GENESIS OF NETWALKING

SECRETS OF A RAMBLING ROSE

The concept of Netwalking first began with a walk and an email that was sent to four people on March 6, 2009...

Here's a little seed I would like to plant with each of you, and here's the story behind it...

It begins with ShapeUp RI.  I'm on a ShapeUp team comprised of the E.G. School Department Wellness Committee.  As our team leader, Paul proposed a late afternoon team walk in Goddard Park as a group activity.  Paul is a doctor.  Paul and I were the only people to show up... and you know what?  We had a great one-on-one dialog, walking the park, with our pedometers ticking away.

As we walked, Paul and I talked about healthcare and pondered how it is that people aren't able carve out the time to come out and walk.  What have we come to?

Well, I woke up around 3:30 this morning, thinking about the one-on-one's I've had through BNI, Live Wire, and other networking groups.. sitting in a Panera, chomping on a muffin or in a bar, sipping on a scotch.  I'd much rather be having a one-on-one, with my water bottle in my hand, walking Beavertail, the beach, or the Riverwalk.  How much healthier would I be?  How enjoyable would that be?  How much more motivated I would be to get out and walk?  What does it cost me?  Who would I meet?  How much more connected would I become with my community and outside of my community?

So... what do you think of the idea of walking clubs for professional networking?  Say there's club that meets every Friday at 7:30 at the Cliffwalk?  Another that meets Wednesday at lunchtime on Blackstone Blvd?...  Members pair off each time with a different partner and walk for 45 minutes.  Spring is coming!

I'd be very interested to hear back from each of you, because you, in particular, may find merit in this idea and could build on the concept.  Sleep on it, and when you are ready, hit the "reply all" button.  Maybe add someone to the reply list who might also like this idea.

Of the four people to whom I sent this email, only one responded.  That person was Terry Wildemann, who coaches in leadership, entrepreneurship, and networking.  I’d only met Terry once at a women’s luncheon, but she responded to my email with one word, “Brilliant!”  So, we got together to talk about it, and she began to coach me.

It was Terry who first raised my awareness of Nature’s Code, the symbolic images in the natural world that surround us.  On several occasions, Terry and I met outdoors, in God’s Office, as she calls it, and we walked.   On one such occasion, we met in North Kingstown to walk Rome Point.  Terry led us off the main path onto a side trail that led through the woods.  That’s where we found a large tangle of old vines naturally twisted into a heart-shaped cradle, as if conveying a mystical message.

Narragansett Indians had once called this area along the western edge of the bay Namcook, a name which signifies bank in Indian.  The English colonists first referred to it as Boston Neck and later Rome Point after George Rome (pronounced “Room”).  Rome was a rich tory merchant, who had owned the land for eight years bfore it was confiscated and sold in 1776 to Judge Ezekiel Gardiner.  The Fall of Rome?  ; -

Mother Nature eventually won over this property.  The area was converted to farmland and remained so until 1953, when it was purchased by Narragansett Electric for projects that never materialized - namely a coal plant and later a nuclear power plant.  Stories tell us George Rome once built a lavish mansion on the property, presided over huge parties, and installed an extravagant garden.  Although the mansion is long gone, there are signs of evergreens and shrubs from his original garden.  And now the property is a beautiful nature preserve.

Further internet research revealed information about George Rome’s connection to the story of the First Codebreaking in the American Revolution (1775).
 

“Early in August, Wainwood, a baker of Newport, Rhode Island, was visited by a woman he knew in Boston, who wanted to see Captain James Wallace of Rose, Charles Dudley (the Royal Collector), or George Rome (a rich tory merchant). Wainwood found out that the woman wanted to deliver a letter addressed to "Major [Maurice] Cane in Boston on his majisty's service" and persuaded her to entrust the letter to him. His friend Maxwell, a schoolmaster, whom he consulted, opened the letter but only found that it was written in strange characters.” (Look online for the full story of Doctor Benjamin Church’s treasonous cipher and how it was broken.)

Since my Rome Point Walk with Terry back in the Spring of 2009, I’ve been more attuned to the silent code of nature.  Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson postulated that “Nature is the symbol of spirit.”  A given symbol can represent many aspects of spirit; we each interpret the meaning according to our own personal connection with that symbol.  For example, what does a heart of tangled vines represent?

I had another notable experience out on Rome Point in the fall of 2010.  While walking out to the beach, I noticed a single white rose off to the side of the path, and stepped closer for a better look.  Several holes were chewed into the rose – “a holy rose,” I laughed to myself.  A green crab spider balanced on the very edge of one of the petals.  The moment I noticed her, she lifted her two front legs on either side, pressed each side pair together, balanced on her hind four legs, and froze in that position, as if raising her arms in prayer.
 
She was still standing like that when I finally moved on down the trail.  We’re not always sure how to decipher nature’s secret code.  Whatever the beautiful spider’s message to me, her pose was a breathtaking moment to behold.
  
                                                 
  
                                                        Green crab spider

QUESTIONS: What might a green spider symbolize?
 
Spider Grandmother is a central character in Native American lore. Some say she is the teacher and protector of secret or esoteric wisdom.  Others say she is the creator of the world... that she spun her web, laced it with dew, and threw it into the sky, creating the stars.  Each star on the great network represents an individual being - a heavenly soul.  I heard this story from White Swan, a woman of Narragansett Native American heritage. 

It got me to thinking of the spider, both as a networker, a weaver of wonder, AND as a netwalker, scrambling effortlessly across her sticky web from one encounter to the next.  I could only imagine its color green had something to do with Nature... netalking... it made sense.