Category: goodnews editorial

Editorial: Spirituality

For me, spirituality means first and foremost adhering to certain ethical standards: being truthful, walking in peace, not breaking my word, and being there for others. Naturally, I don’t always succeed in this. To be spiritual means to be concerned with questions of the spirit, of the mind. At first, this can be all kinds of things, but it starts with being interested in matters that go beyond one’s own person and immediate situation in life. In this sense, small children are deeply spiritual; they treat all and everything they encounter as infused with being, leading us to concern for the environment is an important part of spirituality. To try to understand the world in its materiality as an extension of the self and to handle it with care. Reflecting on oneself and the world as well as engaging with the divine, cosmic or universal are also steps along the way. The ancient Greeks held the striving for what’s beautiful and good in the highest regard. These can be things, values or attitudes such as the search for truth, for liberation and for the right measure in all things. There are many people who draw their spirituality from their religious faith. Others are guided by the perennial philosophy, the wisdom of the world. Most people do not want to kill, but to live in peace, to honor their parents and families, to pursue a meaningful occupation and to grow old in dignity, if at all possible. In my experience, people are the same everywhere, only their customs vary. What spirituality cannot be for me, however, is to tell others by commandments or dogmas what or how they must believe, or which feelings are allowed, and which are taboo. It is not in practices like meditation, mindfulness or contemplation that the spiritual proves itself, but in everyday life. Good deeds are not enough; it is the attitude that counts. And even if one exchanges ideas with like-minded people, in their spirituality, everyone is on their own.

With spring greetings, yours
Susanne G. Seiler

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Light of the moon
Moves west, flowers’ shadows
Creep eastward.

Yosa Buson

This month, we, the Swiss people, are voting as to whether burqas should be prohibited here. We already have to live with an unnecessary ban on new mosques, our first “fake law.” As a peaceful and freedom-loving citizen, I don’t like to tell other people what to do, as long as they don’t exert coercion. I imagine women being “forced under the veil”, as they used to be disposed of in convents in our culture. They are few, and our laws must suffice to protect them, and all of us, from such assaults. If a woman cannot leave the house because she is only allowed to go outside fully veiled, she will hardly find an opportunity to stand up for herself. I have only seen one fully veiled woman here so far, except in photos of tourists, and I found this hidden person a tad disconcerting. But did she hurt me in any way? Rather, she gave me the impression that she liked to hide under her burqa, that much was visible in her movements. As everyone knows, a covering or disguise offers a certain amount of freedom. What nobody minds at our Carnavals: you don’t know who is hiding underneath the costume. We want to be able to assess whether someone is about to aggress us, that is our right. But is the cowardly Islamophobia hiding behind this fake law also our right? Disguises abound, there are no limits to the imagination. Terrorists walk around like normal people. Will three dozen burka-wearing women in Switzerland be able to shake my sense of security? Hate should not be stirred up – where will it end!

Cordially yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

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The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

There is an angst, a kind of apprehension in the air. Nobody knows what happens next with a virus that we may or may not be regaining some control over these days. We are helplessly hoping for a better world again and again, maybe in the spring? Maybe in the summer? Or have we become indefinitely toxic for each other? And while some progress is made, regress is just as real. We advance like crabs, two steps forward, one step back. What to do? The only solution I can think of is to green our lives at high gear. Get a new plant as often as you can and make your place the greenest possible. Unless it is already that, then kudos! The lucky ones among us have gardens or a piece of yard they can green, or at least a balcony or – enlarged – windowsill, and they will soon start to prepare what goes in or on the ground later, or rather sooner these years. The days will be getting noticeably longer soon. Let’s enjoy the winter, which has barely started, and let’s enjoy it outside where we can keep at a safe distance from each other – for now! Soon we’ll know more.

I wish you a happy & prosperous 2021!
Susanne G. Seiler

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Dance 9 Dancing With Nature

Let me dance with a free mind,
In tune with nature,
In alignment with nature,
Fearless and firm,
Faithful and friendly,
Holding the ‘Mudras’
So meaningful,
So powerful,
My head held high,
In dignity and poise,
In absolute joy,
With a deep sense of gratitude.

Geeta Radhakrishna Menon

We are grieving the passing of the eminent mycologist and author Jochen Gartz, PhD. Dying is a natural process, it is often said, and yet losses are usually reported clinically and impersonally as something that happens to others. There seems to be a persistent fear that the confrontation with death might somehow attract it, a strange form of magical thinking, since we will all surely die when our time has come, which can be anytime. Moreover, the process of dying awakens irrational feelings that are deemed “private” and better kept under lock and key. It is also said that there is nothing wrong with dying as such. And what speaks for it? Are the people who comment from a distance on the dying of others ready to go themselves? Are they so much looking forward to “another life” and a “reunion in the hereafter” as a reward for their worldly toil and sorrows that their own death would not matter to them? Let us not forget the suffering that has come over countless families and their loved ones in the past weeks and months. Let us think of them when we celebrate the arrival of a new and better year with the advent of the winter solstice.

With my sincere wishes for the holiday season,
Susanne G. Seiler

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Poem

The Resident by Michael Hofmann

The times are far from easy, and when I look at the worldwide case numbers of the microscopic infestation in our midst, I feel like hiding under my bed. To hell with that idea though! Would I rather grit and bear it? Even less. Although I feel a visceral compassion for the those suffering around the world, where, as usual, the poorest are hit the hardest, I often turn up the music for a bit of dancing, scour virtuality for the funniest sketches and movies and laugh along, tell the friends in my bubble about the droll adventures in my past, just like they amuse me with their stories; I raise my glass to life, eat a little something sometimes to see if it will make me taller or smaller, giggle, sing and hum to myself and take pleasure in the happiness I feel for having such a good life at home. And I am in the process of labelling the first books, DVDs and other items of our media library, which can be perused at Hochstrasse 70 in Basel. Soon also virtually on a PC near you. Let’s keep it up, take our vitamins, and hopefully we will all stay healthy this way!

Emphatically yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1Ybm6ToJBI I wish…

Editorial: A life in dignity

Globalization is here to stay. Fortunately, this word does not only remind me of the inherent lack of sustainability of moved goods – and people – sloshing around the world, but also of knowledge transfer and worldwide friendships. Paradoxically, there are still many for whom migrants are nothing but «strangers in a strange land.» Recently the Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, in Greece, went up in flames. It is shameful for us Europeans that no durable solution has yet been found for twelve-thousand refugees fighting for their survival. So many houses, former farms and even whole villages on the fringes of Europe have been abandoned, are empty or falling apart! Why not buy them up and/or rent them out to experienced immigrants so that they can live in them, cultivate the land that comes with them, and, along with their other skills, create a new life for themselves and their families? That’s how some small southern Italian towns and villages are already saving themselves from extinction. We are furthering the causes of extremists if we fail to respond positively and compassionately to present and future migrations. Moreover, we urgently need to make arrangements to help us to locally feed and provide for more people, including ourselves. The world is rapidly changing.

Keeping the faith,
Susanne G. Seiler

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The Run

I go through
trillions of molecules
that move aside
to make way for me
while on both sides
trillions more
stay where they are.
The windshield wiper blade
starts to squeak.
The rain has stopped.
I stop.
On the corner
a boy
in a yellow raincoat
holding his mother’s hand.

Ron Padgett

Today, September 1st, the Gaia Media Foundation, in cooperation with ethnobotanika gmbh of David Münster, opens a lounge with ethnobotanical assortment in Basel. The lounge is located at Hochstrasse 70 in the Gundeldingen neighborhood and can be reached in a few minutes on foot from the train station.
Until further notice, the following opening hours apply:
Tuesday     12:00 – 18:00 h
Thursday    14:00 – 20:00 h
Saturday    12:00 – 18:00 h
David has been associated with the foundation for many years and is responsible for our website. He is also the contact person for the foundation’s psychedelic counseling service www.gaiamedia.org/deutsch/beratung/ and a proven expert in the field of ethnobotany. In the new shop he offers a wide range of ethnobotanical specialties and rarities. Please also visit his online store at www.ethnobotanika.ch. There you will find all further information.
We are happy that our foundation has a meeting place again after more than ten years and look forward to your visit!
Lucius Werthmüller
President Gaia Media Foundation
P.S. In view of the current Corona rules, we will not hold an opening party but make up for it when we can meet again without restrictions.

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Lethe

This is not that river
portico filled with wet shadow
and sand.
This is deciduous memory
and it grates against
whatever remains
whatever reasons
designs we have concealed.
Each day concedes there is nothing
not one thing to take away from here.
Yet we make work of shredding everything
and our hands clutching at round river rock
tell us that some things stay
rooted as gingko on the bank
while others erode into the current.
Come tomorrow you will not know
why you cannot forget
dogmata of fairy tale
or from adult memory
erase the giver of this drink
whose fluorescent face
turned your tactile midnight form
to foam
in that loud morning light.

TJ Dema (Botswana)

Dieter A. Hagenbach, 24 July 1943 – 17 August 2016

Like every year in August, we remember our dear Dieter who left us already four years ago. For those of you who did not know him: He studied architecture, found house building unsatisfactory, was a multimedial artist and, in 1975, opened a small shop at the Nadelberg/corner of Spalenberg in Basel. Fashion and Zeitgeist, but soon only books, including «drug literature». Dieter founded Sphinx Verlag, which mutated into a limited company in the early nineteen eighties. In the selection of his books he had a certain taste, publishing Albert Hofmann, Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, Jean Houston and Robert Masters, Marilyn Ferguson, Alan Watts, Eliphas Levy, John and Antonietta Lilly, Terence McKenna, Dion Fortune, Idries Shah, Alexandra David-Neël, G. I. Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspenksy… too many to list here. Dieter liked media, music, movies, art and design, puns and sly comments; he loved to laugh and generally avoided people who took themselves or life too seriously, seeking support from what he called the «tailwind of evolution.» When Sphinx Verlag had to be sold, due to the financial ruin of its main shareholder, Dieter reinvented himself as a literary agent. On his and LSD’s 50th birthday, in 1993, he founded the Gaia Media Foundation and published the first goodnews (see also www.gaiamedia.org) in printed form. In 1996, on Dieter’s initiative, the foundation opened the Gaia Lounge, where media and ethnobotanical products were sold. In 2006, the foundation switched to an electronic newsletter. In 2011, together with Lucius Werthmüller, the current president of the Gaia Media Foundation, he published the book Albert Hofmann and his LSD. In 2011, together with Lucius Werthmüller, the current president of the Gaia Media Foundation, he authored the book Mystic Chemist, The Life of Albert Hofmann and His Discovery of LSD. We owe everything to him.

Enjoy the summer – with tailwind of course!
Susanne G. Seiler

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Summer Holiday

When the sun shouts and people abound
One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze
And the iron age; iron the unstable metal;
Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the towered-up cities
Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster.
Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains will cure them,
Then nothing will remain of the iron age
And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem
Stuck in the world’s thought, splinters of glass
In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain…

Robinson Jeffers

America has captured the European imagination ever since it existed. Whether one hates it or loves it, the sound of its name, its cities, the glamour and pace, but also the wars and social inequalities associated with the United States of America evoke strong images in us. As white Europeans we cannot know how much Black Lives Matter in the USA. What we do know is that it is not enough here, as we stand humbled by our cruel collective colonial past. We also know that we need to break free from our own prejudices and create better conditions for African-Europeans and People of Color. Does that mean that we should feel guilty? Guilt leads to fear, and a life dominated by fear keeps us locked in the past instead of leading to better solutions for the future. Instead of being afraid of each other, we want to take care of each other. Apologies are due. The United States urgently need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There are many shadows waiting to be brought to light and integrated into lived history. We must learn to better accept the unknown and make it a part of our lives. In Europe too.

Faithfully,
Susanne G. Seiler

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In that other fantasy where we live forever

we were never caught

we partied the southwest, smoked it from L.A. to El Dorado
worked odd jobs between delusions of escape
drunk on the admonitions of parents, parsons & professors
driving faster than the road or law allowed.
our high-pitched laughter was young, heartless & disrespected
authority. we could be heard for miles in the night

the Grand Canyon of a new manhood.
womanhood discovered
like the first sighting of Mount Wilson

we rebelled against the southwestern wind

we got so naturally ripped, we sprouted wings,
crashed parties on the moon, and howled at the earth

we lived off love. It was all we had to eat

when you split you took all the wisdom
and left me the worry

Wanda Coleman

In school, I was bad in physics and chemistry as soon as it came to calculations with formulas, but I admire the natural sciences and have faith in those who dedicate their lives to them. I believe in mankind, especially when it pursues the search for knowledge, the perennial great adventure for all people of all times. Of course, this knowledge is also contradictory and, more often than not, contradictorily communicated and politically instrumentalized. God knows science is not flawless, and yet it has given us much of what enriches our lives today. In orderly Switzerland, where the majority trusts the government (but remain critical), where our wishes are heard (and selectively fulfilled), and where we define consensual decision-making as our (slow) common good, sacrifices are readily made. Even the majority of believers in a global conspiracy, with the usual suspects as the winners, have been staying at home and hugging their tablets or cells, while basking in their supposed superiority. What’s new?

With early summer greetings,
Susanne G. Seiler

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(Many Storms)

however many storms
are within you
there’s always room for more.

the ocean
did not gain its vastness
by turning the rain away

pavana