The reason it is so small is that there were not enough ads to print more pages. Because this is a free magazine, we have to ensure that the pages are paid for with ad revenue. Right now the revenue has been affected by winter, end of financial year and the Mind Body Spirit season (as people divert their promotion dollars to their booths). So midyear is always smaller for us, but, on top of that, so many people are now having a flurry with the internet.

So, in terms of size, we’ve come full circle, but in terms of content I believe we have actually come of age. When we publish less pages we naturally are forced to give you less articles, but they are all really good quality. So instead of giving you a Cadbury family-sized block of chocolate, you have a little packet of Lindt balls here. Relish the articles; roll them around in your mouth a while before swallowing.

These articles are mature because of the concepts they present. Back in the ‘early days’ we needed to spell things out more simply. It seems we were all being introduced to these ideas and needed to progress little by little, exploring first one path and then another. Then, when we oldies had a certain amount of knowing under our belts, the next generation suddenly picked up stuff that we’d taken ages to discover and experiment with.

I think that the theme that emerged in this issue, heart and soul, is almost ‘the answer to the universe’. Perhaps we’ll cover love next issue, as I believe that is the very answer, but, for this month, connecting with our hearts, finding and listening to our souls, connecting with the heart of the mother, and giving from the heart, are beautiful ways to go within, for that is what the winter months call us to do.

True Indigo’s behest is for us to learn to give, and that the way to abundance is by giving – rather than wanting. I love the way he sparks stuff for me. I pondered his words and figured I’d been giving for 21 years now and yet I’m not financially abundant. Then, somewhere along the path of choosing the articles that are in this issue, the penny dropped for me – I have been giving all the while but have been having a bit of a tantrum from time to time too – being really grumpy with God that I have been giving but not getting in return. ‘It’s not fair.’ Hmmm… victim, martyr …

So now, again harking back to the articles, I have opened my heart more, I feel more connection with Mother Earth, I am listening better to my soul – I suddenly know how to give my gifts without strings and expectations, with an open heart and in gratitude for the gifts that I have been given. If anyone’s come of age here, it’s me! Oh, and maybe I’ve been publishing for 21 years for my own sake. I’ve certainly learnt a thing or two – and I hope you have also.

We have an interesting reader round-table this issue. I invited comment in an email to lots of people recently, comment on the ‘law of attraction’ – whether it works or not. I got 39 responses, including 20 full articles. You’ll find snippets from 19 of them in the magazine, and many more on our website, including some of the articles. It was wonderful to see how the heart and soul theme came out in these pieces too.

By the way, while the reader round-table represented a lot more work for me – and I need that like a hole in the head ;-), I think it produced a very worthwhile result. If you’d like to see a certain topic discussed, please let me know and I could email that out too. Also, if you’d like to subscribe to our email newsletters, so that you can find out about these things before they make it to the page, please subscribe on our website.

Speaking of our website, you’ll see that we’ve got a new facelift now, and that we’re celebrating our 21^st birthday by giving away so much – see the purple ads through this magazine. Please take advantage of the various significant freebies, and look at the cheap things while you are there too. Have a look also at our Courses, Workshops, Events (CWE) website (which you can hop to from our main website). It’s brand new. There are only a couple of offerings on it as yet, but they are yummy ones. You may like to subscribe to the CWE newsletter while you are there too.

I’ll leave you with words of wisdom from Stella, “Embrace the cooler weather and long dark evenings and snuggle up in bed with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate. Take the opportunity to slow down, rest and meditate and refuse to be rushed or pressured.” Hmmm… chocolate again.

With love,

Over nearly 21 years of publishing in this niche I have heard many advertising success stories – and failures too. There are often practical reasons why an ad works or doesn’t – to do with the copy used, especially headlines, the size, colour, placement, repetition, etc. However, my observations are that being in tune with the Universe has more to do with it than these and more than we might realise. I’ll list a few examples further down. Pardon that I couch them in negative terms, but they are easier to see that way.

Here’s what I cover below:

     The internet hampers synchronicity
     A man publishes a new paper just because the net hinders synchronicity!
     My observations of advertising failures when out of step with universal laws
     The internet and your results
     Cheap online presence about to get cheaper or free with LivingNow
     The déjà vu effect

The internet hampers synchronicity

Weird eh? Not really when you think about it. I observed a little while ago when an organisation took a very large ad to promote the visit of their famous teacher to Australia that the first month they had no actual details of the tour, even though they had buckets of room on their ad. They relied instead on people going to their website. Now, in this day and age readers certainly do (more of that below), but, apart from the proportion of people who do not use the internet, they were missing out on synchronicity. How? Imagine two friends having a coffee and they flick through the magazine together. Their eyes light upon the event, they see it is on the 23^rd, say, and in a venue accessible to them, and they decide right there and then that they will go together. Individually they would not necessarily have gone.

A man publishes a new newspaper just because the internet hinders synchronicity!

My daughter Emma heard an interview on radio the other day with a guy, Ross Floate, who is starting a new free newspaper in Melbourne, "And Now It's In Print", based on finding what’s good on the internet and publishing it in print. The interviewer was puzzled about this – why would he do it when the internet is free and so readily available?

Ross and his business partners believe that print allows synchronicity to work seeing that, when we surf the net, we THINK we know what we are looking for. When we see things in print, if something catches our eye, it can be more of an ‘aha’ experience. Many people tell me they saw something three times* and just knew they were meant to do it. I’ve even heard a few people say they stick pins into the pages to see what they should do ;-)

My observations of advertising failures when out of step with universal laws

• If you have ‘stuff’ happening in your life, the Universe protects you from overwhelm and stops your phone ringing and emails popping in until such time as you can cope with the extra work.

• If you are unsure of your product, path or service, or you don’t have the premises organised yet, then you don’t put out the proper intention to be fulfilled.

• Even not having a date specified in your ad can put out a wobbly intention, e.g., you think, “I’ll just put out that I will offer this workshop and if I get people then I will make a date”.

• Belief that the ad will not work for some reason, e.g., you don’t like the colour it printed, or the page it was on, or your friend said something negative. Once you get it into your mind that the ad will not work, that’s what you get. I know that sounds too simplistic, but I have seen that happen so many times over the years that I actually had a section about this in my book, Seven Angels Helped Me, as an example of how powerful our thoughts are. So it is a good idea to look at your ad on the page in a loving way, send loving vibrations to it – reiki if you have that ability.

The internet and your results

We all love the internet and could not do without it. However, it has largely removed your opportunity to speak with prospective clients personally.

When people see your ad in print, they will google you rather than ring you. Even if you don’t list a website, they will still see what they can do to find out about you on the net. If what they find does not suit them for one reason or another, then you will likely never know that they were looking at you. If they buy from you, they will tell you that they found you on line. They do not tell you, unless you dig it out of them, that your magazine ad prompted them to look for you on line.

(A 2007 American survey showed that 46% of people who went to a search engine to look someone up did so as a result of seeing a magazine ad. I imagine that is even bigger these days, don’t you?)

So just beware of that phenomenon when advertising in print. You can no longer judge the efficacy of the ad by the phone ringing.

Cheap online presence about to get cheaper or free

Also, of course, it means that you need a good presence on line. We have cheap websites combined with premium listings on livingnow.com.au, and they are about to get even cheaper. Also, coming by the end of June, we have significant online freebies to give away on our site which will, by then, have a revamp. So you can email Justine, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and ask her to let you know when the renovations and extensions are finished.

Warm wishes
Elizabeth Jewell (previously Stephens)

* The déjà vu effect
You can aid this process by taking advantage of our permanent offer of ‘buy two and get the third free’ in our People Pages. We call it the déjà vu effect. It certainly works, especially if you use a photo or logo in your ad, as people see your picture bobbing up everywhere. Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you want the ad rates.

First of all you need to be in balance physically. I’ve found this when following Jost Sauer’s 24 hour chi cycle. Although it is outwardly a physical regime, I feel more connected with the Universe when I am following it to the letter. Sadly, I slip quite often due to print deadlines!

In his article in this issue, Jost in fact explains why I’ve experienced the better connection: “Our hun, or ethereal soul, travels to the astral world and returns with advice about why we are here. Our soul purpose becomes clearer, and each day we are more in flow with who we really are and what our destiny is, and our actions will reflect this. As the soul comes fully forward, you will feel fulfilled, and happiness and joy arise. You will understand the meaning of your life and what you really need will come to you.”

This ‘connection when in balance’ idea is taken further in a tiny article about Peruvian shamans and a balancing ritual you can undertake: “Central to their cosmology is the understanding that the universe is benign, and only seems predatory when we are out of balance. They believe that the world mirrors back our own state of ayni or right relationship. Coming back into ayni, allows the Universe to work on our behalf once again, restoring the flow of synchronicity.”

Then Chip Richards beautifully illustrates the same point in his encounter with dolphins, but I cannot tell you more here or it will spoil the story for you.

The big theme which just evolved for this issue a few weeks ago is happiness. Oh, I am so delighted with the way this has panned out. We have different perspectives here, and so profound and thought-provoking. In fact, we could not fit all the articles in this print edition. So there are more on our website. Just search under the articles for the word ‘happiness’ and see the ones with the current dates.

Eckhart Tolle has this to say about happiness in The Power of Now: “So in the unenlightened, mind-identified condition, what is sometimes wrongly called joy is the usually short-lived pleasure side of the continuously alternating pain/pleasure cycle. Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within. The very thing that gives you pleasure today will give you pain tomorrow, or it will leave you, so its absence will give you pain.”

As far as our happiness authors this issue, the bon mots coming from their pens are abundant. I really do urge you to read the full articles for yourself, as the time has well and truly come for us all to step up, especially as we approach 2012. Here are a few happiness tidbits to whet your appetites:

* What I only slowly began to understand was that spiritual happiness is not the absence of anything.

* We only see happiness in negative terms, as the absence of something. This makes happiness very elusive because conditions have to be just right. If conditions are not right then we can’t find happiness.

* So true happiness – if we can think about this for a second – has no opposite pole. Ordinary happiness, which we all want and is a good thing as well, always has an opposite pole.

Hugh Mackay:

* “How can I become happier?” is a classic sign that we’ve missed the point. (“How can I be more useful?” might be getting warm.)

* To be fully human – to be ‘normal’ – is to be occasionally engulfed by waves of grief or sadness, and stymied by feelings of despair, doubt or disappointment.

* It’s easy to be sceptical about the pursuit of happiness, partly because happiness – at least as that term is commonly used in the modern world – is one of the most passive, elusive and unpredictable of emotions, but also because many people report that their most significant personal growth and development has come from pain, not pleasure.

True Indigo:

* Happiness is love measured in gratitude.

* When happiness is a desire, then it expresses an un-state of being happy. When it is a “goal” it is something “out there” that needs to be chased. Happiness is being happy.

* Any ‘law’ of attraction built upon promoting want and desire as a way toward abundance will result only in a happiness deficit being created, maintained, fed, and enlarged.

* Anyone who can feel love can feel happy. Anyone who wants to feel love more minutes of the day can feel happy more minutes of the day. There seems to be some kind of stunning misunderstanding that any of this is difficult. The proof has to be simple or the theory can’t be true.

* At the moment the self understands it cannot trust either the ego or external objects to bring it true happiness, it begins manufacturing happiness on its own. It takes responsibility for its own emotional state. Getting what you want actually makes you unhappy.

Hmmm… What do you think about happiness? Is it something we can drum up at will? Are we the victims of our circumstances? Is happiness all that we should want? What is happiness really? Have fun on this rewarding journey.

With love