From the Editors



What’s the opposite of Daylight Savings Time? I used to call it daylight wasting time—as a confirmed nighthawk, I felt that it was entirely unreasonable that the clock should be set so all the useful daylight was during normal business hours, when many of us are forced to be inside. Now, having to get up at 6:15am to get children off to school, I see more sense in setting the clocks back in fall. But I still rail against the inexorable waning of the light up to the solstice. Of course there are many silver linings to winter, but at the beginning, it’s hard to remember what they are.

Then the solstice comes, and reminds us that every ending has a new beginning, and that the darkness reveals gifts of its own—the turning point, as the I Ching calls it. Forgiveness, with all the rich meaning we’ve discovered in editing the articles in this issue, seems esoterically connected to the solstice—to new beginnings, to letting go of the past and moving on. In the Christian tradition, it was one of the first forms of therapy, “technologies of the self”, as Michel Foucault described it.

But sometimes forgiveness is very far from being personal, for example when first-world nations forgive third-world debt. In all its forms there’s something that remains constant, the message that the future doesn’t have to be just like the past. It can be better, not because we leave the past behind, but because we grow from it, seeds of wisdom germinating in the dark, rich soil of experience.

That is something well worth celebrating at the darkest time of the year.

We were saddened to hear of the death of Carol Goodrich, publisher and editor of Ever Changing in Burlington. Vermont’s alternative and holistic community will miss her unifying voice. It is a tribute to her and a handful of other pioneers that we are a community, and we have faith that legacy will live on, whatever form it may take.

Before Carol fell ill, we had started a discussion with her about how our publications, sharing the same goals, might be able to work together. Unfortunately, she passed on before we got to that point. We are still interested in that vision, though—in knitting together the communities from the north and south ends of Vermont, and our neighbors across the border, in sharing our skills and resources. Whether that means helping with a reborn Ever Changing, sharing content and advertising, or merging Ever Changing’s mission into PVQ’s, we can’t say. But we invite your thoughts. The community is you—readers, authors, healers, makers, consumers, distributors, dreamers, teachers—this paper’s mission is to serve you, and we need your involvement to do it well.

Our heartfelt thanks to Carol. She will be greatly missed.



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