[Carol]

Just a quick observation. In the past all the farmers would gather on the porch of the general store or the pot belly stove and talk about the weather. Their survival depended upon their collective knowledge, know-how and intuition.

I kind of think of this forum as the old-timers' porch where folks sit and chat about what they see going on around them. The younsters are filled with fear of the unknown while the old-timers are more relaxed because they've been through enough roller-coaster rides to know things may get rough but they generally will work out in the end.

Remember how it feels being on the roller coaster and climbing to the top... and then looking straight down knowing there is no escape, only the terrifying ride straight down. The thrill that comes later is knowing one survived both their fear and the experience.

Avalon is a place where folks are recording their experiences which vary in a variety of forms. Some folks are climbing up that hill of aniexty, others are facing downward in a terrifying ride of information overload, while others are calming strolling along having gone through this process before and having already digested the info that's out there.

Perhaps the best one can do is to encourage the others that they can indeed weather the storm as they have what it takes inside of themselves to do so.