It's winter again in Naga Saphira and Christmas is coming. An aurora borealis glissens above and everything glows and is beautiful. Come and check it out. Take a ride on reindeer driven sled or sit and gaze at the sky.
This is Second Life, an alternate reality, where nearly anything is possible. Your limitations are your own.
Have fun.
Saturday, 24 November 2012
Saturday, 13 October 2012
Return to Equanimity, in cat's clothes
All is restored. The Chinese temple is back, as are the gardens.
In my first life, my beloved cat Paschie passed on aided by the "green dream" provided by the vet because of terrible terrible convulsions caused, apparently, by a "space occupying lesion" (a tumor), so, in second life I wear my cat avatar and get a sense of place from the perspective of a pussy cat.
It is very interesting that wearing the body of a cat elicits sweet reactions from human avatars. I pad around fairly populated places and everyone wants to pat me, forgetting my humanity (the hand in the puppet, as it were).
I think I shall experiment more with being a cat and go out more.
I am - for myself - soothed wonderfully by being a cat. She bounds along, fluidly, cat-like and is a balm to my actual human emotions. Paschie and I were very close. I said of her that she was the love of my life, so it hurts that she is not here anymore filling her presence in my house. I rattle around the house like a pea.
Interesting, me thinks, how wearing cat's clothes (the bodily form of cat) is so soothing for me in my actual pain....
In my first life, my beloved cat Paschie passed on aided by the "green dream" provided by the vet because of terrible terrible convulsions caused, apparently, by a "space occupying lesion" (a tumor), so, in second life I wear my cat avatar and get a sense of place from the perspective of a pussy cat.
It is very interesting that wearing the body of a cat elicits sweet reactions from human avatars. I pad around fairly populated places and everyone wants to pat me, forgetting my humanity (the hand in the puppet, as it were).
I think I shall experiment more with being a cat and go out more.
I am - for myself - soothed wonderfully by being a cat. She bounds along, fluidly, cat-like and is a balm to my actual human emotions. Paschie and I were very close. I said of her that she was the love of my life, so it hurts that she is not here anymore filling her presence in my house. I rattle around the house like a pea.
Interesting, me thinks, how wearing cat's clothes (the bodily form of cat) is so soothing for me in my actual pain....
Saturday, 29 September 2012
Rattled by encroaching objects
For much of this week I was bothered by encroaching objects from the land beyond Naga Saphira, specifically a Sim Cliff and accompanying rocks. Ironically these cliffs are copies of the one I have been using myself for much of this year, but because these were not my objects I came to detest them! Clearly my neurosis, like a petticoat, was showing. I reacted in the same way as I react to the goings on of my first life's neighbours. Real/virtual life is the same as far as I'm concerned. I feel encroachment keenly. I guess this is a result of some old old issues and the post traumatic stress disorder I have. In other words what happened recently became yet another tool for focusing and mindfulness.
I reported the encroaching objects several times to both the land owner and Linden labs. Probably once was enough, but the whole thing irritated me enormously.
I used this opportunity to trace my reaction. I flattened my land and removed the back mountains to show the land owner (I merely lease it) the presence of the neighbour's objects, then came an explosion of colour and exotica. Interesting, this. Instead of concealing myself, I came out extravagantly, excessively. Here I am! This is me! None of this reaction was particularly conscious, I'm afraid to say. It was pure reactivity.
And so, what you'll find now should you visit, is a lot of water I've created from a base, a temple with fluttering curtains and gods. You'll find also a planetarium high in the sky (500 m). Enter and there is a panoply of gods and swirling stars. Enjoy.
I reported the encroaching objects several times to both the land owner and Linden labs. Probably once was enough, but the whole thing irritated me enormously.
I used this opportunity to trace my reaction. I flattened my land and removed the back mountains to show the land owner (I merely lease it) the presence of the neighbour's objects, then came an explosion of colour and exotica. Interesting, this. Instead of concealing myself, I came out extravagantly, excessively. Here I am! This is me! None of this reaction was particularly conscious, I'm afraid to say. It was pure reactivity.
And so, what you'll find now should you visit, is a lot of water I've created from a base, a temple with fluttering curtains and gods. You'll find also a planetarium high in the sky (500 m). Enter and there is a panoply of gods and swirling stars. Enjoy.
Monday, 30 July 2012
I am Lighthouse
There be a lighthouse on Naga Saphira to show the way for ships wending their way through treacherous waters. Not particularly relevant for avatars who simply teleport in. Naga Saphira is listed in Second Life search, so getting there is no big thing.
The lighthouse, though, is an evocative image, at least for me, first life Eli.a...., for I was conceived - according to a family friend at my father's funeral wake - in a lighthouse cottage on Rottnest Island off the coast of Western Australia, with wild waves beating the rocks around the making of me. This is my landscape, my deep heart's calling.
This beautiful sea building in Naga Saphira, a liminal place (legendary/mythical/augmented reality), has a beacon to light the way for travellers between sea and land or sea and sea.
It is important for me to explore being a beacon personified, as in my work as a psychotherapist I am something of an entity - steadfast on the edge of a rocky, wild wind swept cliff - there for travellers between sea and land or sea and sea. I am lighthouse.
The lighthouse, though, is an evocative image, at least for me, first life Eli.a...., for I was conceived - according to a family friend at my father's funeral wake - in a lighthouse cottage on Rottnest Island off the coast of Western Australia, with wild waves beating the rocks around the making of me. This is my landscape, my deep heart's calling.
This beautiful sea building in Naga Saphira, a liminal place (legendary/mythical/augmented reality), has a beacon to light the way for travellers between sea and land or sea and sea.
It is important for me to explore being a beacon personified, as in my work as a psychotherapist I am something of an entity - steadfast on the edge of a rocky, wild wind swept cliff - there for travellers between sea and land or sea and sea. I am lighthouse.
Sunday, 24 June 2012
Moody Pines
Changed again. Too much joie de vivre, too many pink cherry trees and
psychedelic extravagances in the last Naga Saphira landscape! So now
the landscape is more moody, more reflective. The ground is littered
with needles and sticks and mosses. Pines dominate. A volcano seeths
nearby, while an underwater pagoda misplaced up on shore bubbles as fish
and a red jellyfish circle above the water, mysterious flowers emerge
from ancient ground, there's an orange tree, and a peach; my tent is
there once more. It is a strange and strangely inviting place.
I am intrigued by my creations. I mull upon this place I call my Second Life home and question what it is in me to create the milieux I do. While making Moody Pines I am recovering from a bad cold. Are the elements in my scene symbolic representations of a disease process; is the hovering red jellyfish a depiction of a virus made manifest?
When I was doing my first degree in English Literature, I was very interested in symbolism and the unconscious. I remain interested in symbolism, but no longer buy Freud's conception of the unconscious - nor Jung's, even (well, not wholly). In some senses I think unconscious processes are deeper than either of these two guys thought and arise from a body "knowing"; in other senses what they saw as unconscious processes are preconscious processes that arise in relation to.... Remember, both Freud and Jung saw the human psyche as being quite compartmentalized with a definite place called "the unconscious". I do not see things this way. For me arisings in consciousness are just that, "arisings" but not from an individualistic hidden self; these consciousness arisings are relational. Relational to other selves, environments we encounter, our own histories and memories, and from our own flesh and blood. Consciousness is an emergent property, an emergent relational process.
Just thinking now about my comment about body "knowing," I recognize a need to explain what I mean. Clearly the body does not "know" nor "think" in any way similar to the mind, but there is deep core "knowing," a tissue, muscle, chromosomal knowing and memory. I shall give an example of this shortly, but first I want to signal a philosophy called 'biosemiotics' where biology is interpreted as a sign symbol study. In a few words, biosemiotics sees the evolution of signs/symbols as arising from the same evolution of life itself. Biosemioticians think that once we understand the signs and symbols of biology (which are - apparently - regular), we'll understand the life process (which they see as regular). A grand belief, for sure. The trouble is, signs and symbols are not regular, nor constant across the various cultural expressions of them - despite Jung's (for example) determination to make them so.
Symbols, like the production of dreams, arise in the person uniquely as well as culturally. There isn't a one-to-one correspondence between an image and a meaning, as least as far as I'm concerned. For me, at this moment, the red jellyfish in my SL scene feels right as a symbol of an invading virus; a thing taken out of its environment and into my otherwise healthy cells; a thing making itself dominant. Yet, in my time honoured way, I Google this: jellyfish symbolism, and find in a site dedicated to the shamanistic journey: Jellyfish, Power Animal, Symbol of Acceptance and Faith. So, either I am in denial or the equivalent of a dictionary definition is inept. As I say, signs and symbols are not regular and understanding them is not a simple process of Googling nor flipping open a dictionary of signs and symbols.
To return to an example of body "knowing" I'm thinking of a case of the neurologist, Oliver Sacks where an elderly woman started experiencing sexy feelings and started to act flirtatiously with the nursing home staff. He diagnosed her with Cupid's Disease and blood tests showed that the sexually transmitted disease syphilis this old woman had contracted years ago was being reactivated at a neural level, and strangely, reactivating her body's sexual desire from the time of the disease contraction. Funny business, but it demonstrates the interaction of thoughts, desires, memories, and disease.
The visual arts abound with depictions of inner processes, whether realized or not. Munch's 'The Scream' says it all. Van Gogh's swirling landscapes used to say, "he's mad" but now - through an incredible amount of research and reassessment - speak of a man understanding the process of things, the realization of things in change. Monet's progressing problem with cataracts saw his paintings, once vibrant and colourful, change to muddy and brown as his eyes dimmed.
Naga Saphira is a palate for expressing myself, as is Elila herself. My avatar, in this russet landscape needed to be expressed in another way. No longer a Minoan woman, but now in a lilac-flowered dress to complement the landscape. With SL we become artists, and as artists, we bring our health into our creations.
[My title 'Moody Pines' sort of sums up the criss-cross between feeling unwell and depiction of it all.]
I am intrigued by my creations. I mull upon this place I call my Second Life home and question what it is in me to create the milieux I do. While making Moody Pines I am recovering from a bad cold. Are the elements in my scene symbolic representations of a disease process; is the hovering red jellyfish a depiction of a virus made manifest?
When I was doing my first degree in English Literature, I was very interested in symbolism and the unconscious. I remain interested in symbolism, but no longer buy Freud's conception of the unconscious - nor Jung's, even (well, not wholly). In some senses I think unconscious processes are deeper than either of these two guys thought and arise from a body "knowing"; in other senses what they saw as unconscious processes are preconscious processes that arise in relation to.... Remember, both Freud and Jung saw the human psyche as being quite compartmentalized with a definite place called "the unconscious". I do not see things this way. For me arisings in consciousness are just that, "arisings" but not from an individualistic hidden self; these consciousness arisings are relational. Relational to other selves, environments we encounter, our own histories and memories, and from our own flesh and blood. Consciousness is an emergent property, an emergent relational process.
Just thinking now about my comment about body "knowing," I recognize a need to explain what I mean. Clearly the body does not "know" nor "think" in any way similar to the mind, but there is deep core "knowing," a tissue, muscle, chromosomal knowing and memory. I shall give an example of this shortly, but first I want to signal a philosophy called 'biosemiotics' where biology is interpreted as a sign symbol study. In a few words, biosemiotics sees the evolution of signs/symbols as arising from the same evolution of life itself. Biosemioticians think that once we understand the signs and symbols of biology (which are - apparently - regular), we'll understand the life process (which they see as regular). A grand belief, for sure. The trouble is, signs and symbols are not regular, nor constant across the various cultural expressions of them - despite Jung's (for example) determination to make them so.
Symbols, like the production of dreams, arise in the person uniquely as well as culturally. There isn't a one-to-one correspondence between an image and a meaning, as least as far as I'm concerned. For me, at this moment, the red jellyfish in my SL scene feels right as a symbol of an invading virus; a thing taken out of its environment and into my otherwise healthy cells; a thing making itself dominant. Yet, in my time honoured way, I Google this: jellyfish symbolism, and find in a site dedicated to the shamanistic journey: Jellyfish, Power Animal, Symbol of Acceptance and Faith. So, either I am in denial or the equivalent of a dictionary definition is inept. As I say, signs and symbols are not regular and understanding them is not a simple process of Googling nor flipping open a dictionary of signs and symbols.
To return to an example of body "knowing" I'm thinking of a case of the neurologist, Oliver Sacks where an elderly woman started experiencing sexy feelings and started to act flirtatiously with the nursing home staff. He diagnosed her with Cupid's Disease and blood tests showed that the sexually transmitted disease syphilis this old woman had contracted years ago was being reactivated at a neural level, and strangely, reactivating her body's sexual desire from the time of the disease contraction. Funny business, but it demonstrates the interaction of thoughts, desires, memories, and disease.
The visual arts abound with depictions of inner processes, whether realized or not. Munch's 'The Scream' says it all. Van Gogh's swirling landscapes used to say, "he's mad" but now - through an incredible amount of research and reassessment - speak of a man understanding the process of things, the realization of things in change. Monet's progressing problem with cataracts saw his paintings, once vibrant and colourful, change to muddy and brown as his eyes dimmed.
Naga Saphira is a palate for expressing myself, as is Elila herself. My avatar, in this russet landscape needed to be expressed in another way. No longer a Minoan woman, but now in a lilac-flowered dress to complement the landscape. With SL we become artists, and as artists, we bring our health into our creations.
[My title 'Moody Pines' sort of sums up the criss-cross between feeling unwell and depiction of it all.]
Monday, 11 June 2012
It's cherry blossom time
Naga Saphira is celebrating cherry blossom time, even though in RL in Australia it's now winter. Gotta have a bit of escapism. Naga Saphira is swathed in blossum, looked over by slowly circling planets and a sun, gazed upon by a large Middle Eastern temple, and observed above from a tent on a hill. Within the tent, avatars can sit in meditation and gaze within. Now is the time for Now. Enjoy.
Monday, 28 May 2012
Naga Saphira
Naga Saphira is a very beautiful place in the virtual computer generated environment of Second Life where people can come and experiment with their avatar shapes and skins, where they can seek solace, meditation and relaxation.
"Naga Saphira" refers to the name of the last Japanese dragon. "Naga" means "dragon, or serpent" and "Saphira" is the dragon's name. Saphira, as legend has it, was the most beautiful dragon of all. Interestingly, "naga" also refers to the alignment of energy chakras in the body, so there is this dimension to the name as well. I chose "Naga Saphira" because the dragon is mythical and yet embedded in our psyches enough to be almost real and is thus a perfect name for the reality of virtual space.
Second life, like other immersive environments, is not just about representation and role playing, but a metaverse of embodied selves occupying non-physical bodies. It is a psychological interface of the not-quite real and the not-quite magical. We bring aspects of ourselves to whatever form we create and it is in doing this that therapeutic possibilities open up to us.
I am primarily interested in therapeutic experimentation, and this is why I have created this blog and designed my Second Life space of Naga Saphira. I'm interested in sharing my experiments with shapes and skins in Second Life and would love to hear of readers' explorations as well. I'm curious about the reactions of other people on interacting with your avatar, I'm curious about how "wearing" different skins affects the user, I want to know what it is like for myself and others to encounter anxiety situations (that in first life we would tend to avoid) and how we overcome our anxiety (eg fear of falling or social anxiety), and so on.
I am interested, too, in the medium of computed generated virtual environments in the making, negotiation and stretching of meaning; of symbology; of story making; of explorations of consciousness and philosophic ideas of consciousness; of creativity and a whole lot more. Ideas of "the body" are interesting and how what a virtual body affects actual bodies.... Much to explore.
Second Life is increasingly being used therapeutically to counter such conditions as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, to train people with Asperger's Syndrome in social scripts, introduce in a safe way fear elements to people with phobias, and so on. It's also been found to aid neurological recovery in some cases of paraplegia. Very interesting stuff and a wonderful research area.
"Naga Saphira" refers to the name of the last Japanese dragon. "Naga" means "dragon, or serpent" and "Saphira" is the dragon's name. Saphira, as legend has it, was the most beautiful dragon of all. Interestingly, "naga" also refers to the alignment of energy chakras in the body, so there is this dimension to the name as well. I chose "Naga Saphira" because the dragon is mythical and yet embedded in our psyches enough to be almost real and is thus a perfect name for the reality of virtual space.
Second life, like other immersive environments, is not just about representation and role playing, but a metaverse of embodied selves occupying non-physical bodies. It is a psychological interface of the not-quite real and the not-quite magical. We bring aspects of ourselves to whatever form we create and it is in doing this that therapeutic possibilities open up to us.
I am primarily interested in therapeutic experimentation, and this is why I have created this blog and designed my Second Life space of Naga Saphira. I'm interested in sharing my experiments with shapes and skins in Second Life and would love to hear of readers' explorations as well. I'm curious about the reactions of other people on interacting with your avatar, I'm curious about how "wearing" different skins affects the user, I want to know what it is like for myself and others to encounter anxiety situations (that in first life we would tend to avoid) and how we overcome our anxiety (eg fear of falling or social anxiety), and so on.
I am interested, too, in the medium of computed generated virtual environments in the making, negotiation and stretching of meaning; of symbology; of story making; of explorations of consciousness and philosophic ideas of consciousness; of creativity and a whole lot more. Ideas of "the body" are interesting and how what a virtual body affects actual bodies.... Much to explore.
Second Life is increasingly being used therapeutically to counter such conditions as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, to train people with Asperger's Syndrome in social scripts, introduce in a safe way fear elements to people with phobias, and so on. It's also been found to aid neurological recovery in some cases of paraplegia. Very interesting stuff and a wonderful research area.
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