These are some of the letters we’ve received in response to our appeal (see below).
Our profound thanks to those who have sent in subscriptions, gift subscriptions, and gifts.
— Ed.
Forgive me my fickleness, but I’ve decided once again to renew. If I have to skip a meal or two, or even a tank of gas, by God, it’s certainly worth it.
John Evaskovich
Albuquerque, New Mexico
The perfection of the last issue helped me decide THE SUN is a necessity rather than an extra. I enjoy the company I’m keeping through THE SUN. I’m especially grateful to Jean Kearns Brown for her clear articulation of a viewpoint I share. Always glad, too, to hear what David Spangler is doing — he seems to have a good handle on all this New Age energy. After I finished reading this issue (58), I had one of those rare and gratifying experiences of seeing what this business of being human is about and rejoiced to be a part of it. Thank you for bringing all this together.
Beverly McFarland
Cedar Crest, New Mexico
THE SUN (issue 57) just arrived at the office. I stuffed it into my take-home pile, so as not to lose it in my piles of reference cards and Xeroxed journal articles.
Now, several hours later, I sit in my favorite cafe, The Graaf Floris, with THE SUN open before me and moist eyes. What a marvelous thing, this creation of yours! A person, a place, and a philosophy burst from each sentence — and they all touch me deeply, and make me know I love them.
This is, for me, a leveling from the remarkable juggling of the scientific and the mystical which my life is. Only now, my wine glass empty, can I see this clearly.
The message — send more SUNs, but please send them faster. Would air mail be possible? Bill me for the costs.
Jerry Solfvin
Utrecht
Holland
I enjoyed your letter. I appreciate your candidness about money.
I’m sending you twelve dollars for a gift subscription for my favorite aunt. She is fifty-one years old and has somehow escaped the limitations of her West Texas upbringing. She is becoming a “wise old woman” just like those wonderful creatures found in fairy tales.
Grace Ellen Ayres
Lubbock, Texas
Five years ago, when I met you, you were peddling THE SUN on the streets and I was walking down Franklin Street. At that time I wrote poetry and had no money so I gave you poems. Now I write only memos but have a larger income. . . .
THE SUN is good. It remains one of my favorite indicators of the Eternal Validity, and so forth.
Please keep on doing this — we would all lose if you lost THE SUN.
Ebba Kraar
Raleigh, N.C.
Friends,
Six years ago, when I started THE SUN, I knew every subscriber and every contributor. It was personal journalism in the most literal sense — emerging from a family of free-thinkers sharing with each other their most personal visions. Sometimes the words were raw and unpolished, sometimes they gleamed. The openness and unpredictability of the conversation — like talk among friends around the kitchen table at night — made it unique.
For 58 issues, we’ve been at it. The family has grown, but the intimacy prevails. Not everyone is known by name, but everyone has a place at the table. Sometimes you’re put to sleep, sometimes you’re angered, sometimes the truth in someone’s words parts the night.
Sometimes the talk turns to money — not without embarrassment, since I’d prefer to keep the unpaid bills out of sight, and let the ideas flow, and make sure the glasses are full. But I’ve got to lay everything on the table, because I can’t take THE SUN’s existence for granted, and neither can you.
We don’t make enough money to pay our bills. And there’s no way to trim expenses further. We use the least expensive printer in the state. Nobody who writes for the magazine gets paid, nor do most of those who work here. My salary is $100 a week. A rare combination of ingenuity and grace sustains us, but there’s a limit to how many unpaid bills we can juggle.
The Ram Dass benefit last May was an enormous help, but all that money went to pay off old debts, accumulated when we were putting out larger, more expensive issues in an effort to attract new readers. There are yet more bills dating back two or three years. Our creditors have been remarkably patient, but they won’t wait forever.
We get no outside funding; we’re too unorthodox — a mixed blessing — to fit any of the grant categories. Our income derives from advertising, newsstand sales, and subscriptions. We’re already doing everything we can, without being manipulative or downright dishonest, to earn more.
What can you do? If everyone who read the magazine subscribed, and if everyone who already subscribes gave a gift subscription, our long-term survival would be assured.
I’m asking you to send us $12 for a subscription, or a gift subscription, at a time when nearly everyone is complaining about inflation. You know your pocketbook — how much you spend on necessities, and extras. And you know whether THE SUN is an extra for your inner life, or a necessity.
It contradicts the spirit of our dialogue for me to sweet-talk you. Either we keep talking, late into the night — planting our elbows and our dreams on the table — or we don’t. Either the pleasure you get when the magazine arrives makes you want to help, or it doesn’t.
— Sy Safransky
