Interview conducted by "Smiling Eyes Cindy"

Sumara, can you tell me about your name and nationality? 

My first name and middle name, Sumara Elan, are names that I gave to myself about 15 years ago when I was going through a lot of changes in my life and intuitively felt I needed to be associated with different energies. Your name is a very powerful energy tool because it is a series of sounds that you hear often that are connected to your Soul Essence and activate energies within you that manifest both inside of you and outside of you. This can be very helpful, whether you are conscious of it or not. Sound and vibration are used extensively in alternative healing methods so knowing what those sounds mean and what they do can be very beneficial. I do Soul Name portraits for people using the artwork of several well-known artists that I work with, based upon the same principle. For a fuller explanation and samples of Soul Names you can go to this link: http://celestopea.com/Soul%20Name.htm. While Sumara Elan is not my Soul Name, like my Soul Name it contains energies that are very beneficial for me in my life. I think the best part of my name though is my last name, Love, which is my husband, Jesse’s birth name that I happily took when we were married. As far as my nationality goes, I’m mostly German and Scotch-Irish.

You mentioned to me about living on a Native American Reservation, can you also tell me how that affected you as a person?

I never lived on an Indian Reservation but I lived in a traditional Native American Community in northern Nevada named Meta Tantay (Walk in Peace) for several years in the late seventies and early eighties. It was governed by a Native American Medicine Man and his family. How it affected me as a person – my experience gave me a love and appreciation for the land and living in community which I have carried forward and incorporated into the Celestopea project.  

Can you please tell me how the Celestopea Times was created and what your goals for it were and are?

The Celestopea Times was created in 2004 as a means of giving our visitors to the Celestopea site something of additional value, which incorporated our principles of health, sustainability, artistic expression and exploration of mysteries and the unknown on a regular basis. With my background in graphic design and growing up with a Father as a major newspaper publisher, creating the Celestopea Times just seemed like a natural evolution. Our goals haven’t changed in that we desire to provide something of value to our readers that they can use each and every month to improve their lives in some way, whether that is in the health of their body, their mind, their artistic expression, or environmental awareness, including living a more sustainable lifestyle, that we feel is the foundation for a healthy life.

I see that you target many types of life and have a rich fascination and love for the best ways to live life on this earth.  Can you tell me how that came into play in your life and how it has now made your job and life more fulfilling?

Well, I grew up in a small town in the country and we always had a big garden with lots of fresh vegetables and my Mother was like Martha Stewart. She could make anything look beautiful and/or taste delicious. My Father felt that it was important for our education that we be exposed to different cultures so we traveled extensively throughout the world. As a result I really feel that I had the best of both worlds. I experienced a wholesome, healthy, creative home life while at the same time I had the opportunity to observe many different cultures around the world. As I got older, in my teen years, I developed a deep sense of spirituality that went beyond organized religion and a keen interest in learning about the arcane mysteries of life. It’s hard to think of life before the internet -- with information at your fingertips, but back then (mid seventies) there really was not a whole lot of information available on the topics that I was interested in, except in the area of Native American medicine. I was totally enthralled with Carlos Castanda’s books about the teachings of Don Juan, a Yaqui Indian who did amazing things, things that were unexplainable in my world. From there I devoured every book I could find on Native American healing, which then led me to the Native American Community I ended up living in. So those were my early life experiences that I feel had the strongest influence on the choices I made and continue to make in life that have led me down the path I’m on. I don’t know as if my experiences have made my life more fulfilling…I think it has more to do with a person’s attitude and the desire to explore new horizons that makes it so. So often it seems that people get stuck in ruts, whether it’s with their habits or just the way they think that doesn’t allow them to progress to their fullest potential in life and I don’t think you can be totally fulfilled unless you allow yourself to be open to new possibilities, which is what I make an effort to do.

As an Editor, what do you look for professionally in a story and or art/music to know that your guidelines for your publications are at their best?

I look for articles that fall into one of the categories that we offer in the Celestopea Times and that I feel contains something of value. As for the artists, I look for those who have a passion for what they do, which shows in their work, so it isn’t as much about ability because that can always be developed, as it is about heart, although I feel that we have featured outstanding artists, every one.

There is a burning question I have for you as an editor and writer.  Please tell me your professional opinion on what you believe are good boundaries to have as a writer, or to not offend or make assumptions for the benefit of a good story, and to protect yourself and your company. 

As far as boundaries go, as a writer I feel that as long as your topic is presented respectfully and truthfully, even if it is not a conventional subject matter, then if someone takes offense, it is their problem, not yours. Any time you are writing on subjects that are on the periphery of conventional topics, you run the risk of offending someone. All you can do is be true to yourself, honest with your facts, and let the readers draw their own conclusions without being attached to the outcome because you are never going to please everyone all the time. I feel that responsible journalism means that you do not “assume” anything, but involves checking the facts and presenting them in a truthful manner. However, as many stories are reported according to personal or biased beliefs, you can take the same story and get several different perspectives, which often times contradict one another. So it is really up to the reader to discern the validity of the points or premise by checking more than one source. Most of the articles contained in the Celestopea Times are gathered from other publications that we have found reputable, so other than the interviews, we do not do the writing for the most part, but we strive to carry articles that will encourage our readers to think and help them to improve their daily lives in some manner.

What is your opinion on “Freedom of Speech” and how it applies to most writers and editors? I am just dying to know how an editor and writer feels when they write between the issues of good reporting and writing verses moral standards that do not over step boundaries such as local news and TV Shows do reporting and their duties to both.

I feel that Freedom of Speech is vital to the foundation of human rights. Freedom of speech and the rights of a free press are bedrocks of a sound country. Of course I feel that an editor should have a moral compass, which is easier to do if you can separate news from gossip.  When it comes to open and transparent government, I'm a big believer in the publics right to know.  But when it comes to the personal lives of celebrities I think the public’s right to know does not extend into any part of their private lives they are not willing to voluntarily share.  Just because someone is a public figure doesn't mean all parts of their life also have to be public.  Sometimes it is a fine line that you walk as a journalist and I think it comes back to responsible journalism. However, when it comes to the current administrations suppression of all forms of free speech I can get quite incensed.  There was a case reported just today, in USA Today, about Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, who was abducted by CIA agents in December 2003 as he boarded a bus in Germany for a vacation to Macedonia.  According to Mr. el-Masri, he was beaten, drugged, bound, blindfolded and taken to a prison in Afghanistan where he was continually tortured and interrogated for five months.  Eventually the CIA realized they had the wrong man, or as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, he had been "erroneously taken."  Mr. el-Masri filed suit against the US government for violations of US constitutional and international law. The Supreme Court ruled today that they were unable to hear his case because the Bush administration claimed doing so would "reveal state secrets."  This is based upon a high court ruling in 1953 that allows the government to withhold information if "there is a reasonable danger" that disclosure would threaten national security.  The current US administration has greatly curtailed free speech and the citizens right to know by using this and many other stonewalling tactics to shroud its activities in secrecy and operate more like a dictatorship than a democracy.  Just for comparison, at the height of the cold war, from 1953 to 1976, the tactic of withholding information from the public to protect "national security" was only used 6 times by all the US presidents combined, but the secretive Bush administration, has already used it 39 times just since 2001, according to OpenTheGovernment.org.  There can be no free speech if nobody is allowed to know the facts about what is going on.  How can you protest or present a different point of view if you are not even allowed to know what is happening, to be able to decide if you agree or disagree with it?  This erosion of the American citizen’s right to know, and by knowing - right to speak, has become so pervasive in the last 6 years that freedoms we have always taken for granted are becoming like endangered species.

Please tell me how you became an Editor and Writer and what education if any you had to become a professional or if you were self taught?  Also if you had schooling in your area of expertise where did you get it?

As I mentioned previously, my Father was a newspaper publisher, owning over a hundred newspapers around the world, so it is somewhat in my blood so to speak. Beginning in high school I worked my summers either at corporate headquarters or one of the newspapers, moving from department to department, learning the business, from the press room to the editor’s office (not as the editor – the editor’s secretary) and everything in between. My favorite job was working in the darkroom putting the photographs in the correct dot format to print. Things have progressed a lot since then as everything is now done on computers, saving a lot of time, money, and resources, to the point that we don’t even need to destroy trees and use toxic inks to publish the news any more. It can all be done online and I think there will come a point when we will no longer have any printed copies of any newspapers – why get your hands dirty with dirty newsprint when you can read everything online on a clean laptop. I’ve always been a hands-on person. I learn best by jumping in learning as I go along verses someone who likes to study every little detail before they get started on anything, so while I went to college after high school studying art and business, after two years I was ready to “experience life” which is when I decided to make my move to Meta Tantay. My study of art shifted to Native American designs and crafts, and even though my art has evolved to different levels, it continues to be influenced by my earlier experiences. A lot of what I know has been self-taught, such as graphic design and web design, but I continue to take classes at the local college if there is something that interests me that I would like to learn. I think continuing education is very important to keep your mind active and to broaden your horizons, otherwise your life has the possibility of becoming stagnant and for me life is all about learning and growing from your experiences. “Seek knowledge everyday; for ignorance is slavery, and knowledge is freedom; and these enliven your soul.” Revelation Bible, Vivus 27:62

Please tell me what your goals as a person in this life are and what you plan to accomplish with your life and what your dreams are?

Together with my husband Jesse and other visionaries, I have been working since 1996 to bring the floating ocean communities of Celestopea (http://celestopea.com) to fruition and this is still a big goal and endeavor of mine.  We are working to show by example that people from diverse cultures and religions can live together in a community of peace, prosperity and health.  We have some very innovative technologies that we look forward to sharing with the people of the world to help their lives as well.  I also maintain my raw foods website (http://raw-foods-recipes.com) as a means to introduce the benefits of raw foods to people and provide many recipes and other information to help people truly enjoy and benefit from this lifestyle that I sure will evolve over time.  Jesse and I do fused glass art together and have a website, http://loveglassart.com that I am sure will also evolve to include different forms of art as we move from one media to another. We have very different styles so you can probably tell which are mine and which are his as mine are very geometric except for “Millefiori Pinwheel” and his are very freeform. On a spiritual side, I am one of the founders of the Church of Celestine Light (http://celestinelight.org) and love the good work I am able to do through that organization.  Take a moment to read the Comments section on the website and you'll get an idea of how profoundly people have been affected by the unique material we present.  Getting emails on a regular basis from people around the world sharing how their lives have been helped is a great motivator to apply myself even more to the effort and gives great meaning and inspiration to my life.

As a person that likes helping others, are there any words of wisdom on life that you want to share or advise you can give others to help them succeed in what they do?

Learn to listen to your mind and your heart – give your mind enough information to make good decisions and allow your heart to feel whether you’ve made a good choice or not. All too often people make decisions based solely upon what their mind thinks, which is sometimes founded upon lack of information, or just on what their heart feels which can be easily swayed by the influence of others. The secret is to combine the two to get a balanced solution to any situation. Also it is important to believe in yourself. Do whatever is necessary to build your self esteem and do what inspires you to do in life. I think all too often people get stuck doing things that they don’t enjoy doing to make a living, which ends up consuming their lives, because they never believed in themselves enough to create their dreams. Lastly, find joy in every day of your life. If you don’t, as you get older you become like sour grapes, and nobody likes sour grapes. Joy is what gives life meaning and keeps us young at heart no matter how old we get. Life in mortality is but a blink in our eternity and it is meant to be enjoyed and lived to the fullest so don’t let it slip through your fingers, because before you know it, you’ll turn around and say, “Wow, it seemed like just yesterday…where did the time go?” Life is challenging and we will always be climbing up the mountain.  But we have to make sure we stop and smell the roses along the way and enjoy the important things in life, and not just fritter our precious time away, on the contrary, we are actually making progress up the mountain; and if we do, what a joyful journey it can be!