Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was no EarthSpirit Web in Cyberspace, no none at all. Several people wondered about this and thought it should not be so.

One day in March 1996, just before the Spring Equinox, two members of the EarthSpirit core group decided to come together and create a new face for the EarthSpirit Community on-line. A place where people could get information and connect with EarthSpirit everyday, 24 hours per day. It took ten hours labor, one male and one female blending their energies to birth the EarthSpirit Web. The only images they had were an acorn and a wheel. The colors they chose were white for Spirit, green for new growth, brown for the Earth, and black for the Mystery. And then it happened, on March 19th 1996, EarthSpirit Web took its first breath of Cyberspace and went live.

It was a simple being at first; twenty or so pages about EarthSpirit and Rites of Spring, the spring gathering. No forms, and no pictures, but it was live. Its mother cherished it, fed it and nurtured it. Its father protected it and gave it safe space to grow. And grow it did. It grew like a weed all higgledy-piggledy with a calendar, and the EarthSpirit Newsletter, and a tribute to one of the elders of the community, Ted Mills, who had passed through the veil. Then pictures and small animations found their way to join the website. Followed by MotherTongue information, Suntide applications, and Twilight Covening clans. FireHeart Magazine, which had been sleeping for several years woke up and cried, "Oh, I have things to share, take we with you too". And a Pagan Chant Library branch grew right out of one side, a large branch.

Then one day, just before the one year anniversary of the birth of EarthSpirit Web, the mother and the father stood back and looked at their child. It was huge, and it had outgrown the original pattern of its birth. They added a search feature, but knew it wouldn't be enough.

So they had a meeting to decide what to do about their wild child. "It needs structure" said the father. "It needs some new clothing" said the mother. They took a big white board and on it they wrote all of the parts of their child. (It was a dark and stormy day, where the wind had torn down an electric pole leaving them without power - a good time for a meeting.)

"It seems to have five basic sections" said the father. "Well if we prune it a little maybe" the mother said. "There is an EarthSpirit section, which is basic information, and the commons part where people actually get information about meeting on the physical level" said he drawing circles and arrows on the white board. "Gatherings" she chimed in. "Yes, Gatherings" he agreed "and an Archives section and one about links." "Archives doesn't feel very magical to me, but the other is like strands or perhaps Connections" she mused. "And if we call it Archives, I can see the Newsletter and FireHeart, but how would MotherTongue fit.