“But life is just a party,
and parties weren’t
meant to last.”
–Prince, 1999

New beginnings.

We at Common Ground sincerely pray that all beings on all planes—be happy.

“In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, but never in want.”
—Irish Toast

“Awakening is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not.“
—Deepak Chopra

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.“
—Abraham Lincoln

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
—Seneca

“Somehow, a scrubbed house spells a fresh start.”
—Sheherazade Goldsmith

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
–Oprah Winfrey

“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.”
—Brad Paisley

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
–T.S. Eliot

“The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.”
–G. K. Chesterton

“For a new year to bring you something new, make a move, like a butterfly tearing its cocoon! Make a move!”
–Mehmet Murat Ildan

“The merry year is born. Like the bright berry from the naked thorn.”
–Hartley Coleridge

“One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.”
–John Burroughs

“Maybe this year, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but looking for potential.”
–Ellen Goodman

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”
—Eckhart Tolle

“There is no fear for one whose mind is not filled with desires.‘”
—Buddha

“In this New Year we need to ask ourselves ‘Am I being steady in my spiritual discipline or have I lost my way?’ Secondly, ’Am I living for myself alone or, every day, am I able to do something—anything—selflessly for others?‘”
–Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma)

SPECIAL THANKS TO ARTISTS LAYLA LOVE, ALES PRIKRYL AND ELENA RAY.

“A strong woman is one who feels deeply and loves fiercely. Her tears flow as abundantly as her laughter. A strong woman is both soft and powerful, she is both practical and spiritual. A strong woman in her essence is a gift to the world.”
—Native American Saying

“I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint—and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.”
–Oprah Winfrey

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
–Anaïs Nin

“Women are like teabags. We don’t know our true strength until we are in hot water.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt

“You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess. Even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to your children.”
—Greta Thunberg

“I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.”
–Frida Kahlo

“The principle of motherhood is as vast and powerful as the universe. With the power of motherhood within her, a mother can influence the entire world”
–Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi)

“Every social justice movement that I know of has come out of people sitting in small groups, telling their life stories, and discovering that other people have shared similar experiences.”
–Gloria Steinem

“Once you figure out what respect tastes like, it tastes better than attention.”
–Pink

“If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.”
–Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“Whatever you do, be different—that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.”
–Anita Roddick

”Don’t talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddamn rules.”
–Maria Callas

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.”
–Maya Angelou

“I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.”
–Mother Teresa

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
–Rosa Parks

“When your intuition is telling you that the time has come to leave behind your moderation, do it!”
—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Pussy Riot)

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”
–Katharine Hepburn

“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no
further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is
likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.”
–Albert Einstein

“That’s one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.”
—Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969

NEIL ARMSTRONG’S FOOTPRINT ON THE MOON 1969 (IMAGE BY NASA)

“At Woodstock, we would focus our energy on peace, setting aside the onstage discussion of political issues to just groove on what might be possible. It was a chance to see if we could create the kind of world for which we’d been striving throughout the ’60s: That would be our political statement—proving that peace and understanding were possible and creating a testament to the value of the counterculture. It would be three days of peace and music.”
—Michael Lang

A half century gone by and the word—Woodstock—still conveys so much! What started as a gathering for the counterculture on Yasgur’s farm in the Catskills would become the most important and influential music festival in history—a defining moment for a generation.

Michael Lang was the scruffy then 25-year-old cofounder. If you look at the 1969 pictures of him, he looks like a baby—but what an impressive undertaking! Later this month Lang will release a 288-page coffee table book with more than 300 images, Woodstock, 3 Days of Peace & Music: The Official 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Common Ground is honored to showcase this pictorial preview.

SF Pride
June 28, 2019

ALL PHOTOS BY RAYMOND HOLBERT – MEMORYBANQUE IMAGES

Carl Gustav Jung, the famed psychologist who ruefully parted from his mentor Sigmund Freud in 1913, wanted their psychoanalytic framework to include esoteric spiritual archetypes—something Freud dismissed. Deeply pained by the rift and the overwhelming violence of World War I, Jung retreated into a protracted introspection—a kind of controlled psychosis. His soul journey was meticulously documented via elaborate dream paintings and calligraphy that were compiled into a massive leather-bound book, the Liber Novus (the Red Book). Jung would later say of the Red Book, “All my works, all my creative activity has come from those initial fantasies and dreams.”

The unique manuscript was kept secret for decades and became available to the public only in 2009. The original document, vaulted for decades, rarely leaves Switzerland except for a recent trip it took as part of The Illuminated Imagination: The Art of C.G. Jung exhibition at the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Art, Design, and Architecture Museum.

We at Common Ground had been privately musing as to Jung’s state of consciousness. Was he a full-blown mystic? Who knows? But we seized the opportunity to make the pilgrimage to Santa Barbara for a firsthand view of the paintings and they were wonderful. As a bonus we were allowed to take photos of the exhibition and these are represented in this pictorial.

It’s impossible to summarize the impact of Jung’s life but we think at the minimum he deserves yet another title—the Father (albeit inadvertently) of Psychedelic Art. We hope you enjoy the images and become inspired to creatively unravel your own inner mystic.

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All photos by Rob Sidon from The Illuminated Imagination: The Art of C.G Jung, Art, Design, and Architecture Museum at UCSB. Page numbers correspond to the original Red Book pages.

“If you would be a poet, write living newspapers.
Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches
to some supreme managing editor who believes in
full disclosure and has a low tolerance for bullshit.”
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti

PHOTO TAKEN MARCH 24, 2019 IN FRONT OF CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE IN SF BY STACEY LEWIS