after all these years (yes, 22 now), and all I need to do is to have trust that we’ll meet the deadline and keep driving. Well, I don’t know whether I’ve got it yet, but at least I seem to have traded that old camel for a car ;-)

With love