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.