EDITOR'S COMMENTS

     This summer our family is going to the Rainbow Gathering. It's going to be in Colorado this year, near Steamboat Springs, from July 1st to July 7th. Seeing as how this is now the 12th hour, as the Hopi Elders have said, we couldn't think of a better group of folks to be with to start off our future.

      Obviously Western civilization, as we have known it, has been dying for a long time, is actually dead already. Just as obviously, there is a new way of being just waiting for us to be brave enough to let go of that old and dead trip and move on into the future.

      And the future is now.


     In this issue of The Caldron, in "Wisdom's Corner," some of us who have long been involved with psychedelics have been given space.

     "BeHereNow" contains three articles. Please feel free to send in more. One is about Al Gore, democracy, and his movie An Inconvenient Truth. Another is about global warming, sea waters rising 20 feet, and submerged cities. A third is a refreshing piece by Garrison Keillor about those poor old dumb Republicans.

     In "Seeds from Plot 509," Aspen Marks envisions a future in which we all grow our own food and use the web and our bike carts and our trucks that use biodiesel to make trades between individuals and communities. She envisions a future without the corporate middlemen.

     Partha Pratim Majumder has rejoined us with a very moving and mysterious love story, certainly one of his best. We always feel blessed to receive one of his submissions. You will too when you read it. It's called "Jolly John's Last Laugh."

     Mark Honeycutt sat in my living room and, in the manner of those three minute poetry slams, gave forth with his beautiful poem, "Zulu Hour." He blew me away, having all that in his head. You will also enjoy his rainbow gathering story, "Josephine." Every time I read it, even to edit it, I get choked up.

     Doug Dupler has submitted an essay, called "Honoring Our Ancestors." It won a student essay first prize at the Yoga Workshop. As always, Doug thinks outside the box, suggesting that we need to honor our ancestors for what they have done to lead us into this present time. He also suggests that we need to acknowledge that in turn we will be ancestors for the generations to come.

     In my essay "Living the Future, I share a vision I had once on peyote long ago and the path that it has led me upon ever since. I share how I have long followed Spirit to the future that is now upon each and every one of us. I tell what it has meant to me to live in this future. I call upon each of you to do the same.

     Tanya T. has given us three stark and moving images from Harlem. She describes herself thus. "I am a teacher and artist who often has an identity conflict between being a Cherokee Indian and an Italian woman. I recently moved from Harlem where most of my photographic art is about. With my images, I like to show what we do with our personal image, racial, gender, sexual, and economic.

     Read all the above and live your own version of the future that is now.

     Eugene Marks, Editor