CyberWeave

It was inevitable, of course. It was only a matter of time before the chain letter phenomenon hit e-mail. I received my first e-mail chain letter in January of this year. It was a rather sweet little poem that promised blessings if passed on. There were no dire "if you don't do this" warning, however, so I did pass it on to a few friends that both enjoy and write poetry. It was easy, after all. I just attached a little note of my own, flipped open my e-mail address book to select my friends and pressed "Forward".

In early March, I received my second chain letter. The subject line heralded this one as "Lessons that help us not to create guilt". The poem was a thought provoking one about friendship and failing to say, "I Love You" until it's too late. Here are some excerpts:

Around the corner I have a friend
In this great city that has no end,
Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone
And I never see my old friend's face,
For life is a swift and terrible race¼

"Tomorrow" I say, "I will call on Jim
Just to show that I'm thinking of him."
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
And distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner! - yet miles away,
"Here's a telegram sir -
Jim died today."

So far, so good. The message is indeed about avoiding guilt. The problem came with the directions: 'Within 1 hour you must send this to other people. Within five days you will have a miraculous occurrence in your relationships¼"

Aha! I'm supposed to do things in my life to avoid guilt, but if I don't send this to other people (10 to be exact), then I have an automatic guilt trip placed upon me. What's wrong with this picture?

So, dear reader, what do you think? Have you any e-mail chain letter stories you'd like to share? What is your opinion of this phenomenon? Please send your stories and opinions to Monty764@aol.com. I'll incorporate them into a future column.

I decided that one way to review local spiritually-oriented web sites is to flip open The Monthly Aspectarian and check out the site(s) that appear on that page. The magazine fell open to a page featuring the Evanston-based store Essential Elements [soon to be known as Perfumes by Kamala] (www.kamala.com). Checking out this web site turned out to be an adventure that led me to several other interesting links.

First, let me tell you about the Essential Elements site, known on-line as Kamala Perfumes, Inc. This is a business site that focuses on selling incense, oils, scents, body care products, herbs, candles, books, etc. The site is simple to navigate and demonstrates that a business site can also provide a wealth of useful information.

For example, if you click on the "Herb Products" category, you go to a page featuring an alphabetical list of herbs coupled with descriptions of their physical and spiritual uses. Similar set-ups exist for other categories. This makes the site both a commercial and a learning experience. The best of both worlds combined into one.

You get the feeling that the company really cares about how their products positively impact their customers. For example, in the "Essential Oils" section, there is a guide that lets you know whether pregnant women or epileptics shouldn't use particular oils and whether an oil could be a skin irritant.

I do have two suggestions that would make this site even better. The alphabetical lists are very long. You can click on an A - Z letter at the top to take you to a section of the list. But there's no way to get back to the top except by scrolling. Using periodic "Back to the Top of Page" anchors would fix this problem.

Another suggestion: Some pages, like "Herb Products" print out just fine. Information on other pages like "Essential Oils" prints is partially cut off. A rule of thumb in web design is that if you want your visitors to be able to print out information, keep your page width to about 535 pixels.

While visiting the Kamala Perfumes, Inc. site, a banner ad about The Occult Link Exchange caught my eye. I clicked on the link and found myself at the AvatarSearch site (www.AvatarSearch.com). AvatarSearch is a search engine devoted entirely to the Occult and Occult-related interests. It has some other interesting features including a "Community Bulletin Board" and a forum section called "The Magickal Neighborhood".

"The Magickal Neighborhood" consists of 12 forums: Pagan Dialogs, Native American Paths, African Spiritual Traditions, General Mysticism, Dark Mysteries, Light Mysteries, Thelemic Discussions, Eastern Philosophy, Paranormal, Alien and UFOs and Avatar Tech Support. A word of advice: If you request information via a forum, keep checking back. Sometimes it takes months for someone to reply. For example, someone requested information about Faery Wicca on December 3, 1997 and received replies on June 3, 1998 and December 13, 1998.

There are several categories under Recommended Web Sites -- everything from "Art Links" to "Religious Rights Info" to "Vampirism". I clicked on "Divination" and went to a section listing and reviewing 19 related sites with names "A Spider Moon's Free Astrology", "Ravensong's Tarot" and "The I Ching on the Net". I clicked on "Tarot Inspiration - The Book of Thoth" and was off on another Internet adventure.

Tarot Inspiration, (www.geocities.com/Paris/2110) is a treasure-trove of information for anyone interested in learning more about the tarot. It is a well-designed site with neat index-tab buttons at the top that make for easy navigation. The "Cards" section invites you to select a suite and a card from The Book of Thoth tarot. The selected card appears along with various interpretations submitted by tarot readers. The "Layouts" section features in-depth information about various tarot spreads. And the "Books" section is
linked to amazon.com and features several tarot-related titles. Tarot fans: the site is definitely worth a visit.

Check out www.worldpuja.org for information on the following events: April 3, 1999: Marianne Williamson; Global Prayer Pulse April 16, 1999: Healing Hearts, Healing Nations concert with Liz Story, Gregg Braden and Jimmy Twyman

Mary Montgomery-Clifford is a certified web author and developer. Her company, Montgomery Media Enterprises ("Freelancing with Finesse!"), specializes in public relations, events, promotions, writing project and web authoring, development and publicity. Contact her via e-mail at Monty764@aol.com or by phone at 773-235-8821.

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