Category: goodnews editorial

This year, the GaiaMedia Foundation celebrates its 25th birthday. In 1993, Dieter Hagenbach turned fifty and wanted to dedicate this phase of his life to a new and meaningful project. He invited his friends and acquaintances asking them to support the newly established Gaia Media Foundation instead of giving him presents.

Among the guests were Anita and Albert Hofmann, HR Giger, Claudia Müller-Ebeling and Christian Rätsch. The foundation council was made up of Dieter as president as well as Pierre Joset (again member of the council since September of 2017) and myself. In 1998, we were joined by Albert Hofmann. He remained an active member of the board until his death.

Dieter was born in1943, the year in which Albert Hofmann discovered the psychoactive effects of LSD. Dieter and I had already planned a large conference around the topic for the 25th birthday of this momentous discovery but Albert Hofmann was not willing to participate at that time. A conference about LSD in Basel without Albert Hofmann was out of the question. But he came around fifteen years later, and we launched a first highly successful conference the year he turned 100 and the World Psychedelic Forum in 2008.

On 19 April 2018, we will celebrate the 75th birthday of the discovery of LSD. The event (information only in German) is fully booked. However, there will be a free live stream for all sponsors of the foundation. You will find further information about this in one of the next issues of the gaiamedia goodnews.

As a sponsor you support our endeavors to distribute our goodnews and other activities of the foundation. It would make us very happy if you join us too!

Warmly,
Lucius Werthmüller

P.S. Those who are already sponsors of the GaiaMedia Foundation will receive the annual report for 2017 and the bill for 2018 within the next few weeks.

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Smaller than the Radius of the Planet

There is a patch like ice in the sky this
evening & the wind tacks about, we are
both stopped/fingered by it. I lay out my
unrest like white lines on the slope, so that
something out of broken sleep will land
there. Look up, a vale of sorrow opened by
eyes anywhere above us, the child spread out
in his memory of darkness. And so, then, the
magnetic influence of Venus sweeps its
shiver into the heart/brain or hypothalamus,
we are still here, I look steadily at nothing.
“The gradient of the decrease may be de-
termined by the spread in intrinsic lumin-
osities” —the ethereal language of love in
brilliant suspense between us and the
hesitant arc. Yet I need it too and keep
one hand in my pocket & one in yours,
waiting for the first snow of the year.

J.H. Prynne

The new year has barely begun, and I wonder what it will bring us, wishing you the very best. A favourite line in my favourite wisdom book (The I Ching) advises us not to combat evil directly but to make energetic progress in the good. We don’t need the make resolutions or detailed promises, all we have to do is to look and to move in the right direction – where our hopes and visions are waiting for us.

To the future!
Susanne G. Seiler

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The Road

Here is the road: the light
comes and goes then returns again.
Be gentle with your fellow travellers
as they move through the world of stone and stars
whirling with you yet every one alone.
The road waits.
Do not ask questions but when it invites you
to dance at daybreak, say yes.
Each step is the journey; a single note the song.

Arlene Gay Levine

For the last few months we have attempted to follow Dieter Hagenbach’s legacy, wishing to live up to his idea of providing a many-facetted audience with varied positive news items as well as reaching out to the millennial generation. This is why we would like to hear from you how these endeavors sit with you and how you think we should progress from here? What topics are of interest to you? What’s new with you? It would make me very happy to hear from you! My address: susanne@gaiamedia.org.
Sending you peace and light for the dark winter days ahead!

Susanne G. Seiler

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The Beauty Way

I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty below me. I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful.
In beauty all day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.
With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty,
lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty,
living again, may I walk.
My words will be beautiful.

Navajo Prayer

Dear friends of the Gaia Media Foundation

In front of you is our November newsletter in a new, contemporary design. We are looking forward to your feedback.
I welcome this opportunity to inform you about the innovations at the Gaia Media Foundation. After Dieter Hagenbach’s unexpected death, in August 2016, the foundation board was no longer capable of acting, since the statutes require a minimum of three board members. Dieter was not only the founder and president but also the driving force behind the foundation.

In September 2017, a new foundation board was established. Michael Gasser, the other remaining board member (other than myself), has new plans. We will miss him and thank him for his long-standing service. New additions to the foundation board are jurist Pierre Joset, PhD, founding member along with Dieter and me 24 years ago, who lives part-time in Switzerland again, as well as Swiss artist Kerim Seiler, Dieter Hagenbach’s stepson. I was appointed as President.

We are supported by translator and author Susanne G. Seiler, responsible for the content of our newsletter since last August. She is Kerim’s mother and the former editor of the magazine Sphinx previously published by Dieter Hagenbach. Further, I would like to thank David York Münster for the new design of the newsletter, for the upcoming conversion of the website www.gaiamedia.org and for his technical knowhow. Thank you also Therese Hartmann for faithfully taking care of the mailing of the gaiamedia goodnews and for keeping the foundation organised.

On 19 April 2018, the Gaia Media Foundation, together with Nachtschatten Verlag and the Swiss Medical Association for Psycholytic Therapy (SAEPT) are presenting a one-day symposium in the Hotel Hofmatt in Münchenstein near Basel. The occasion is the 75th anniversary of the discovery of LSD by Albert Hofmann, who was a board member of the Gaia Media Foundation until his death and who supported its aims. The title of the symposium is 75 Years LSD: Where is the Journey Going? Further information can be found in the December goodnews. Mark the date in your calendars!

We wish you inspiration while reading our newsletter and beautiful fall days.

Warm regards,

Lucius Werthmüller
President of the Gaia Media Foundation

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The Tiger and the Deer

Brilliant, crouching, slouching, what crept through the green heart of the forest,
Gleaming eyes and mighty chest and soft soundless paws of grandeur and murder?
The wind slipped through the leaves as if afraid lest its voice and the noise of its steps perturb the pitiless Splendor,
Hardly daring to breathe.But the great beast crouched and crept, and crept and crouched a last time, noiseless, fatal,
Till suddenly death leaped on the beautiful wild deer as it drank
Unsuspecting at the great pool in the forest’s coolness and shadow,
And it fell and, torn, died remembering its mate left sole in the deep woodland,
— Destroyed, the mild harmless beauty by the strong cruel beauty in Nature.
But a day may yet come when the tiger crouches and leaps no more in the dangerous heart of the forest,
As the mammoth shakes no more the plains of Asia;
Still then shall the beautiful wild deer drink from the coolness of great pools in the leaves’ shadow.
The mighty perish in their might;
The slain survive the slayer.

Sri Aurobindo