A Social Network Toolbox

One of my favourite TV-shows as a child during the 70´ties was a very pedagogic program teaching the meaning of words. I realise this doesn´t sound very exciting, but  not only would the nose of the main character Hedvig transform like Pinocchio´s everytime she pretended to understand a word, Hedvig also lived in a strange caravan in the forest with a speaking owl on the roof , and best of all, she had a telephone connected to a TV where she could SEE her sister when they where speaking. This seemed so cool, and I always dreamed to have such a telephone. Nowadays I speak quite frequently with my sister on Skype, but, honestly, we´re both still amazed that we´re actually able to do that "Hedvig-thing" and I´m often facinated how fast all this once science-fiction-things like computers and mobile phones with internet and social networks and picture-sharing etc. have come to be a normal part of everyday life for som many people. They´ve become so normal that it´s easy to forget that it´s also still a mystery for an even bigger crowd of other people.

Anyway, after just attending the first weekend for the Barbara Sher Coach Training, I today spent the whole afternoon trying to guide a fellow coach student into the magic world of  Skype, yahoo-groups and other social media tools that Barbara insists that we all should use.  It was a very nice afternoon, but we didn´t make it all the way, and while knowing she´s just one of MANY struggeling with this things I feel that I want to collect the most important sites - and some instructions - in one place. So, here´s a start - please tell me if I forgot something! (My comments are based on FAQ - freakvently asked questions)

Upon dragonflies and diaries

Last summer I had breakfast with a dragonfly. I was drinking tea in the morning sun outside my cottage in Sweden when the dragonfly parked itself on my shoulder. It was sitting there for several minutes, totally motionless, looking like a brooch. All of a sudden, it took off, but returned just as fast, now with a fly or whatever bug it had caught. And so we where sitting there together again, me drinking my tea and eating my toast, the dragonfly crunching its prey. The sun was shining, birds where singing, and it all felt very peaceful. I didn’t want to interrupt our meeting, but I really had a lot of things I needed to do, so after a while I stood up to get going. Just before entering the house, the dragonfly reluctantly left my shoulder

At the time, my sister was very much into a book called “The language of the animals”. It’s kind of a shamanic dictionary, claiming that when one’s having a special experience with an animal (in real life or in a dream) the animal brings you a message. There are hundreds of animals in the book, for each explained with a few sentences what they’re “saying”. I asked my sister what the dragonfly wanted to tell me, and she said the message was that I have a great spiritual gift that I should use, and that I have a strong intuition. I never considered myself being “spiritual” – in fact, I find the word kind of scary – but my intuition often does speak strongly to me. Most of my life I’ve been trying not to listen to it, but after that breakfast I decided to try not to turn it down again.