Posting this here as it seemed to me a little too speculative, a little too doomish for the main list. (Learned way back not to read scary stories to the kids at bedtime...)

Let's say a small family group goes off to camp in the forest, hoping to avoid possible civil disturbances and/or severe infrastructure problems in the city at or following rollover. Let's say they're well prepared, well supplied, and all members are experienced campers. Let's say they've located a suitably remote location, arrive there in a timely way without problems, and are undisturbed during their tenure there.

Yet however well supplied they are, those supplies are finite. Unless this is the Swiss Family Robinson, their plans will include their eventual return to the mainstream.

If no serious troubles occur in the city they left, they'll be back home within a few weeks at most.

But if things have gone bad, how will they know when to return? How can they be sure that conditions in the city are suitable? Will they have confidence in official proclamations?

Some years ago, when I first read Mark Helprin's A Winter's Tale this passage really struck me:

"No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is; at least nothing that is worthwhile. I didn't bring you up only to move across sure ground. I didn't teach you to think that everything must be within our control or understanding. Did I? For if I did, I was wrong. If you won't take a chance, then the powers you refuse because you cannot explain them, will, as they say, make a monkey out of you."

That may be the only real answer to these questions....

-- Anonymous, October 20, 1999

Answers

Tom,

Swiss Family Robinson was one of my FAVORITE kid's books. Even have 1916 copy with beautiful illustrations. (Belonged to my father).

As of this timing, I'd say, if the inner guidance so guides... go Native... American that is. Walk softly in stealth moccasins, and become as the shadows... observing.

(And keep the BayGen handy too).

I "feel" like we've got until after Christmas... but I'm depressed enough to recognize that low energy is clouding my ability to be "in tune." So it's time for a spirt tune-up.

Could be key... to flowing and shifting with elusively blowing winds of change.

Diane

-- Anonymous, October 20, 1999