A public announcement

Apologies to everyone for my absence in SL recently but RL is very busy. I have been finishing my annual report for work and both my children have had their birthdays this week.
They are 8 years old (today) and 10 years old (Tues just passed), and time with them has flown. In about the same number of years they might well leave the nest and find their own place in the world.

So on that note I wish to make an announcement!


*shouts out loud*........... I LOVE MY CHILDREN!
No apologies for being sentimental, no moaning about parents being soppy over their kids, just the honest truth.

I try and tell my children everyday how much I love them.
There are too many children in the world who never hear these words.

So if you are a parent, or a carer, a daughter or a son,or just have someone you love who you haven't told for a while.
Go tell them you love them, don't be shy, don't feel its silly, just do it, its simple, easy, and can brighten up someones life.

A poem

I found this on anothers blog and thought I would share it.

Anam Cara by Ulrike Gerbig

The sun
Bears you

The wind
Knows you

The rain
Cries you

Water
Holds you

Night
Sends you

Day
Claims you

Valleys
Hills Meadows
Woods Brooks Rivers
Ponds Lakes
Desert
Sea

Pass by

In my heart’s many folds
I carry your image

I feed on your love

Inside
And out

My search for you
Is endless

Your call made me
A pilgrim

I follow
Your song




*in Gaelic Anam is soul and Cara is friend

January 2007

Avatar

If you met your second life Avatar in your real life, what would you say to them?

Avatars fascinate me. How do you feel about yours?
Do you see them as separate from yourself? a part of yourself? a relative, friend, child? a simple picture or a game piece/pawn.
Could you give up your Avatar? how would you feel if you did?.

I have two Avatar's (secrets out!) Wren being my main one, and another (who shall remain nameless) with whom I come online when I want some peace to explore.
Personally Wren and I are very similar and I tend to think of her pretty fondly, like a close friend. She carries parts of me in her , but I don't think she is fully me. Wren allows me to explore parts of myself that perhaps I cannot normally use. She speaks some of my words, but strangely has her own things to say also.
If I had to say goodbye to her forever, it would be very sad.

My alt is a simple game piece, a useful tool when things get too much, but I don't have an emotional connection to her, well not yet. If she had to go, it would be no great loss.

How strange to feel emotionally connected to a virtual character of my own creation. Perhaps its like a computerised piece of art. Artists put much of themselves into the work they do. They often express parts of themselves in their paintings or sculptures, and I am sure they feel sadness when some pieces have to go to new homes.
Perhaps we are all virtual artists, with our moving, speaking, interactive creations.
What do you think?

Many Worlds?

Last night I watched a fascinating documentary called "Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives". It followed the singer songwriter Mark Everett as he tried to understand his father Hugh Everett's scientific theory, and ultimately to try and understand his father better also.

Hugh Everett came up with an interpretation of quantum physics which essentially meant that every time we make a decision or choice we split, and somewhere there exists a universe in which we made the opposite choice to the one we are living now.
I am no scientist and the finer details of this theory leave me baffled, so i wont delve deeper into the science. But it certainly caught the imaginations of many writers, filmmakers and artists. The Parallel universe idea seems to appeal, I suspect because we all wonder, when we look back, what if I had done this? how different would my life be now?

It occurred to me last night that if we apply the theory to Second Life, then there are millions of other second lives also out there,where we have all made different choices.
I wonder what they are like?

On a totally different note, I read a really interesting study of Second Life religion recently, http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2008/02/the-soul-of-sec.html
its not finished, but it makes stimulating reading.