Dear Team:

I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year. I send greetings from America. From California. From Marin county just north of San Fransisco. From Lucas valley where the average price of a home is $600,000. Where the wealthy Yuppies try to jog away their big 9/11 worries. No. No. I have not struck it rich. I just have a few good friends in the right places. These friends are also pretty spiritual. Well, this has been quite a year for me, California, America and our planet Earth.

In 2001, the stock market crashed with high-tech stocks leading the way. The carnage was the worst since 1929. Recession quickly followed with unemployment and bankruptcies sky-rocketing. California had a major energy crisis with black-outs becoming routine. No. It was not in the Ukraine where this happened. It was here in the Sunshine State. Then 9/11 hit. Making 2001, a really complete disaster. Suicidal terrorism, war in Afghanistan and anthrax turned people's moods in a very grim direction. Of course, the fact that U.S. defense spending BEFORE 9/11 was now back at Cold War levels didn't seem to have really registered with most people.

It will soon be the first year anniversary of the translation project. Obviously the timing was lousy. Financial backing that was promised dried up pretty quickly and I had to leave Stockton on an unexpected odyssey through the Central California coast looking for money and also dealing with fast and difficult developments in my spiritual practise. We became a group mind somewhere along the way. Now we have to follow through somehow this year.

The radio promotion of Harvest will begin in earnest soon and I am gambling that we will find a patron this year. I will be going live during the morning commute as tens of thousands of Northern Californians go to work. I will be spreading the message of Harvest, but also sending out an invitation for someone with money to adopt the translation team. Only time will tell what happens next.

Talking to producers and hosts of radio talk shows has taught me that transmitting ideas to the media is an art that has to be mastered. What is Harvest of Gems all about, really? Well, it's about a free-style kind of pilgrimage which amplies the synchronicity surges surrounding the pilgrim. Synchronicity is holy coincidence. The more synchronicities converge. The more the miracles start coming one's way. The more the mind OPENS UP to the bigger space created by these miracles. Pilgrimage is about traveling through cultural and psychic kinds of energy fields and the stretching and blending that the mind must go through--within this process determines what kind of spiritual future the individual will have.

The Harvest pilgrimage is about surfing expanded mind spaces. Sometimes the mind barely keeps up with this process and that's when your spiritual protectors move in and keep you going. But what happens when the entire planet is having a pilgrimage and it dosn't even know it's happening? Well, that's what Harvest is all about too. We are heading for a new Copernican revolution. Harvest of Gems is probably one of the first NOETIC novels of the 21st Century. What is NOETICS? It's the science that explores where outer and inner spaces converge. It's the science and study of consciousness itself. Noetics comes from the Greek word " nous " meaning MIND. The term was coined by astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell. He was the sixth man to walk on the moon and his re-entry to Earth was the moment this big VISION seized him that OUTER SPACE is the flip-side of INNER SPACE. That both spaces are portholes for the discovery of spirituality and subtler forms of consciousness.

The Institute of Noetic Sciences is not too far from where I'm typing these words. Dr.Mitchell lives close by too. The Greek sign of Omega was used by Teilhard de Chardin to signify where the Global mind was going to. Dr.Mitchell uses the same sign to represent the Noetic adventure. Noetics deals with transpersonal psychology, madness, bio-feedback, meditation research, psychic phenomena, paraphysics, bio-technology, nuero-sciences, ecological awareness, systems theory, space travel and extra-terrestrial life, also death and near death experiences. This is the realm of Harvest of Gems. Buddhism is merely a door to explore many of these subjects. These subtler subjects can also lead to the spiritual path which is where Harevst of Gems points to aswell.

Between 1900 and up to now. Civilization has been heading towards a subtler kind of awareness as material values began to climax and bottom out. The avante-garde, world wars, and the atomic sciences along with the new electronic media began destroying the old mechanical sensate civilization of the west. By the 60's and 70's the Noetic revolution had finally begun. It was not just Beats, and Hippies, but also the NASA space program that triggered a confused and expanded awareness of where the Earth was heading to. The counter-culture and the establishment fed-off each other and also repelled each other. Earth became a religious icon for the first time with those glorious photos taken from the Apollo spacecraft and we are still digesting these symbols.

The noetic revolution went mainstream in the 80's and 90's as the Yuppies, the New agers, CNN and finally the internet took off. The Cold War also ended. Where are we heading now? Well, the noetic revolution is now going global. 2000-20 could see the YOPIS leading the way. They are the Yuppie-Yogis which are subtly featured in Harvest of Gems. The international space station and also wireless life could breed the latest OMEGA pioneers. They will succeed the Yopis. We have a long way to go. Most of the planet is poor and hungry. But the subtle life is familiar everywhere. There will be more " inner backlashes. " The religious radicals are now the anti-Yopis. We saw this clearly on 9/11. The Western world and especially America is still programmed for material plunder. But diminishing returns are now rapidly setting in.

The major surviving religions of the world must now dialogue whether they like it or not. A noetic and ecumenical discussion is now urgently needed among religions. The global mind which was always in existence is now waking up. We are all caught up in a single organic system whether we like it or not. The collective anxiety this is generating is both our challenge and salvation now. But I welcome this challenege. Let us move forward together.

Peace,

Michael