I always like to start the year out feeling good about Santa Cruz, which is why I look forward to getting the final totals from Santa Cruz Gives. That number is in, and all I can say is wow. You guys outdid yourselves in generosity over the holiday season, as we raised $234,426 for local nonprofits. That’s an 18.7 percent increase over last year’s total of $197,459. It’s so exciting to see this program keep growing every year, and I can’t stress enough how big a difference the debut involvement of Community Foundation Santa Cruz County made. Next week we’ll have a more thorough wrap-up, with feedback from our partners at the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County, who always provide way more insight into what this all means than my low-level analysis, which is basically, “Yay Santa Cruz!”
Speaking of fresh starts, our cover story this week is about how Santa Cruz-based MDMA research may provide a whole new approach for mental-health therapy. (I know, I know, one of my resolutions for the new year is to work on my transitions.) The piece by Wallace Baine really brings home this idea of psychedelics-as-medical-science with a close-up look at one person whose life has been transformed by the work at Santa Cruz’s Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).
Although spread across four pages, your “Gimme Shelter” story (GT, Jan. 2) provided little new information about Santa Cruz’s homeless situation, except to say that the city is salivating over the $10 million in new funding that’s headed our way. Yes, tending to the homeless certainly has become a growth industry here in Santa Cruz.
I thought it was interesting that the photo chosen to accompany the article was that of a young, wholesome-looking couple instead of some grungy burnout that would be more typical of our transient population. Whitewashing the face of this problem won’t do anything to help ease it.
And what about this couple? He says that he came to Santa Cruz to get away from drugs in his hometown. Was he joking, or what? This area is awash in hard drugs and their easy access and low cost is a primary reason for the influx of drifters from near and far. It’s the last place anyone would come expecting to get away from that horror-show lifestyle. This area’s sky-high rents are also well known…just where does a person with few resources expect to be living once they get here?
How long must we continue allocating funds to support those who migrate here with substance abuse issues and little motivation to change their destructive habits? Having our city spend nearly $80,000 a month to shelter a relative handful of homeless transients was pure lunacy!
Instead of passing out much of that $10 million to the abundance of local non-profits involved with the homeless, imagine spending a similar sum on additional resources focused on suppressing our illegal drug trade. Addictive street drugs will never be totally eradicated, but a full-court press on the local supply will push prices up beyond the reach of many users. If drugs become harder to come by, or significantly more expensive, Santa Cruz might just lose some of its appeal as a transient hang out. A reduction in drug use, in addition to saving lives and reducing crime, will also slow the drain on city and county services and help ease already-strapped budgets.
Instead of throwing money at problem that’s already way out of control, why not focus on trying to keep people from wasting their lives behind drugs and becoming homeless in the first place?
James S.
Santa Cruz
Re: Council Shakeup
I’ve lived in this county since 1971 and I have to say that I’m elated that a new city council dedicated to celebrating diversity, eco-active and concerned about the welfare of the working class and poor people in this city has been elected.
The time to make change is now and, in terms of the environment alone, we must not delay. We face huge challenges with drug/alcohol and opiod addiction and with growing homelessness and yet, we are one of the richest cities, per capita, there is. We can be humanistic leaders for the future of Northern California and I fully support Mayor Martine Watkins, Justin, Drew, Cynthia, Donna and Christopher in their role as the new leaders of Santa Cruz.
Let’s make some powerful changes; keep Santa Cruz liveable and retain our wonderful idiosyncratic take on living in America!
— Rick Walker
Re: Fiberhoods
“Santa Cruz’s biggest tech stories of the year somehow ended up flying a little under the radar.”
Might have something to do with so far the only residential customers to be hooked up to fiber are in one mobile home park…and that was 3 months ago. Cruzio has yet to share any info about any other residential customers being hooked up to gigabit fiber and not wireless-backed fiber.
— Jim
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
Submit to ph****@*******es.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
Organizers of an upcoming event will freely distribute clone-able cuttings, or scions, from hundreds of rare, heirloom and experimental varieties of fruit. The Monterey Bay Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers will hold its annual winter Scion Exchange at Cabrillo College on Sunday, Jan. 13, in coordination with fruit growing enthusiasts around the state. The event will be 12-3 p.m. at the Cabrillo College Horticulture Center. Admission is free to members and 5$ to non-members. Visit mbcrfg.org for more information.
GOOD WORK
AA Safe & Security, a 65-year-old local company, has expanded, adding a brand new division that brings the business up to speed in the year 2019. With AA Security Technologies, the company is bringing its safety expertise to the market for cloud services, alarm systems and household internet devices. Collaborating with manufacturing partners, AA Safe & Security perfected solutions that will help consumers manage programs that track their wellness or energy usage, while protecting their information. For more information, visit aasafe.com.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego.”
The first segment of the 32-mile rail trail bicycle/pedestrian path is set to begin construction this month, and the city of Santa Cruz is inviting the community to a celebratory groundbreaking party. The first segment will replace the existing 4-foot-wide walkway on the San Lorenzo River Railroad Trestle Bridge with a new 10-foot, multi-use trail. The ceremony will be followed by a community party, including addresses from Mayor Martine Watkins and Santa Cruz County Supervisor Ryan Coonerty, plus refreshments, commemorative giveaways and more. The event will happen rain or shine, and free parking at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk River Parking Lot and bicycle valet parking will be provided.
INFO: 12:15-2:15 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 10. Western base of the San Lorenzo River Railroad Trestle Bridge, Santa Cruz Riverwalk, Santa Cruz. cityofsantacruz.com. Free.
Art Seen
MAH and Goodwill Art Popup
Back in August, Goodwill Central Coast staff reached out to the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) looking for a way to create something unique for their community. Together, they came up with this yearlong, bilingual pop-up exhibition inside the downtown Watsonville storefront. The pop-up includes sculptures made out of salvaged Goodwill items, historic images of Watsonville from the MAH archives, and new images taken by local graduate student Carlos Campos, who grew up in Watsonville and works at the Watsonville Digital Nest.
INFO: Show runs through June. Watsonville Goodwill, 470 Main St., Watsonville. Free.
Saturday 1/12
Sarah Hennies’ ‘Contralto’
The first installment of a series hosted by Indexical and the Radius Gallery, this show explores the intersection of video, strings and percussion that exists in between the spaces of experimental music and documentary. The term “contralto” is the the operatic term for the lowest female voice, so the show is accordingly a one-hour video compilation of transgender women practicing vocal exercises. It isn’t widely known that trans women’s voices are unaffected by higher levels of estrogen in the body, so many trans women train their voices to sound more female. The women are accompanied by a dense and varied musical score by seven musicians that includes a variety of conventional and “non-musical” approaches to sound-making.
INFO: 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 12. Radius Gallery, 1050 River St. #127, Santa Cruz. 706-1620. indexical.org/events. $10-$15.
Friday 1/11
Jon Nakamatsu and Jon Manasse Concert
Two of the Bay Area’s favorite musicians, pianist Jon Nakamatsu and clarinetist Jon Manasse, are coming to Santa Cruz for an evening of classical music. This concert is the fourth installment of the Distinguished Artists 2018 season. Manasse was the principal clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, while San Jose native Nakamatsu has performed for the Clinton White House and has released thirteen CDs to date. Together, the duo of Jons serve as artistic directors of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival in Massachusetts.
INFO: 7:30 p.m. Peace United Church, 900 High St., Santa Cruz. 539-0000. distinguishedartists.org. $12.50-$35.
Friday 1/11
14th Annual Harp Festival
The harp is one of the oldest instruments in the world, so it’s only fitting that there be a festival to commemorate it. Together the Community Music School and the Museum of Art and History (MAH) will showcase different kinds of harps, and various ways to play them. There will be soloists on celtic, classical and double-strung harps, and an all-ages harp orchestra.
INFO: 5-8:30 p.m. Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, 705 Front St., Santa Cruz. 429-1964. santacruzmah.org. Free, donations accepted.
Shoko Blazeen was at Moe’s Alley one night watching Virgin Islands-based roots reggae band Midnite when he was struck with a profound feeling: I want to play this venue.
It was in 2012, and he was still relatively new in Santa Cruz. But in no time, he’d put together a band that played primarily reggae, which he called Blazeen. Less than a year after that, the band played the same Moe’s Alley stage.
“It happened pretty quickly,” Blazeen says. “It was just my ultimate spot to perform.”
Blazeen is now in its third iteration, and goes by the name Blazeen and Tribe. Before moving to Santa Cruz, Blazeen had been playing music for quite a while. Originally from Ghana, West Africa, he grew up around a wide variety of musical genres—one of which was reggae. After relocating to Akron, Ohio, he joined a friend’s band called Rhodes Street Rudeboys.
“Of all the western influences that were in Ghana, reggae definitely was the backdrop,” Blazeen says. “When I moved to the states, I gravitated towards reggae because it was the most familiar. I got a chance to explore a lot more different artists that I hadn’t been exposed to in Ghana. It’s kind of like the door was wide open when I got to the states.”
Blazeen and Tribe isn’t a strictly reggae band, though that is the most prominent influence. There are other elements in there, like hip-hop, Afrobeat and salsa.
“It’s a combination of all my different musical influences. Also different influences of other members of the band,” Blazeen says.
This third iteration is less than a year old, but Blazeen says that the lineup really clicks well. He plans to do a lot more gigging with them in 2019.
“There’s such a chemistry between us that it’s almost like we’ve been playing together for a long period,” Blazeen says. “There’s a tribal element involved with it. We connect very well. We come from different backgrounds, but once you hear that drum, bass and skank, it just transforms us into a whole different arena.”
Live music highlights for the week of Jan. 9, 2019.
WEDNESDAY 1/9
SINGER-SONGWRITER
PAT HULL
With a sinuously androgynous counter-tenor (think Thom Yorke or Wayne Newton) and plenty of warm, distant reverb, Hull’s music is hauntingly beautiful—just familiar enough to be evocative, while fearlessly searching out its own path. On this year’s Denmark Sessions, Hull sounds like some childhood memory playing out in another room, the shearing winds of time blowing through the hallway between. It is the aural equivalent of a billowing curtain, rising just enough to show the edges of an unknown field beyond. MIKE HUGUENOR
It’s freezing outside—snow drifts across the Arctic tundra, icicles hang from eskers, and it looks like we’re gonna be snowed in here for a while. That’s probably what they’re saying in Norway right now, anyway, and SVER brings a bit of that winter wonderland to SC with high-spirited Norwegian folk music. Fiddles, accordions and soft-but-robust percussions encourage all to come inside, gather, warm yourself with a hot (and preferably spiked) beverage, and show off your snowflake-adorned sweater that’s way too heavy for our weather. SVER will showcase both their dreamy, icy soundscapes and toe-tapping, fire-fueled ditties. AMY BEE
Aki Kumar, aka “The Only Bombay Blues Man” added fresh ingredients to the American musical melting pot with his first album, Aki Goes to Bollywood, which infused Chicago-style blues with retro Bollywood classics. His newest album, Hindi Man Blues, further asserts Kumar’s place in the blues genre, keeping the Bollywood flavor going, but adding original pieces that include political commentary and a song written by his mother. June Core and Rusty Zinn will be joining Kumar at Moe’s for some original R&B compositions, as well as assisting in spreading his blend of infectious Bollywood blues pop. AB
You know that whole thing where the Crepe Place doesn’t often feature live hip-hop? Guess what, they are personally making it up to you with a stacked lineup of regional underground rappers that will blow your socks off. The featured performer will be SF’s slinky Professa Gabel, whose latest record Ouch is a lo-fi booty shaker. Also be sure to check out some grade-A local talent like Steezy Sins (Salinas), 1AM (Gilroy) and the rising talent from Santa Cruz that is Alwa Gordon. AARON CARNES
At first glance this might seem like a strange booking for Kuumbwa, which doesn’t tend to pay much attention to smooth jazz. But guitarist Chieli Minucci has a long and distinguished career, and he’s lined up a strong cast of players to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Special EFX. Founded with Hungarian-born drummer George Jinda, Special EFX recorded prolifically throughout the ’80s and ’90s. Minucci has led the band himself in recent years, while also recording with pop stars like Celine Dion and Jennifer Lopez and contributing to film soundtracks including No Country For Old Men. ANDREW GILBERT
INFO: 7 and 9 p.m. Kuumbwa Jazz, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz. $31.50-$47.25. 427-2227.
FRIDAY & SATURDAY 1/11-12
METAL
METALACHI
For years, this meticulously fine-tuned group of Los Angeles mariachis have perfected the art of sensuously covering everyone’s favorite hair-metal tunes, from Ozzy Osbourne to Motley Crue. For those who have never experienced the hard-rocking, hilariously entertaining, soul-moving and pelvis-gyrating extravaganza that is Metalachi, I have a couple words of advice. First, don’t tell anyone, nobody needs that sort of judgement in their life. Next, make sure to pick up a ticket for one (or both!) of their Moe’s Alley shows this January. MAT WEIR
As a songwriter, Allyson Makuch doesn’t like to dress up her music with unnecessary fluff. Her songs, which are performed passionately in acoustic splendor with multi-instrumentalist Rory Cloud, cut right to the sometime uncomfortable marrow of her deepest emotions. The name of their musical collaboration, Echoes and Artifacts, reflects the transcendental lens through which they view songs: the past echoing for an eternity, or at least as long as people take the time to listen. This duo plays their instruments with the awareness of the power they wield with their acoustic guitars, and takes no detours in expressing something authentic and heartbreaking at its core. AC
Bust out the ‘gator and make space for the accordion, because Blake Miller and the Old Fashioned Aces are seasoning Santa Cruz’s new year with their cajun spices. Hailing from Lafayette, Louisiana, this trio puts the “raw” in “crawfish,” keeping their tunes as traditional as an étouffée. As a bonus treat, this same afternoon is Michael’s on Main’s “Louisiana Picnic Dance,” a 2 p.m. matinee show with a Louisiana feast (for a separate charge of $18.95). MW
INFO: 2 p.m. Michael’s on Main, 2591 Main St., Soquel. $12 adv/$15 door. 479-9777.
MONDAY & TUESDAY 1/14-15
PUNK
PATTI SMITH
Plenty has been written about Patti Smith’s debut Horses, though none of it adequately captures those first moments when, like a voice out of nowhere, she sings, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.” An indispensable part of both 20th-century feminism and rock, Smith has had her share of sins along the way, all of which she gleefully claims as her own. A renowned author as well as punk icon and poet, Smith comes to Santa Cruz for two nights at the Rio. Make your peace now with whatever sins you gotta commit to get tickets. MH
INFO: 8 p.m. Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. $76.50. 423-8209.
On the outside, Trish Graves has everything—a devoted husband, a beautiful 4-year-old daughter and a breathtaking piece of ranchland in quiet, spacious southern San Benito County.
On the inside, though, she is shattered.
Graves is a veteran who served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific for eight years. Since her discharge a decade ago, she has been struggling with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.
She says that the past 10 years have been crippling, as she has dealt with intense and unrelenting daily bouts of anxiety, depression, fear and self-loathing. She admits that she has considered suicide. The word she uses to describe her experience is “drowning.”
But over the last year, Graves has rediscovered a measure of hope that seemed unattainable before. After spending almost all of her entire adult life under the crush of past trauma, only now is she able to contemplate a future beyond the shadow.
And that hope has arrived in the form of psychedelic drugs.
The widespread public perception of PTSD when it comes to military veterans is that the condition is linked to combat or war-zone experience. That’s not the case with Graves. In 2003, while serving in the Navy, she was raped by another service member. The rape left her not only traumatized, but also pregnant, and she had an abortion while on leave on the island of Guam. She decided not to pursue a legal case against her assailant. She was 24 years old at the time.
“The abortion is what bothers me most,” Graves says. “I had to ask permission to do this from my commanding officer. It was humiliating. He wanted to know who it was, why I wasn’t pressing charges. I think you’ve heard enough about military culture to know you don’t report these kinds of things because I didn’t want to be seen as a troublemaker. I just wanted to do my job. I just wanted to do the right thing.”
Seared by shame, she soldiered on through her tour of duty after the abortion, until her body rebelled. Eventually, she was discharged from the Navy on a medical basis. In that respect, her ordeal carried three distinct traumas: the rape, the abortion and the loss of her livelihood and social identity.
“My body just stopped working,” she says. “I mean, I could tell myself, ‘Get up.’ I could say, ‘Do this, do that.’ By my body wasn’t doing it.” So she was “separated” from the Navy, and told that she would get better once away from her military surroundings.
But she didn’t get better. Living in San Juan Bautista, she felt adrift. She didn’t do much more than sit on her sofa for days and weeks on end. She tried to cope in ways healthy and otherwise: booze, pharmaceuticals, religious devotion, nutrition, even denial. She just kept drowning.
“There was a lot I didn’t know about PTSD that I know now; that it can really change your perception of reality. You can have flashbacks one moment. You can feel like you’re living in a dream. Or you can just feel very disconnected from everything around you. It’s crazy-making.”
Desperate for something—anything—to help alleviate the punishing frame of mind that had come to dominate her life, Graves began reading about promising therapies involving the powerful psychedelic agent known as ayahuasca. She heard stories about people suffering from PTSD traveling to South America to experience the organic brew that has been used in shamanic practice in the Amazon for centuries. For her purposes, ayahuasca seemed too risky and expensive.
She was eventually led to other research linking drugs such as LSD, psilocybin (found in some mushrooms) and MDMA to breakthroughs in treatment for depression, addiction, alcoholism, and PTSD. And that path finally brought Graves to the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a Santa Cruz-based nonprofit that is conducting the country’s only clinical trials approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for otherwise-illegal psychedelic drugs in psychotherapy. MAPS, it seemed to Graves, was offering a road map to escape the shadow.
“As soon as I heard it was being developed, it gave me an anchor in the future,” she says. “I figured, ‘OK, I can hang on until this is available. And if that doesn’t work, then I can commit suicide.”
MEDICINAL REVOLUTION
The transformation of cannabis from illicit street drug to medicinal miracle—and the booming business opportunities that have come with its evolution—have opened up possibilities for eventual legalization of other drugs long relegated to the black market by prohibition. Chief among these prospects are the wide range of chemical substances labeled “psychedelic.”
Still, “psychedelic” is more a cultural term than a scientific one. It has become a catch-all that can be applied to music, art, fashion or cinema as well as drugs. For Brad Burge, director of strategic communications at MAPS, it’s part of the job to grapple with a word that could just as easily apply to either Jimi Hendrix’s version of The Star-Spangled Banner or serious medical interventions for mental illness.
“It’s definitely a challenge,” says Burge, especially since the word “psychedelic” is in the organization’s name. “That’s part of why we exist. We could have been called something else, something that doesn’t bring up a whole host of connotations that we’ve absorbed from media and TV, whether it’s Timothy Leary or fractal patterns on the computer. What we don’t want to do is avoid the term, because then all of that stigma just stays there. Instead, we use it as an education opportunity and try to unpack it.”
It can be a maddeningly imprecise label, because the drugs that are often called “psychedelic” are fundamentally different from each other. “In most cases,” says Burge, “they are just completely different chemicals. One of the reasons we’ve lumped them all together is how they’ve been historically used, as a tool for introspection, consciousness alteration, spiritual work. So, ‘psychedelic’ is more of a term on how they’re used than how they work.”
BLIND TRIAL A re-enactment of what an MDMA therapy session at Santa Cruz’s Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies can look like. PHOTO: MAPS
Though the organization has worked with other drugs, MAPS has dedicated most of its efforts to MDMA, the psychoactive agent known by the informal names Ecstasy or Molly. Burge says that much of his public relations heavy lifting has been convincing the public that the terms are not interchangeable—that what is sold on the street as Ecstasy or Molly may or may not be MDMA.
MDMA may be the most promising drug in treatment settings because it tends not to bring on visual or auditory hallucinations.
“One of the things that MDMA does,” says Burge, “is that it turns down the activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that governs the fight-or-flight response. People with PTSD tend to have a hyperactive amygdala. That’s why psychotherapy is so hard for people with PTSD. Anything that remotely reminds them of their trauma is interpreted as happening right now, in the moment. Really, what MDMA seems to be doing is enhancing the effectiveness of psychotherapy.”
MAPS is now entering Phase 3 clinical trials, which will include a larger pool of test subjects. The organization has stated that its goal is to get FDA approval of MDMA as a psychiatric prescription drug by 2021, which may seem quite far in the indefinite future for people who suffer from PTSD like Trish Graves.
RETHINKING THERAPY
After going through the screening process with MAPS, Graves underwent three separate day-long therapy sessions in San Francisco, spaced out over several weeks, which included supervised doses of MDMA.
In her first experience, she came in with expectations, having read accounts of other people in similar therapeutic settings.
“It wasn’t what I expected at all,” Graves says. “The whole time I kept thinking, ‘I must be doing this wrong.’ From what I read, people were supposed to lay down and relax with some music playing, or eye shades or something. But all I wanted to do was talk. I was talking, talking, talking.”
In the second session, the dosage was higher and the experience was even more intense. She felt she was communicating with her long-dead grandfather who was expressing love and support to her, but at the same time was also “cutting me into pieces. But I could see that he needed to do that. I needed to disconnect from who I was, and he was putting me back together again.”
After three sessions, Graves says, she was able to separate from her pain in a way that was impossible before. Each of the experiences was unique, and she is still seeing a therapist to help her “integrate” the experiences. “It all keeps unfolding,” she says. “It’s taught my brain how to think in a new way.”
The experiences with MDMA have provided her with the kind of detachment that people involved in meditation have long talked about. “It was kind of like three long meditations,” she says. “It was able to teach me that kind of detachment, so that I can say, ‘This is happening, and it feels really bad. But it’s not you. It’s just something that washes over you. You can endure it. And you can even be curious about it.’”
Last spring, the psychiatry journal Lancet published the findings of a MAPS Phase 2 trial for MDMA therapy that included military vets, firefighters and police officers. Of those who had suffered chronic PTSD, about two-thirds reported dramatic decreases in symptoms, to the degree that they no longer met clinical criteria for a PTSD diagnosis.
PSYCHEDELIC SCIENCE Once the Phase 3 trials are over, the FDA will look at the results to decide whether MDMA should be a prescription treatment in psychotherapy. PHOTO: MAPS
Phase 3 trials are currently taking place at 15 sites across North America and in Israel to further investigate MDMA’s effectiveness in treating PTSD. MAPS is also involved in a training program for prospective therapists in the treatment, hosting training events and drafting a code of ethics for therapists who might use MDMA in their practices.
MAPS keeps its administrative headquarters on Mission Street in Santa Cruz, but it has staff and researchers stationed all over the world. “It’s been like a startup,” says Burge. “The last seven years have been an explosion. Our biggest challenge has been the organizational growth.”
If putting the word “psychedelic” in the organization’s title wasn’t enough of a public perception issue for MAPS, what about that Santa Cruz mailing address? In the big world on the other side of Highway 17, Santa Cruz is often stereotyped as a free-range habitat for hippies and acid casualties from the ’60s. A globally minded organization looking to lend scientific credibility to the study of psychoactive drugs might find that an association with Santa Cruz would undermine that credibility. That would be wrong, says Burge.
“Given that our work is being taken a lot more seriously by the mainstream now,” he says, “I wouldn’t say it’s having much of a detrimental effect. In fact, it really legitimizes MAPS in the eyes of the right people. And the people who might judge MAPS (negatively) for being in Santa Cruz don’t seem to care.”
On top of the MDMA trials and programs, MAPS is also continuing to build up its Zendo Project, which trains individuals in “psychedelic harm reduction,” mostly for people using psychedelics recreationally at events and music festivals. The project’s biggest effort remains Burning Man, where they send a couple hundred volunteers to provide 24-hour support, working with on-site law enforcement and medical staff. With Zendo, MAPS is again involved in a rebranding effort, trying to remove the stigma of Woodstock-style “trip tents,” and replacing it with a professionally staffed space for compassion and safety.
“I think psychedelic harm-reduction should be an essential part of first aid and general crisis training,” says Burge. “The principles apply not just for psychedelic states, but for any sort of difficult psychological state.”
Still, if all goes according to plan, the MDMA therapy program is likely to emerge as the organization’s biggest contribution to bringing psychedelics into the light of legal therapy. Once Phase 3 is over, the FDA will assess the data to make a judgment on whether MDMA is useful as a prescription treatment in psychotherapy. If the drug gets FDA approval, it will then be up to the agency to take MDMA off its list of Schedule 1 controlled substances deemed to have a high potential for abuse and no legitimate medical uses.
Even in the best-case scenarios for groups like MAPS, MDMA will not be the kind of drug you’ll be able to pick up at the Costco pharmacy window on your way home from work. Treatment will necessarily be under strict conditions and supervision of trained therapists. Still, the therapy has the potential to change the lives of people like Graves, who now have few options. Reflecting on her own experience, Graves feels the need to evangelize on behalf of MDMA treatment.
“I can’t wait for more people to get the relief I’ve experienced,” she says.
Before 2018, on a rotation of antidepressants, she says she felt, “like I was a robot. I wasn’t alive. And now I feel alive. That’s a big thing for me.”
The improvement in her condition has come at a crucial time for her as a parent. Her daughter is just now reaching the age where she’s discovering the world around her. “I feel such relief that I’m now able to engage with her. Before, I always felt so far away. She would talk to me and I knew I needed to answer her, but I couldn’t even open my mouth,” she says. “Now I’m laughing with her, playing with her.”
Graves is not out of danger yet. Managing PTSD is complicated, and she still has days when she’s not well, she says. “It’s not an overnight thing. But I’ve changed a lot in a very short period,” she says. “It’s really scary to say that I feel like I have a future. I don’t want to get my hopes up. It still all feels really new.”
[This is part one of a two-part series on transportation ahead of a Jan. 17 Regional Transportation Commission vote on the Unified Corridor Study. Part two runs next week. — Editor]
If commuter trains come rolling through the county’s coastal rail corridor 30 years from now, it’s anyone’s guess how exactly those trains will look, or where they will stop. But whatever the details, there’s a decent chance that some of the buildings near those stops will be four times taller than many of them are today.
While the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) prepares to vote on the county’s transportation future later this month, there’s a growing effort to zone for taller, denser housing projects near major transit stops. Here in Santa Cruz, the RTC is getting ready to vote on accepting aUnified Corridor Study on Thursday, Jan. 17. Thestudy outlines a scenario which includes some highway improvements, a commuter train and new bike trails. Some activists are still pushing for a wider trail with no train, given concerns about low potential ridership and high costs.
The word “density” has been known to set off alarm bells in certain circles of neighborhood activists, and the city’s corridor zoning update for taller buildings on major streets is currently on life support for that reason. The RTC will not be not be voting on building heights or any zoning issues—even as it considers future rail transit this month. It isn’t even clear if, or how, the commission would fund all of the items on whatever laundry list of ideas it ends up approving. Specific land-use decisions would be up to local governments, like the Board of Supervisors, in the years to come.
But California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) recently told GT that increased housing density—or “up-zoning,” as it’s known in housing policy circles—should “absolutely” be part of the discussion when it comes to new transportation projects. Urban planners typically view the approach of zoning for taller apartment complexes next to public transportation as a way to build affordable housing in the most environmentally friendly way possible. It’s this kind of housing, after all, that makes it easy for everyday people to get around without owning a car.
The backdrop here is that the statewide affordable housing crisis is now several years old, and governments around California, including in Santa Cruz County, aren’t meeting their mandated housing production goals. As a possible solution, Wiener introduced Senate Bill 827 last year to up-zone for high density in the blocks surrounding major transit stops. That original bill would have allowed developers to build as high as 85 feet. Wiener then toned down SB 827, which earned both widespreadcriticism and enthusiasticpraise nationwide, but the bill died a quick death in its committee. This year, Wiener is back with a revised version, SB 50, which would allow buildings of up to 45 or 55 feet, depending on how close they are to a major transit hub, and the new bill has more buy-in. Each new building under the legislation would include someaffordable housing.
Shortly after he finished delivering the keynote at a Monterey Bay Economic Development conference, I asked Wiener about the state of housing and transportation. He mentioned that he recently helped kill an extension of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system to Livermore, because the train stops would not have had the housing density to support robust ridership. “Let’s focus on the system where people are actually living and riding,” Wiener told me. “If you’re gonna make a big public investment in major transit infrastructure, you should make sure that there is housing right around the station, so that more people can use it and walk and not have to drive everywhere.”
Cars aside, there’s also an affordable housing element here. Without major changes in housing policy, it’s possible that most everyday workers would be unable to afford a place to rent near a major transit hub.
According to new research out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, communities that approve big transportation projects typically see an increase in rents and real estate values in the area as urban professionals flock to the suburbs and then commute to work by train. Hypothetically, if leaders allow for more housing, with affordable units built in, they could help ease that pain and maybe even foster a more diverse ridership pool. The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa has reported that the new Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART)caters mostly to the “white and well-off.”
With a big transportation vote around the corner at the RTC, maybe now is the right moment for an honest conversation about what we’re really discussing when we talk about the future of the rail corridor, and the planning considerations that should go along with it. But Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley) suggests that may be “putting the cart before the horse.”
Stone, a former RTC commissioner, says that the land-use decisions will come when the time is right. Although wary of Wiener’s housing bills, he says it’s a given that communities around the county and state need to plan for denser housing as part of addressing the housing crisis. But he says that each area should do it in the way that’s best for them, given their own constraints and resources. That approach, he suggests, would be the best defense against legislation from lawmakers like Wiener, who want to introduce new statewide mandates.
Locally, some train supporters are nonetheless bullish on the idea of up-zoning. Barry Scott, a board member for Friends of the Rail and Trail, says that increased density next to commuter train stops would bolster ridership.
“It’s nothing new. If you go back and look at the communities and cities from 100 years ago, you had taller, denser buildings,” says Scott, who coordinates environmental education programs around the state. “You had the cobbler on the ground floor, and you lived above it. You might have had transit in the area.”
Scott, pulling up a map on his computer, sees plenty of room to build up the areas near the rail line, including in the industrial area of Santa Cruz’s Westside, as well as in parts of Live Oak and Pleasure Point.
Peggy Stap was ready when the call came in on a Sunday in October. A humpback whale was caught in what appeared to be a Dungeness crab line, likely dragged from Oregon to the Central Coast.
With the volunteer Whale Entanglement Team she oversees at research nonprofit Marine Life Studies, Stap drove north with her 40-foot boat Current’Sea, along with a wing boat recently acquired to help rescuers get closer to entangled whales. It was just before sunset when the team located the entangled humpback south of Half Moon Bay. They attached a satellite buoy to keep tabs on the animal’s location, and Stap stayed overnight to babysit the boat. The next day, the team was back in the water to cut the whale lose.
“The whale kept going south, and we ended up doing the rescue west of Santa Cruz,” says Stap, a Michigan transplant who has slowly grown Marine Life Studies and the entanglement team over the past 12 years. “Now we’re kind of like a whale ambulance.”
Stap’s nonprofit rescue team attempts to plug one humpback-sized hole in how state environmental agencies and ocean-focused advocacy groups respond to shifting biological and commercial dynamics in the Monterey Bay ecosystem. Increasingly, variable water temperatures, acid levels and food patterns have contributed to unanticipated interactions between wildlife and the region’s famous fishing industry, according to researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
Groups like Stap’s have also increased vigilance to spot incoming issues, like whales that may have been injured elsewhere but then traveled to local waters. In addition, multiple state working groups have formed to respond to fast-evolving ecological issues including whale entanglement, which surged in 2015 and 2016 to more than 20 entangled whales spotted in the Monterey Bay alone, up from a small handful in years prior.
In the fall, the California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group, formed in 2015, released a new round of recommendations for the year ahead, from better mapping of ocean feed patterns to better identification of fishing lines. While Stap says the local crabbing industry in particular has been active in finding potential solutions to entanglement, options like quick-release lines or advanced materials often remain prohibitively expensive.
“If you look at the bigger picture, [with] two-thirds of the entanglements, we don’t even know what fishery they’re from,” Stap says. Difficult-to-assemble data on the wide world of marine habitats also add to the challenge. “Every year is different. We haven’t gotten all the numbers for 2018.”
Stap’s quest to buy the Whale Entanglement Team’s new rescue boat, which GT covered last summer, also illustrates a rethinking of how resources are deployed by local ocean-focused nonprofits and businesses. This month, ocean wildlife will be a focal point of Cal State Monterey Bay’s second-annual Sustainable Hospitality Summit from Jan. 10-12, plus the ninth-annual Whalefest at Monterey’s Old Fisherman’s Wharf on Jan. 26-27 (where Stap will speak).
After naming whale entanglement one of its top three priority issues last year, the nascent Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation also hired its first full-time executive director in the fall. A year-old local branch of marine sanctuary foundations located near federally protected waters across the country, the Monterey Bay chapter hired longtime local surfer and former world longboard championship competitor Ginaia Kelly to lead the group.
“It was a very, very natural fit,” says Kelly, whose board at the foundation includes former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former Santa Cruz Mayor Hilary Bryant, interim O’Neill Sea Odyssey Executive Director Dan Haifley and other prominent figures in government and conservation causes. “While I have boots to the ground here locally, our connection to the national foundation can help us gain greater visibility.”
The federal government shutdown at the start of 2019 has furloughed much of the local staff for the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary, but Kelly says her group also plans to focus on water quality monitoring, naturalist training and education programs. A resident of Davenport, Kelly headed Save Our Shares and other organizations before accepting the role with the Marine Sanctuary Foundation.
Meanwhile, Stap says Marine Life Studies continues to host volunteer trainings and raise funds for specialized response equipment after welcoming a new federally trained level-four whale entanglement responder last year. The group is also in need of licensed drone operators to help with whale monitoring and assessment.
“We are one of the busiest sanctuaries,” Stap says, though she knows demand for her services will always come down to nature. “It just depends where the fish are, where the krill are, where the anchovies are.”
He was probably the least-likely person on earth to be taken for a seminal figure in the annals of the Beat literary movement, but lanky, easy-going, sweet-smiling Al Hinkle was certainly a critical lynchpin in that history.
Raised in pool-hall Denver with his childhood pal, the iconic Beat figure (and writer) Neal Cassady, it was the recently married Hinkle (along with his bride, the former Helen Argee) who jumped in Cassady’s brand new, maroon-and-silver Hudson sedan for a crisscross continental journey that eventually included an unpublished writer named Jack Kerouac; one of Cassady’s many girlfriends, Luanne Henderson; and an assortment of other hitchhikers and hangers-on who were all immortalized in Kerouac’s seminal Beat novel, On the Road (1957).
It was Hinkle who headed west to California, finally settling in the Santa Clara Valley, where he took a job on the Southern Pacific Railroad initially out of Watsonville. Cassady, down and out in Denver with a pile of romantic woes bearing down on him, along with both Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg, the poet laureate of the Beat movement, joined the rag-tag assemblage of novelists and poets on the West Coast. Both Cassady and Kerouac (briefly) also worked with Hinkle on the railroad.
As a result, Hinkle was the steady gravitational anchor (with a home and regular paycheck) who augured the San Francisco literary Renaissance before its 1955 apotheosis with the reading of Ginsberg’s epic poem Howl—in which Cassady was acknowledged as the “secret hero” of Ginsberg’s work.
While Kerouac and Cassady flamed out early—Cassady at the age of 43 in 1968; and Kerouac, at 47, the following year—Hinkle, who died two weeks ago from heart failure at the age of 92, held steady, and outlived his two more famous pals by a full half-century. A few years ago, he put together a booklet (based on an interview with Stephen D. Edington and some other writings) entitled Last Man Standing, in which he consolidated some of his groundbreaking memories.
Born in Florida in 1926 (his father was playing minor league baseball), Hinkle and his family returned to his father’s hometown of Denver when he was two. Hinkle’s mother died when he was 8, leaving him free to roam the Depression-era streets with his buddies and siblings. It was in the late 1930s that he first met Neal Cassady at a YMCA recreation hall.
Five years later, Hinkle, by then a lanky 6-foot-6, joined the Merchant Marines and headed off to the Pacific. He served two years before returning to Denver at the end of World War II. It was then that he re-connected with Cassady—six months his junior—in the pool halls and beer joints of Denver.
One night in the early 1990s, Al, Helen and I stayed up until nearly dawn, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and recounting stories of their earlier days when Kerouac, Cassady and Ginsberg were part of their daily social milieu. Both Al and Helen felt it was important to normalize much of that history. Indeed, Helen acknowledged that she hadn’t read On the Road, in which she and her husband were featured as Galatea and Big Ed Dunkel, until the 1980s.
It was in March of 1947 that another Denver chum of Hinkle’s named Bill Tomson introduced the irrepressible Cassady to a beautiful Bennington graduate named Carolyn Robinson, then pursuing a master’s degree in theater arts at Denver University. After more than a few false starts, they eventually married.
Both the Hinkles and Cassadys would eventually settle into new tract homes in the burgeoning Santa Clara Valley, with Al and Neal holding down steady jobs with Southern Pacific. The Hinkles had two children—Mark and Dawn—while the Cassadys had three—Cathy, Jami and John Allen (the latter named after Kerouac and Ginsberg). “They were like family,” Al’s daughter Dawn Davis recently told me. “We were always very close.”
A NEW BEAT
I visited with Hinkle last winter, and although not as physically spry as he once was, his mind was still sharp. He was also willing to go a little farther with some of his stories than he had a quarter-century earlier. He was always very fond of Kerouac, and, when we first met, spoke in only glowing terms about the famous novelist. At our final meeting, he acknowledged to me that Jack’s alcohol problem posed some real difficulties for their friendship and that Kerouac was “a mean drunk.” That was one of the first times I ever heard him be critical of anyone.
Hinkle received a degree from San Francisco State and studied for his master’s degree at Stanford (which he never quite finished). He ran unsuccessfully for Congress on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980, and then retired in 1987 from Southern Pacific—with more than 40 years on the job.
After Helen died in 1994, Hinkle remarried briefly, and kept up a daily routine as friend, father and grandfather. He enjoyed cards and engaging in long conversations.
According to his daughter Dawn, there will be no memorial service for Hinkle, at his request. “Dad didn’t want anyone to fuss over him,” she said. “That’s just who he was.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Computer-generated special effects used in the 1993 film Jurassic Park may seem modest to us now. But at the time, they were revolutionary. Inspired by the new possibilities revealed, filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas and Peter Jackson launched new projects they had previously thought to be beyond their ability to create. In 2019, I urge you to go in quest of your personal equivalent of Jurassic Park’s pioneering breakthroughs. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you may be able to find help and resources that enable you to get more serious about seemingly unfeasible or impractical dreams.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I’m a big proponent of authenticity. I almost always advise you to be yourself with bold candor and unapologetic panache. Speak the truth about your deepest values and clearest perceptions. Be an expert about what really moves you, and devote yourself passionately to your relationships with what really moves you. But there is one exception to this approach. Sometimes it’s wise to employ the “fake it until you make it” strategy—to pretend you are what you want to be with such conviction that you ultimately become what you want to be. I suspect now is one of those times for you.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The student dining hall at Michigan State University serves gobs of mayonnaise. But in late 2016, a problem arose when 1,250 gallons of the stuff became rancid. Rather than simply throw it away, the school’s sustainability pfficer came up with a brilliant solution: load it into a machine called an anaerobic digester, which turns biodegradable waste into energy. Problem solved! The transformed rot provided electricity for parts of the campus. I recommend you regard this story as a metaphor for your own use. Is there anything in your life that has begun to decay or lose its usefulness? If so, can you convert it into a source of power?
CANCER (June 21-July 22): If you grow vegetables, fruits, and grains on an acre of land, you can feed twelve people. If you use that acre to raise meat-producing animals, you’ll feed at most four people. But to produce the meat, you’ll need at least four times more water and twenty times more electric power than you would if you grew the plants. I offer this as a useful metaphor for you to consider in the coming months. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you should prioritize efficiency and value. What will provide you with the most bang for your bucks? What’s the wisest use of your resources?
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Modern kids don’t spend much time playing outside. They have fun in natural environments only half as often as their parents did while growing up. In fact, the average child spends less time in the open air than prison inmates. And today’s unjailed adults get even less exposure to the elements. But I hope you will avoid that fate in 2019. According to my astrological estimates, you need to allocate more than the usual amount of time to feeling the sun and wind and sky. Not just because it’s key to your physical health, but also because many of your best ideas and decisions are likely to emerge while you’re outdoors.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): NASA landed its robotic explorer Opportunity on Mars in January of 2004. The craft’s mission, which was supposed to last for 92 days, began by taking photos and collecting soil samples. More than 14 years later, the hardy machine was still in operation, continuing to send data back to Earth. It far outlived its designed lifespan. I foresee you being able to generate a comparable marvel in 2019, Virgo: a stalwart resource or influence or situation that will have more staying power than you could imagine. What could it be?
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In 1557, Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde invented the equals sign: =. Historical records don’t tell us when he was born, so we don’t know his astrological sign. But I’m guessing he was a Libra. Is there any tribe more skillful at finding correlations, establishing equivalencies, and creating reciprocity? In all the zodiac, who is best at crafting righteous proportions and uniting apparent opposites? Who is the genius of balance? In the coming months, my friend, I suspect you will be even more adept at these fine arts than you usually are.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): There’s a modest, one-story office building at 1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware. More than 285,000 businesses from all over the U.S. claim it as their address. Why? Because the state of Delaware has advantageous tax laws that enable those businesses to save massive amounts of money. Other buildings in Delaware house thousands of additional corporations. It’s all legal. No one gets in trouble for it. I bring this to your attention in the hope of inspiring you to hunt for comparable situations: ethical loopholes and workarounds that will provide you with extra benefits and advantages.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): People in the Solomon Islands buy many goods and services with regular currency, but also use other symbols of worth to pay for important cultural events like staging weddings and settling disputes and expressing apologies. These alternate forms of currency include the teeth of flying foxes, which are the local species of bat. In that spirit, and in accordance with current astrological omens, I’d love to see you expand your sense of what constitutes your wealth. In addition to material possessions and funds in the bank, what else makes you valuable? In what other ways do you measure your potency, your vitality, your merit? It’s a favorable time to take inventory.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1984, singer-songwriter John Fogerty released a new album whose lead single was “The Old Man Down the Road.” It sold well. But trouble arose soon afterward. when Fogerty’s former record company sued him in court, claiming he stole the idea for “The Old Man Down the Road” from “Run Through the Jungle.” That was a tune Fogerty himself had written and recorded in 1970 while playing with the band Creedence Clearwater Revival. The legal process took a while, but he was ultimately vindicated. No, the courts declared, he didn’t plagiarize himself, even though there were some similarities between the two songs. In this spirit, I authorize you to borrow from a good thing you did in the past as you create a new good thing in the future. There’ll be no hell to pay if you engage in a bit of self-plagiarism.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is a collection of fables that take place in India. Three movies have been made based on it. All of them portray the giant talking snake named Kaa as an adversary to the hero Mowgli. But in Kipling’s original stories, Kaa is a benevolent ally and teacher. I bring this to your attention to provide context for a certain situation in your life. Is there an influence with a metaphorical resemblance to Kaa—misinterpreted by some people, but actually quite supportive and nourishing to you? If so, I suggest you intensify your appreciation for it.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Virginia Woolf thought that her Piscean lover Vita Sackville-West was a decent writer, but a bit too fluid and effortless. Self-expression was so natural to Sackville-West that she didn’t work hard enough to hone her craft and discipline her flow. In a letter, Woolf wrote, “I think there are odder, deeper, more angular thoughts in your mind than you have yet let come out.” I invite you to meditate on the possibility that Woolf’s advice might be useful in 2019. Is there anything in your skill set that comes so easily that you haven’t fully ripened? If so, develop it with more focused intention.
Homework: I’ve gathered all of the long-term, big-picture horoscopes I wrote for you: https://bit.ly/YourGloriousStory2019
Capricorn, our 10th sign and 10th Labor of Hercules, continues. We (all of humanity) are Hercules. Capricorn is the sign of the goat climbing the mountain, becoming a unicorn on the mountaintop. The preceding Nine Labors (signs) were concerned with how to liberate ourselves from the thralldom of matter (materialism). But when we, disciples, (soul-directed personalities), come to Capricorn, the situation changes. Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces—these three signs are not concerned with personal liberation. We are concerned with humanity’s liberation.
Once we reach Capricorn, we are free to serve. We become an initiate. On the mountaintop, standing under the rising sun, we become transfigured. Our essential divinity is revealed to ourselves, and each other. Having passed round and round the zodiac many lifetimes, learning all there is to know in each of the signs (7×7 and more), experiencing all the lessons of each sign, we finally climb the mountain of initiation (Capricorn). All of our lifetimes prepared us to see and then remember our divine origins—our divine essential selves. We become free.
We then realize that with all of our training and experience, and with our developed will, love, wisdom, compassion, and intelligence, we are prepared to help a world in suffering (like Prometheus). And like Hercules, who frees Prometheus, we begin to free humanity through our recognized and cultivated gifts (Leo). While we are in Capricorn, after the long sojourn from Aries to Capricorn, we pause and rest. Before returning to the valleys of Earth once again. “Lost are we in light supernal, yet on this light we will turn our backs.”
ARIES: What are you thinking and feeling concerning your work in the world? How is your professional work coming along, and are you considering expansion, a new job, new work, or an entirely different field of endeavor? You’re climbing the Capricorn ladder. Remember to take others with you, assisting those below to rise up, too. Remember the true warrior is a spiritual disciple. Practice ahimsa.
TAURUS: You may be invited to travel. You may (most likely) say “No, too many responsibilities at home.” However, you must expand your mind, body, emotions, and spirit. Like studying esoteric texts, preparing to teach, understanding our justice system (blind still), visiting libraries, building an online college (with another), buying a car, cow or horse, donkey to ride over the plains toward a mountaintop where the light shines. You will travel.
GEMINI: Are you looking at resources held in common with another (or others) trying to create order and organization in daily living? Are you concerned about money and finances? You’re interested more and more in wisdom teachings, community, freeing the self from past inhibited thinking, and traveling somewhere for learning. You’ll wonder who will accompany you for you need a companion on the road. A loving one.
CANCER: It’s important to ask yourself, “Who are the important people in my life, and how am I interacting with them? Am I ignoring them, caring for them, resenting them, angry with them, or simply not interested anymore?” It is important to remember St. Paul’s words, “When I was a child, I thought as a child. When an adult, I put aside the things of the child.” Do not get lost. The dweller is near. Love is never lost, but must be re-activated. Has something appropriated it?
LEO: Things you have created that are now ritual and/or habitual have begun to break down into bits and pieces. You may feel disrupted, and this will continue for several months, for everyone. The new revolution is organizing, and it needs leaders, so look up and out, gather loved ones (all kingdoms) and begin to realize that your gifts, talents and abilities, many and varied, can be used to create a new order in the world. There are outer leaders and inner ones. Both are needed.
VIRGO: Where in your life do you feel shadows, veils, things hidden in the dark? Where in your life does light need to be radiated? Where is there a need for freedom, a creativity that liberates your spirit? In what way do you wish those parts of yourself, shy and quiet, could come forth? Everything will be changing in the coming year. You will be one of those changes as the lights come on.
LIBRA: It’s time to review garden catalogues, planning for summer. Soon, seeds must be planted. Do you have a greenhouse? If not, consider one, small at first. Notice your concern with home, food and nurturing things. Realize in coming times, we’ll need to grow much of our food. You could (are, were, will) be an excellent gardener, especially with edible flowers and herbs. Your foundations are shifting, past emotions falling away. A healing occurs in the garden.
SCORPIO: It’s important at times of new beginnings to consider your communication with others. Is it kind? Do you interact enough with others, and they with you? Are you easily out and about in the community? Do people understand you, or must you remain hidden? Perhaps you felt restricted the last several years? How do you feel about the present community/town/village/city you live in? Do people know you? Do they understand you?
SAGITTARIUS: It’s possible you feel like staying home forever, never to emerge. Perhaps you wonder who your friends are, for something about friendship is hidden. You feel able to chat, but after a few moments, fall into silence and quietude. You have energy, then you don’t. Do you sense you’re descending the ladder and not ascending? You’re in a boat. There’s no shore. You are not the captain. Yet you are. The stars glide by.
CAPRICORN: So many things appear veiled, and even your communication seems to have gone into hiding. Don’t fret. It will re-emerge soon enough. It’s best to stay home (or in the heart), chat with Sag (joyful) people, and read food, art and architecture magazines. Make a quilt. Think of yourself as a hermit in a forest, foraging in the wild. Tell yourself you’re preparing for the future that no one really comprehends. A friend in a group or living far away comes calling.
AQUARIUS: Are there people, friends, a person, a group you need to speak with? Are you preparing for the future in practical ways, which includes wondering where to live? Do you sense a great change, while not knowing what that change will be? There are deep desires and emotions rumbling about as your sense of self continues to shift. Stay poised as the changes continue. Be not afraid. Home is where the heart is.
PISCES: You have more internal energy, can stand on your feet longer and accomplish more tasks. There is a new strength, a dramatic change of energy. You see only the moment; what is in front and around you. The past/future no longer holds you. Progressing step by step, task to task, a new direction comes subtly forward. You wonder if you should travel. Someone needs you. You respond with care.
