Walking through misty fog this morning, an eerie sight struck me. There was no one in the park. It was 8am and normally such walks deliver a smattering of walkers, joggers, dog runners, and strollers out for fresh air. Today, first of December, the weather was actually quite refreshing, but the leisurely people were conspicuously missing. Admittedly, it had been several weeks since I ventured out at this hour… but something felt different.

Perhaps it’s the holidays — people are too busy for ambles now. Shopping, working early, leaving early, shopping again, planning, writing greetings cards, editing holiday video cards, organizing parties, buying Christmas blend beans and sipping pumpkin spiced lattes. These must dos take time and time is money.

Elephants

And we can’t forget our friendly elephant. Obviously, we’re still in a recession. Layoffs still burn headlines and fill the ears of tight urban circles. Just last week, a friend’s employer let go of three bigwigs with decades of ’seniority’. Like that. Apparently there was a need for restructuring and dismantling of redundant operations. I picture the board seething and lashing out ultimatums, in sadomasochistic fashion — either you cut staff or we cut you — up. This is war and the weak shall perish. This is survival, and people are dying everywhere of fear and hunger and the bad flu. No one denies that.

Autumn Leaves

Autumn urges blend dying with rebirth every second. Until two days ago, decaying leaves carpeted my front yard. Some kind of guilty impulse pricked me outside to rake and scoop up the fallen miracles. I budgeted 20 minutes (with a total allowance for 30 minutes) to enact the messy task. Ninety minutes later I stumbled indoors, gushing at the warm embrace of home.

You may know this, but the weight of wet leaves is awesome. It’s like a hurricane of heaviness. It bestows glacial powers on these fibrous blueprints to suck other organic matter  — like cat poo and slugs — into their fray. I also uncovered a rotting cat food tin and a bouncy ball. The tin I understand was used as a slug tavern, likely by my neighbor, to capture and drown the pests in a soup of yeasty beer. I guess it didn’t work. Some creatures survive at any cost.

Curious Intentions and Bloggers

“Neither rain, nor sleet, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” says the unofficial U.S. postal credo. I love this. It seems apropos here — failure is not an option. Sometimes, this sentiment wins the hearts of fans, but on a bad day it could fuel the antagonism of nations. Either way it’s an echo to our past when solidarity and right action united people into the ‘good’ camp of heroes, angels, and athletes.

Today as 20th Century infrastructure collapses around us, I’m seeing that being heroic is less about being tough and more about being human. Big companies are seeing that, too. Corporate goliaths, bullies to the little guy, can get hammered by bloggers and low comment ratings in a heartbeat. Today anyone can be a hero just by forging a meaningful relationship with those they’ve never met and adding value online. Our heroes now are tweeters, texters, youtubers, and sharers and they drive the latest technology to do their bidding. Hello Rotten Tomatoes.  Thank you Google, TechCrunch and Wikipedia.

Google Roots

I first heard the word “Google” in 1999 at my first job in the Internet field. I was a junior copywriter and I was walking from a meeting with senior colleagues who were lobbing opinion about this new search tool — Google — and how it compared to Ask Jeeves, the hot search du jour. I was enchanted — that name, my god, that name was killer! And I never forgot it. This is the power of branding in the perfect storm — the super-hyped Web kingdom was about to tumble, and Google, in all its simplicity and geeky brilliance, was perfectly poised to scale new worlds.

I like to think of Google as the progenitor of a democratic Web. Its simple, human approach to search and making sense of info paved inroads for wikis and other self-directed adventures. Today, I am posting a WordPress blog entry because Google enamored billions to the power of search and finding one’s own way. That makes me smile. Perhaps at Google right now some new wave of insight is enticing a green entrepreneur to publish her first blog. New ideas, new freedom. The choices are astounding.

Finding a Flip

So my next hurdle is researching, comparing and buying the right Flip camcorder. I’m going to use Google to do this. Then straight to CNET, Amazon, and Wired. Then on to commenters and bloggers for their opinion. The need to self direct my journey is strong — but not without frustration and fatigue. This notion of putting everything at everyone’s fingertips is as empowering as it is isolating.

Store clerks no longer have the answers — these hourly earners with no time to do real product research can only be relied on to pitch sales jumbo to the unenlightened and ring up a “no shipping costs” purchase.

So I’m left to fend for myself. That’s when I turn to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Somebody I know who knows someone I have befriended surely will lead me from the fog to my destiny. Although the path is narrow and the future uncertain, it is the way nature intended.

When your head is full of greenish yellow funk, the world just looks different. The concept, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” has a whole new meaning. You’ve been there, I know.

I heard about this “notorious head cold” but, honestly, I felt untouchable. This was a naive, in denial, head-in-clouds oversight, I now admit. Just a few days previous to contracting the crud, I was thinking how oddly, refreshingly, effortlessly lucky I had been in totally avoiding the rumored nastiness. In fact, I felt great! Energetic, ready for spring (who isn’t!), making new business connections, smiling a lot, installing some art, even working on a new series of paintings. Wow. Things were rolling.

Then, literally, within 2 hours, I could feel a creeping up the back of my neck. After about 3 hours, I began to lose my voice. The next TWO DAYS I had NO VOICE at all. A week later, this pernicious beast had transformed 2 or 3 times and now attacks my eyes. Yellow crusties film my eyelashes. I know, gross. My nose runneth, My throat and glands swell like wet rags.

Yes, the world looks different when your body stops you in your tracks. Okay, it kind of sucks. Yet something else emerges when I pay attention. There is a sense that I’ve actually been awarded something very special, almost sacred, a state of being in which time, slowness, and shadow gazing take over. Think: Slumdog Millionaire wins worst cold ever. It’s magical thinking.

I move more slowly today because if I tread at normal velocity my head spins and phlegm surges. This is an excellent motivator to halt, assess and dive in deep. I find myself carving out buried treasures stuck, perhaps for decades, in the far reaches of my psyche. It’s like excavating missing pieces of myself. Such “tasks” don’t normally make my “to do” list. It’s kind of dizzying in a calming sort of way. Digging out layers of your soul requires altered consciousness. Are you following me?

I realize I have a choice here. I could curse the world for this massive inconvenience called ‘The Crud.’ And I could opt for sympathy gathering. But instead, I am searching for beauty.

This brings up an interesting metaphor. The world, in the form or our economy is suffering perhaps it’s worst head cold in 80 years. Many industries face near collapse. Mom and pops on “Main Street” are going under if their niche isn’t recession-proof. Print papers, like the Rocky Mountain News, stop the presses after 150 years. The fallout is historic and full of nastiness.

One silver lining, akin to said inner journey via flu onslaught, is the birth of a new social humility. Co-ops, community building, barter and trade, and new ways of imagining economic health surface in nostalgic wonderment. I personally attest to this. Instead charging a client for one of my services, which is how I, a student of our established (and now crumbling) socio-economic system, typically conduct business exchange… I offered to do a trade: my marketing services for his home contracting services. It’s working like butter. He gets a marketing booster shot and my spare room gets a cosmetic facelift — just what the doctor ordered.

But I am not alone in reviving the beauty of the barter in these rough times. Recently, the Wall Street Journal’s article about the trend to utilize trade transactions, instead of money, is a real wake-up call. Not only are small-to-medium companies turning to barter at higher frequency, experts specializing in setting up bartering relationships are growing in popularity. Check ‘em out: NuBarter.com, FloridaBarter.com, TrashBank.com, PeopleTradingServices.com, CareToTrade.com, and BarterQuest.com — are just a FEW (there are tons) barter and trade folks out there.

This remarkably simple way of sharing resources and co-creating success through barter is an ancient practice. Indigenous people, of which we were all once members, traded as a way of life. This idea seems new to some us today because we’ve existed with money and credit for so long, but it’s as natural as seasons changing.

A somewhat unique, though not entirely innovative (as they invoke time-tested intentional community methodologies) collective that “banks time” as a way of swapping services is the Echo Park Time Bank. Their premise: “For every hour you help another member, you earn a Time Dollar. Then you can use that Time Dollar to have a neighbor help you.” Is this the future, again returned to us from the past? Either way, this form of co-existing, and engendering cooperation and sweat equity, is on the rise. Sign me up.

Futuristic visionaries might describe our societal fate as Western hubris imploding on itself. As our armor of self-importance thins, we get back to basics: being human without building empires. So we’re learning to share again.

When I worked as a Web Marketing Specialist for Oregon Health & Science University, my supervisor (who I viewed as more a mentor than a boss), warned me about “empire builders.” I wasn’t exactly sure then what he meant, but years later, and a few bruises withstood, I get it. Here’s one way I would define empire builders: Anyone narrowly interested in their own gain and in furthering their ego and desire for personal power without regard for others.

Are ‘empire builders’ the culprits that sunk us down the eco drain in the first place? Let’s face it, we all wouldn’t mind having a couple of million and a beemer in the drive. Perhaps this is why the virus hitting us today is so severe: we’re being challenged to gaze beyond stuff and discover meaning in new ways. We’re seeing empires crumble and some of them are our own.

And then there’s Bettie Page. The notorious Bettie Page. On the surface she was pin-up queen, most natural soft porn seductress of all time. Yet, her fame was a product of illusion. Hungry eyes feasted on her glossy images, but behind the veil she was as innocent as Tennessee. Wearing sassy costumes (or going nude) was simple play-acting. She didn’t even drink alcohol. As she approached middle age, she disappeared from public eye and her legend grew. Seems her notoriety worked wonders.

This brings up perspective again. How and what we see makes our reality. Some saw Bettie Page, the illustrious sex symbol. Perhaps others knew a girl-next-door in search of herself. Maybe she got “the head cold from hell” one day and realized that pursuing religion was her next calling. Either way, she changed direction.

Today, it feels like the whole world is changing direction. Maybe this is a good thing. Whether it is or not, it’s happening. The wheels are in motion. Meaning is shifting and we’re returning to a fresh way of seeing. The million dollar house next door has solar panels and feeds its plants recycled water. Change is here. My head cold is waning. My eyes clear to a new day.