Days of Our Second Lives

Poetry Quest: Day Twenty-TWo

This LM will take you to the musical bridge of light.   Write a poem that describes the sounds and feel of this sim.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ars%20Simulacra/156/37/26

Poetry Quest: Day Twenty-One

Immersiva is a sim that seems to exist in place out of time.  Walk around it and see which of the many odd and vaguely disturbing objects and scences capture your imagination.  Your task it to write a poem in which you “remember” something that happened here. Perhaps you will tell how Immersiva came to be, or how the characters one of the scenes came to be here.

Try to use strong sensory images to convince the reader it really happened.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Immersiva/39/109/21

Poetry Quest: Day Twenty

Getting Silly!

A limerick is a verse of five lines that is usually funny.
Here are the rules:
1. The last word of lines one, two, and five must rhyme with each other.
2. The last word of lines three and four must rhyme with each other.
3. The last words of lines three and four cannot rhyme with lines 1, 2, or 3.

Here is an example:
There once was a fellow named Tim
whose dad never taught him to swim
He fell off a dock
and sunk like a rock
and that was the last we saw of him.

HOW TO START
Step #1
The first line of a limerick typically identifies the subject and place.  It also provides the first word
that lines two and five must rhyme with.  Here are a couple examples:

"There was a fair maiden from Kent."
or
“There was a sweet singer from Dallas."

As soon as you write either of those first lines, you should be thinking of words that rhyme with Kent or Dallas.

Step #2
Next, think of a plot or scenario to built the poem around. In other words, something needs to happen.
For example:

There was a fair maiden from Kent
who gave up hugs for Lent

or

There was a Young Lady of Portugal,
Whose ideas were excessively nautical

Step #3
The next two lines must rhyme with each other, but not with the first two.  Therefore, try to come up with
something your subject can do or say that will identify an issue to be dealt with.  For example:

She tried not to cuddle
but she became so befuddled

or

She climbed up a tree,
To examine the sea,

Step #4
Finally, finish with an ending that makes your reader laugh and rhymes with the last word of lines one and two.
For example:

There was a fair maiden from Kent
who gave up hugs for Lent
She tired not to cuddle
but became so befuddled
that she was forced in the end to relent.

or

There was a Young Lady of Portugal,
Whose ideas were excessively nautical
She climbed up a tree,
To examine the sea,
But declared she would never leave Portugal

YOUR TASK
Today, your task is to go to Alien Isles (see SLURL below) and use something in the sim to create your limerick.  Drop the results in the mailbox.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Unknowable/35/43/30

Poetry Quest: Day Nineteen

Today's exercise is very simple, but also quite evocative.  Start by choosing a color from nature (perhaps moss green, gray marble, or the yellow of autumn leaves).

Next, take a walk around Storybook noticing everything that has that color in it.

Finally, write a poem about that color using lots of strong verbs.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Storybook%20Island/129/70/25

A Recycled Life

Today was the start of Earth Week and we celebrated in Second Life with a large and eclectic line-up of events, including a story by yours truly and a writing exercise afterward.  Not only was there a large turnout, but there general mood was upbeat, thoughtful, and at times downright playful.  Couldn't ask for more.  Below is a transcript of my talk.

Welcome.  My name is Jenaia Morane.

I’m the founder of and head story sleuth at The Virtual Worlds Story Project here in Second Life.

I am also, as it turns out, a writer and educator in my first life.

For many years I have been developing and teaching courses in nature writing, and penning articles about the environment for national publications such as Mother Earth News, Backpacker, and E-the Environmental Magazine.

So when I was asked to do some storytelling about sustainability I was excited and pleased.

We hear a lot about the trouble our planet is in.

What we don’t hear much about, however, are the amazing people all over the world who are turning their attention and creativity towards finding solutions and making sustainability a reality. 

It has been my honor and privilege to interview and tell the stories of several of these remarkable souls.

I’d like to begin by sharing some of their thoughts with you, along with a recurring theme that I hear over and over and over again. 

Listen and see if you can hear it.

“I’m not sure where this project will take us, but we’re in it for the long haul, and it’s going to be a helluva ride!”  says Chad Pegrake.

Chad is the founder of Living Lands and Waters, a group that hauls tons of garbage from the Mississippi River every year.

“You know what’s cool?” he adds.  “Most of our sponsors are not about just giving the money.

They want to create opportunities for their employees to go out and do something.  They pay them too. That’s huge!” 

“Well, I know it sounds corny, but the main stockholder in my company is the planet,” say Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia a company devoted to creating sustainable clothing.

“I measure our success by how much good we’ve done for that stockholder each year.”

“If you ask me what our profits were last year I couldn’t tell you.

That’s not why I am in business. 

Whatever we do next, the goal will be to do it right. 

It’s really a Zen thing where you don’t focus just on the target.  The arrow goes straight when you do everything right.”

 

“My point is if we don't bring in the communities for the environment permanent change won't happen,” say Beau Turner, son of Ted Turner and one of the most influential environmentalists of our time.

“Instead of just throwing money at groups - which is kind of like putting a finger in a dam - we have to empower people. 

You know one person really can make a difference.

I always feel it’s about the local community having ownership. 

We’ve got to get local communities to understand that land is a resource that they have to manage and not over utilize. 

But they have to buy into it. 

All the laws in the world can’t make that happen."

“The most important thing for me is that it’s all interconnected,” says author and activist Terry Tempest Williams. 

“It’s not about environmental issues, it’s not about political issues, or spiritual issues, or issues of health.

It’s about the model of the circle, these concentric circles of concerns within our communities.”

 

The theme of community, of individuals forming common bonds and working together to create change is at the heart of what each of these environmental leaders is saying.

 

So how does that apply to Second Life?

Second Life is nothing if not one huge community.

We are united not only by the fact that we are avatars, but by the parameters of and tremendous possibilities inherent in the medium as well.

 

It is true that we are not bound by the normal laws inherent in physical reality (beyond those that allow us to connect to and participate in Second Life in the first place).

We have no weather unless we create it for ourselves.

We can crash into buildings, fall from thousands of meters, sink to the bottom of oceans and never feel a thing.

As avatars we do not experience hot, cold, thirst, or hunger.

And of course the land we are so fond of sculpting and decorating is totally incapable of sustaining any kind of life.

 

What we DO have, however, is the power of our collective imaginations and intelligence. 

This why Second Life is so compelling.

It is also why Second Life is “real.”

It is what allows us to embrace our beloveds and sigh with pleasure;

what allows us to create breathtaking photographs and sculptures;

what allows us to meet around a campfire like this one and envision something better for both our first and Second lives.

 

Let me share a little story with you.

Once upon a time, in a land that was neither here nor there but everywhere imagination and creativity thrived,

an avatar who was tired of struggling with the world’s problems – both her own and those of the planet at large – was born.

Like most newborns, her initial focus was on mastering the basic skills she needed in order to function in her new life.

After that, she tackled the usual Second Life learning curve, which seems to entail buying land, starting a business, falling in and out of love, and staying up waaaaaay too late for days on end.

At the end of her first year, she set her AO to “ground sit,” collapsed beside the ocean, and paused to take stock of her Second Life.

 

Ruth and her helmet hair left far behind – check.

Sophisticated flying skills mastered – check

An adequate wardrobe – check

Hair for every occasion – check

Shoes for every occasion and then some – check

Jewelry to go with the clothes, hair, and shoes - check

Ability to construct and texture basic structures – check

Ability to remain calm under pressure when:

• arriving at any destination with various articles of clothing attached to private parts of the body – check
• accidentally removing hair or clothing-check
• being propositioned for sex by a noob – check
• accidentally jumping onto an intimate pose ball-check
• accidentally typing into the wrong IM window-check

Basic text messaging shortcuts (LOL, WAH, ROFL, LMAO, GMTA, WFK, BRB, IC, CUL, TTYL, and poof)-check

Ability to log out before midnight-check

 

So what then, she wondered, was missing?

 

It wasn’t long before the avatar realized that her Second Life was missing some of the creativity and sense of purpose that was so much a part of her first life.

And so she picked herself up, dusted off the sand, and went looking for inspiration.

Inspiration isn’t hard to find in Second Life.

There are people doing amazing things in education, the arts, medicine, and even counseling.

But what, she wondered, about the environment?

What about the interface between first and second lives that must be in place in order for either world to function properly?

Here is what she found:

A Wasteland depicting what the world could be like following a nuclear holocaust.

Avatars using SL to model everything from wind turbine to solar homes

Corporations building “green” sims”

Businesses, colleges, and organizations using Second Life as a place to meet, thereby saving huge sums of money and fossil fuels that would normally be used for transportation.

International organizations forming to discuss global issues that transcend barriers of language, culture, and politics.

 

In short, what the avatar found was an enormous community of bright, active, committed souls all working towards a better world in all their lives. 

It was really quite impressive.

It gave the avatar hope.

 

Hope, said Emily Dickinson, is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all.

 

Hope is the message I’d like to leave you with today, along with some simple questions to chew on.

How can we as avatars participating in this enormous, global community, extend a hand to each other and the planet? 

What can we do to share information, encourage recycling, and urge others to look at what and how they consume?

What can we do to get dialogs started across borders of time, space, race, religion, class, money, and politics so that competition is dispelled and we can work together to sustain ourselves and the planet?

 

For me, the answer has always been story.  As Terry Tempest Williams puts it so eloquently, “Story bypasses rhetoric and pierces the heart. 

Story offers a wash of images and emotion that returns us to our highest and deepest selves, where we remember what it means to be human, living in place with our neighbors.”

 

And so I invite you, MY neighbors,  to tell your stories as well. 

Stick around today and share one.

Drop by Storybook Island and walk the Story Trail

Participate in a Story Quest.

Check the resource board to find other groups working on storytelling.

But most of all I encourage you to listen to that little voice within yourself – to that “..thing with feathers that perches in the soul.”

Listen, think, feel and share what it has to say.

And like water be gentle and strong.

Gentle enough to follow the natural paths of the earth

And strong enough to rise up and reshape the world.”

Both your worlds, both your lives.

 

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

Poetry Quest: Day Eighteen

Today quest takes you with me to Wastelands, one of the sims I visited to prepare my talk about sustainability.  The LM below will dump you on a desolate plain where dust storms rage and there is no water to be seen.

Fly up to the top of the mesa and grab a handglider to take a tour of the sims.  See what your heart and mind have to tell you about the importance of caring for the planet.

Drop the results in the mailbox.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cormac/121/94/108

Poetry Quest: Day Seventeen

 Today's challenge takes you to the hillside on Storybook to practice the ancient art of Tai Chi.  Tai Chi has been practiced in China for centuries as a martial art, as exercise, and as a means of improving the flow of internal energy within the body.

"Tai Chi is based on the I Ching, especially on the idea of “change.” Nobody can perform the "forms" in Tai Chi perfectly, for perfection is relative-an ideal dependent on individual perception. In playing Tai Chi, the goal is to change again and again; to play with variations in order to make progress Even if we try to hold everything constant, even if we strive to reproduce some image of a “perfect form,” nature itself insures that conditions within and around us are never the same and no two performances will ever be identical. We can either be frustrated by this or we can learn the way in which change, the only constant, can be employed to attain higher levels of wellness, happiness, and awareness."

Your task?  Ask yourself what  being on this hillside bending, swaying, flowing from one pose to the next have to teach you about perfection and change?  Write a poem expressing what you discover and drop it in the mailbox.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/HIPHOP/128/128/2

Poetry Quest: Day Sixteen

Today's little exercise has two parts.  First, go to Wanderstill and walk into the field of flowers.   The builder of this space quotes Thoreau when descriving it, saying:

"Happiness is like a butterfly the more you chase it , the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder."

Next,.open a browser and play this song (Fields of Gold by Eva Cassidy): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGwDYBWEDSc
It would be great if you could play it while you are here.  Oh, and look for dance balls among the fields.

Finally, Wanderstill has this to say about being here: "When the day shines the butterflies here give gifts and at twilight the falling stars here are said to hold wishes."

What do you have to say? Drop it in the mailbox.

Poetry Quest: Day Fifteen

Alchemy Immortalis is a brand new sim focusing on music and magic.   Wander the meadows and explore the paths that lead into the castle where extraordinary music plays.

Your task?  Write a poem that captures how music and magic intertwine and in doing so create a message or story.  What is that message?

Drop the results in the mailbox.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Alchemy%20Immortalis/122/232/219

Poetry Quest: Day Fourteen

 The word "dragon," according to the Oxford English Dictionary (1966), is derived from the Old French, which in turn was derived from the Latin dracon (serpent), which in turn was derived from the Greek aorist verb, Spakelv (to see clearly).

Why I am telling you this?  Because I'd like you to spend some time with my dragon.  Is this little fellow young? A smaller species? Alone? Waiting? Sad? Resting from play?  Does he speak to you?  Is he contemplating the fire? If so, why?

To find the Storybook dragon, face the Poetry Quest sign and turn left.  Follow the smell of sulphur and the torches along the way.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Storybook%20Island/129/70/25