Man! There it is again! I swear, everytime I'm about to put up a new zine my whole body just shivers with excitement. I have an especially good reason to be super excited about finishing this zine, though. Its been like a journey for me. I started writing the majority of the articles for this zine in late November and early December. It took me a while, as usual, to get all of the articles written up. Not only that, though, but I also had to deal with Christmas shopping and all that stuff at the same time, and thats not to mention the Lord of the Rings premier. Things started getting busy. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I sat down and wrote a 59 page long creative piece. I was so happy, but at the same time I was a little stressed out. It was kind of like, oh great, I have this nice long, super cool story all written out, but now I have to type the freaking thing. My original goal was to have this zine up before I changed host families the day after Christmas, but as things went, I didn't even have a quarter of the articles typed up by that time. When I changed host families life got really tough for me. Its not an easy thing to change host families, especially when its the day after Christmas. To tell you the truth, it felt like the world had pulled the rug out from underneath me, and suddenly I didn't know what to do with myself. Then I spent an entire week in another rotary families house. I felt better after that, but I had absolutely no more work on my zine done. Finally, maybe two weeks after I originally planned to have this zine finished, I started working on it again. Since then I've turned back into my normal self. I've been spending every free minute I have on the computer typing up this articles for this zine and formating them to look somewhat presentable. Today is the day, finally, when this zine will make its debut into the world. Its been nearly a month since the original deadline. That doesn't really bother me though. I couldn't be happier with this zine, and thats what really counts.

This zine talks a lot about something I call "falling away." This comes from eastern philosophy and religion. It refers to enlightenment, in a way. When I say "fall away" I'm talking about the mind and all its superficial wants and desires falling away. I'm talking about seeing through the veil of our society and becoming your true self. Its kind of like when you go through a near death experience and suddenly everything falls away and things becomes very clear. Thats what I'm trying to get at. Its discussed more thoroughly in the Mind and Body article entitle "Death", but you will be able to see the theme woven into almost every article in this issue. Its kind of like one of Oprah's "Aha!" moments, or when you have an epiphany, but bigger. It may be a hard concept to grasp at times, so if you have any questions about it let me know.

Having said that, I'll let you get on to the zine. I'm sure you'll like it, its got everything the first issue had, plus more. As always, please take the time to fill out the feedback form at the end of this issue.

Happy trails! And may your true light come forth.