St. Internet?

There has been a recent barrage of goodies in my email inbox. They have thoroughly entertained me, and they have seeded some larger thoughts as well.

Today´s favorite, passed along by a hilarious friend, complete with her personal commentary about the visually-stunned Swiss animal kingdom in need of some quick therapy, is that the Swiss government has banned nude hiking given the German tourists propensity for same. Nude hiking, who knew? Sunburn takes on a whole new meaning in this context.

Remember, the iconic doll Barbie? She was the plastic ideal of womanhood: hard, taut, and pointed. This year, Barbie turned 50, and someone created a picture of 50 year old Barbie that travelled the globe. I received mine from a friend in India; there was Barbie looking softer, squishier, and double-chinned. She is reclining on her color-coordinated chaise longue with computer, coffee, and take-out Chinese at hand. Her adventurous days and multiple costume changes appear seemingly behind her. Tempus fugit, even for Barbie dearest.

Teeny, tiny Belgium has recently been dominating the Internet with two special postings.

The first is a series of photographs that show the creation of a literal carpet of flowers – close to a million begonias – replicating a medieval carpet in the Grand-Place of Brussels. It´s breathtakingly beautiful.

And the second is a four-minute YouTube video of 200+ people at the Central Antwerp Railway Station doing a seemingly impromptu knock-out dance rendition to the Sound of Music "Do Re Mi" song by Julie Andrews. This is sheer happiness and joy. It is particularly fun to view the other travelers taking in what is happening around them. If you have missed this good time, here´s the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k&annotati=n_id=annotation_72265&feature=iv

And, of course, we have wept for the sheer beauty of voice when we have listened to Paul Potts and Susan Boyle. And, we have gasped with grief at the ravages of the earthquake in Italy, followed details about the Craigslist killer, and are keeping tabs on the creeping global sweep of the H1 N1 (aka swine) flu.

So much for six degrees of separation, everything is within clicking distance. There are no dress codes, time constraints, or entrance fees; one simply has to log on and, then, we are free to swim, surf, and ride the e-waves to our heart´s content.

Like many these days, I spend an inordinate amount of time on the Internet, reading and responding to emails, surfing the ´net for information, perusing blogs and columns, making travel plans, getting directions, and chasing the provocative, and often misleading, headline.

The World Wide Web is an amazing network. Everything is there. Indeed, we have the global town square, as well as the global market, library, university, and stage. All of us are forever changed by the instantaneous nature by which we can access information and make contact.

And like any teeming town square, whether 3D or virtual, there are also hucksters, hoaxers, perverts, and scam artists. As I said, everything is available on the Internet.

It has been said – and, undoubtedly, I read this somewhere on the Internet years ago – that during these current times, every five minutes, new information and knowledge is made available that is equivalent to the entire body knowledge known during the Renaissance. That gives me pause. Then, again, the world is more populated and developed. Think of science, technology, medicine, robotics, music, manufacturing, and ecology along with film making, electronics, space programs, business, transportation, archaeology, and anthropology plus every other category in today´s world. There may well be some veritable merit to that astounding statistic.

The Ancients teach us that we are all connected. And the web certainly does a bang-up job of showing us the truth of that. If you choose to look, you can see firsthand what is going on anywhere, any time.

The Internet teaches us the connectivity of us all; it smudges the divides, breaks down barriers, and levels playing fields. The world as we know it is shrinking; everything is more proximate. You can run, but you cannot hide. The world is at your door step.

And you can see everything. There are webcams, camera phones, videocams, digital cameras and so forth. The possibilities of making something visible are endless; coupled with a 24-hour world, there are images galore. Nothing is sacred; much is profane, or, at the very least, raw, inelegant and often geared towards titillation and/or shock. A picture does speak 1000 words, and those thousand-word pictures ping pong across, around, and over the globe.

And there are no distinctions. The ravaged, the needy, the glib, the superficial, and the mundane all dance across our screens, bobbing like individual stars in one big galaxy soup.

We are knee deep in the Age of Information. I suggest that that the consciousness of those that designed the web and its expansive permutations are creating a template that will mimic the human energetic in days to come.

In other words, the Internet is a precursor, a learning tool to teach all of us the yet-to-come energetic ways of being. And the ways of energy are simple: everything is connected, and there are no secrets.

Can you imagine how you would live if you operated from the deeply held belief system that everything you do is part of the world fabric? I think that we all might try harder to be better, kinder, more responsive and more responsible.

And the idea that there are no secrets, absolutely no secrets in the world is a bit of a heart-thumping thought. Picture living your life where everything was right out front; no hidden agendas, no subtexts, no lies.

That, my friends, is our future; a future filled with connectivity and visibility. The Internet has created the grid, the web of information. This web will, one day, morph into a web of light that sparkles with illumined consciousness, a world where we will all act from our Higher Selves.

I bow to the Internet for being such a good symbolic teacher.

Copyright 2009 by Adele Ryan McDowell