The Gathering Oak

   Some time ago, I volunteered to help an old friend, turned new neighbor on Sunny Beach, Erik Mouse to  build the sim of his dreams. He showed great interest in providing attractions for the community to come and have fun. I have become his court Magician and councilor, to teach him the power of Imagination. The force is strong in him.
   The perimeter of the island sim provides beaches, boating and surfing. The interior of the island is a thick forest, known as "Mythica Woods". At the North end of the woods, there is a clearing, with a spring fed pond. When I made the Sunweaver Tour video, I called this area, "the local watering hole", because it seemed like it was a natural gathering spot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f144n1NYcos .
   There are several Hobbit style homes, a camp fire, a TP and Stargate. We built a tiki hut club and called it "Surf's Up", to draw attention to the surfing wave, on the North shore. Erik was eager to begin having weekly events, on Saturdays at noon SLT. I let him know that it would be his adventure and I would not be on club staff. He is the owner and should make his own rules and provide any staff and DJs for any events scheduled. Well, Rome wasn't built in a day, but after three weeks, our little friend was feeling stress, because his club had yet to become an overnight success. He came to the Newser staff meeting, seeking help in getting more visitors to come. At the close of the staff meeting, Erik, Bixyl and I convened to Surf's Up, where an event was in progress. This was the ideal location for the discussion, since we could also get additional input from those on the dance floor. Indeed, I took notes as Skylark LeFavre began to describe a different decor, from her imagination. She described a clearing with a large oak tree..... Before saying another word, I was already seeing the complete picture. That night, I searched the marketplace for oak trees. I found a towering ancient oak tree, that looked like the perfect fit for Mythica Woods. I spent the night, with nobody around, installing the oak, removing the tiki hut and moving the club equipment under the tree branches. The next day, after seeing the new set up, Erik sends an IM, asking if I had left anything for him to do. Indeed, there were a few objects and the contest board, which I could not move. Later that evening, I attended a weekly dance event, at Creations Park. They have a rotating circle sync dance that is a wonderful thrill to partake in. After the dance, I met up with Erik again. I told him that I think a circle dance would be perfect for the new club layout, so we went about trying to find a good one. That was an adventure of it's own and we nearly got booted off of one RP sim. When we found an in world demo, of one I spotted on MP, we tested it, bought it and took it home to set up. Words could not explain how enjoyable it is for a group to share. I knew I would need to get some pictures or video of a group doing the dance. For two days, I asked friends to come try it. At the close of the following Happy Vixen event, I announced that I would be making a video and all were invited to be in it. We got a nice little impromptu group going and the camera began to roll. I captured 10 minutes of video, before folks needed to go and posted it, unedited, on Youtube.
https://youtu.be/L_kNx3Nz5oI

   Recently, I made the comment that where the sky and earth, fire and water all meet is a place where strong magic is made. There's lots of room to dance and several group sitting areas, if you'd rather sit this one out. There's even a cuddle basket, if you like that kind of magic. The club will now be known as "The Gathering Oak" and will have a weekly Saturday noon dance and you can also come any time, to enjoy all of the sim's attractions.

   Aloha,

Sha

Drawing board

   Our adventure today is not about a sim or group of them. It is about all of the SL World Grid. We will be looking into the heart and soul that animates this world. Last month, we wrote about Creations for Parkinson's and became friends with Barbie Alchemi, it's creator. Since then, I have been attending their Sunday night dances which, in addition to the inspirational music, always includes a topic for things of a spiritual nature. My companion, Erik, has attended and the guests all love him. His comments, on the topic, were well received and they thanked him for his "wonderful insights"

   In private chats, Barbie and I talked of our experiences with the therapeutic uses of Second Life. We both knew of people whose real lives had been improved because of their SL experiences. We both admitted that as a major part of our SL Raison d'Etre. We come here to bring Love, Light and Healing, in service to others. I explained my evolving theory, that Second Life was like a drawing board for the new Age of Aquarius. Meteorologists use computer modeling to track and predict storms. They can run many variations of data to get the most likely prognosis. Have you ever noticed that time seems to flow at a different speed in SL? The six plus years I have been here, feels more like decades. We'll leave it to the accountants to figure out how much that is in "dog years". The thing is, regardless of the time difference, we still learn the same lessons from our experiences. Because of our hyper time, we can test out one "happily ever after" theory after another, until we get it right, in far less than the many life times it would take in RL. We learn quickly, the difference between what is good and what is better.

   In real life, you have, no doubt heard that we are entering "The Age of Aquarius", a cosmic upgrade of the world's OS, which will make life, as we know it, a whole lot better game. What will the new age world be like? Well that answer would fill a shelf of  books, but fortunately, a good friend of mine, J.J. Dewey, has just published his "quick list" and it is a good summary of things i have heard over many years. The items on the list are not for debate. We are all entitled to our own opinions. Any disagreements with the ideas would only happen if the author's definition of terms are not understood. You can read more of JJ's writings at www.freeread.com

The World to come

(1) A world without borders – no passports needed
(2) One where brotherhood, goodwill and inclusiveness set the tone so we have right human relations.
(3) One where the Haves share with the Have-Nots so extreme poverty is abolished.
(4) There is to be a one-world government that unifies the world without becoming a tyranny.
(5) This will lead to a secure peace on earth.
(6) There will be a one-world religion which will basically be the world acknowledging through free will that certain universal principles are true.
(7) People will be influenced more by mind and reason than by lower emotion and being reactionary.
(8) People will becomes less materialistic and focus more on the spiritual.
(9) Christ and his associate Masters of Wisdom will walk openly among us as teachers of the human race.

   Personally, this sounds like a good plan and I have spent many years trying to help bring about this new OS for earth. I also do my small part in getting these ideals tested by the residents of Second Life. I could go down the list and mentioned ways I worked them into the minds of others, but this is not about me. Instead, I will turn these questions to the readers.

Do you think this sounds like the kind of world you'd like to live in?
Are you willing to help build this world?
Are you willing to be it's beta tester in Second Life?
   If you have any ideas on this new world topic and would like to share them with us, SL Newser welcomes Reader submitted articles for publication.

  When I mentioned that I was about to write this article, to the dancers at Creations, Erik made a comment that I wanted to quote.
"I actually thought that SL is more like a world of human fantasy. Every part, every creature of it is the part of the hopes and dreams of mankind. Therefore, it has no boundaries."

I couldn't have said it any better,"
"Sha"

Wild West

   I have been writing for SL Newser, for several years now. With all this practice, we gain skills in finding and writing about ever greater adventures. This also enables us to observe and teach those elements that make any life, real or virtual, better for all. Life can be difficult, but the rules are very simple. To have a better life, always obey these two little rules. One, life is fun. If you're not having fun, you aren't playing by the rules. Two, life is for learning new things. Everything in life is a fun lesson and even an old god can learn a new trick. If you are not learning fun new things, you are stuck in a rut. Being stuck is not fun. Go back and read rule one. In addition to writing about a fun life here, we also give one-on-one guidance, to those that seek it. They are like students or Padawans. We will be including one of these padawans in this adventure. Let us begin to set the stage, for his entry.
   On an intuitive hunch, I opened the World Map, of the SL Grid and began scanning for interesting sim clusters. Finding a good candidate, we zoom down for a closer look at the terrain. Like a good spy satellite, we get a detailed picture of what is going on down there. In this case, we located a tight collective of 24 sims. Each sim is named after an area in the western part of the USA and you could see it in the landscaping. This area had all the elements of a great place to explore.

      I had copied the SLURL for one of the sims and went, briefly, to set a LM and get a "first impression". The landing is a skybox, with a painted interior. There is a shack, a horse and a few signs. The 24 sim area is called "Wild West Roleplay Lands" and, as we guessed it, there will be rules. As kids, we called "Roleplay" by the name "Let'spretend". You did your best to look and sound your part, in order to free the imagination to act out the role. It has been many moons, since we last played "Cowboys and Indians" and my imagination has many other ways of getting around. I decided that when I come back I would take in the whole experience, by joining the group and wearing the HUD and health meter. After the regularly scheduled evening's event, I returned home to dress western, horse included, and returned to those wild days of yore.

Back at the skybox, I gathered and read all the notecards about the ground rules and notice that they are in English and German. That seemed unusual, at the time, but I would eventually learn the reason. I joined the local Buffalo Wyoming Group and wore the WW meter HUD and health meter. Now I was ready to descend to ground level and begin the adventure. Turning towards the TP, I spot something at my feet that wasn't there before. It was my tiny neighbor, friend, Erik Mouse. He had located us on his world map. Not long ago, I had invited him to join me, during my explorations of Creations for Parkinson's and he had figured out, if I was far from home, I was probably researching another fun adventure. I could tell, he was hoping to get invited to join the fun. I have to admit, my first thoughts were, this is like getting a hot first date and your mom says to have to watch your little brother and let him tag along on your movie date. Then, my mind steps in, telling me this is exactly the thing we are trying to teach others to do. It wouldn't be a change in our plans, because we were making it up as we go along. Besides, I reasoned that Roleplay was a bit like sex, being more fun to play with friends, than to play with self. I told him that I wouldn't mind if he joined me, but he would have to do it as a human cowboy. He said he had never played a human, in SL, but would do what it takes. I informed him that he could find a human avatar in the library section of his inventory and that they provide free period clothing at the near by shed. Our location seemed to be preventing us from making any changes to our avatars, so we returned home to make a man of him. At the Surf's Up club, I located a complete cowboy avatar, on Marketplace, for only L$25. The cowboy avatar even came with a coiled lasso, so Erik was now fully prepared to rope him some fun.

    So, now we have Erik, on his first day as a human, but he's not the only cherry. I quickly discover that I am no longer the author of this play and the actors are working without a script. Our first location, on the ground, was the town of Buffalo, Wyoming. Sha, from experience, takes up the lead position and her faithful companion follows a few paces behind. Being in a Wild West town, our first interest was finding the local Bank. We found it, but it was locked so we went across the street, to the Saloon. The barkeep and patrons are all cardboard cut-outs. If we wanted adventure, we needed to head on down the road. A quick check of the radar showed that we were the only ones on this sim, but there are a handful of others on the next sim, so we head in that direction. As we entered the next town, there only seems to be one resident and he is taking a nap, in front of the Pub. I spot the local jail and head over to check the accommodations. I entered a jail cell and invited Erik to come in and pose for a souvenir photo of our adventure.

   We broke out of jail and returned outside where I spotted a gallows. I think this might be a good place to demonstrate the virtue of Courage, so I clicked the gallows and selected the hang by the neck animation.

Well, I was having some fun, but my companion was probably wondering when the adventure would begin, so we headed towards the blips on the radar. This ain't no big city. There are no paved roads or direction signs to follow. As we walk, I spot three buffalo, grazing in a field and say, "Oh look at the cute critters. Let's go pet them". BIG MISTAKE! One of the buffalo turns in my direction and prepares to charge. I take off for the hills, double time, and see on the radar that Erik is right behind me. I run into a stone canyon and find a Medicine man's tee-pee and campfire. Thinking this is a safe place, I sit down at the fire. Turning my cam around, I see Erik lying face down on the ground, with a rattle snake biting his leg. I asked him about the snake. He said that he didn't know about the snake, but his HUD just informed him that the buffalo had killed him. I'm like, OMG, they killed Kenny! I brought my little buddy here and got him killed. Then, the unexpected happened. Laying face down in a pool of blood, Erik begins to comfort me. "Don't worry, I'm just dead. I'll be better in about 30 minutes". WOW! Who is this guy and what did he do with the timid little mouse? I said, " no worries pal. I'll sit here and wait for you, while I smoke this peace pipe that I found by the fire." As I sat there thinking, I realized something else about this man named Erik, that was different from the mouse I had known for years. From the time he found me in the skybox, until now, he had not been AFK, even one time, throughout our adventure.

   At about this time, a stranger approached the campfire, carrying a rifle. I could only hope that he was one of the good guys, because we were in a defenseless posision. As he began to talk to us, or should I say, er begann, mit uns reden, I realized this cowboy was speaking German and it was being translated to English. I learned, later, that Wild West Roleplay is very popular in Germany. The cowboy told us that Erik would soon live again, although his full strength would take a bit longer. When Erik rose from the ground, the cowboy pointed to the ground and said, here marks the spot where you were dead. The blood was gone and the cowboy bid us well on our journey. I told him, "Danke shon", and Erik and I continued on the trail. We soon found ourselves in another small town and it had a church. I have always been interested in the architecture of places of worship, so we went inside for a look. Erik's first comment was that we could have used some of this guy's healing skills, back on the trail. WOW! He understands religion. I was seeing inside the RL Erik in a new light. I wanted to get to know him even better, so I steered the conversation to our RL selves. "Do you go to church", I asked.  "No", was his reply. I told him my age and birthday and he told me his. Erik is in the same age range as my three daughters. Our sun signs are also very compatable. I asked him if he used Facebook, so we could friend there. He did and we set it up, then and there.

    The hour was getting late and I had a staff meeting the next day. I told Erik to feel free to explore some more, but I was going to bed and would probably come back a few more times, to explore more of the Wild West Roleplay Lands. He wanted to know if he could come again, with me. I told him, "Si, mi casa, su casa".

   I must point out here that Erik and I only covered about 1/6 of the Wild West Roleplay Lands. If you come here, there is enough adventure to keep you going for months or even years. Besides that, I am scratching my head, wondering what this story is really about. A fairy mouse king becomes a mortal man, to descend to earth, is killed and comes back to life. It all begins to sound like a symbolic initiation into some secret brotherhood of knights or an ancient Greek passion play or the labors of Hercules.

   I don't know where the story came from, but I'm signing it,

Sha

The Cure

      Since my youth, I have taken an active interest in doing my small part to help bring peace on earth, good will to all and the healing of the planet, with all of it's lifeforms. Throughout the grid, there are uncountable teams dedicated to finding the cure to many diseases. I do my part to help teams, in both SL and RL. From experience, I can say that there is a problem to finding cures that doesn't get mentioned much, if at all. I am going to tell you a story, but begin by telling you some important details that 1)  It is based on true conversations, some in SL and others from RL, 2) the names of people, places and diseases are all made up to a] protect the inocent and b] to allow readers to fill in the blanks for themselves, and 2) I will refer to myself in the first person, just me, myself and I, talking directly to the readers. Since this is all made up, there will be no pictures included, for the same reasons as above.

Gehirnnebel
   I was enjoying my first dance event, at a sim that I had recently written about, when I got an IM from an old friend, whom I'll call Jack. Jack said that he wished he could find some friends to hang out with. I told him that I was at the place that I had previously been telling him about and there were many friendly people, that would welcome him. Next thing I know, everybody is welcoming Jack and asking him to join the dance circle. We both enjoyed it and ended up among the last 3 to leave. We'll call the other remaining guest Jill. Jill had not even been one year in SL and was happy to meet new friends and hear of the sims they live on. We decided to continue our evening together by touring the sims that Jack and I lived on. During the lengthy tour, I discovered that both Jack and Jill had the same disease in RL, we shall call Gehirnnebel.

   The next day, I began to recall some things that I knew about Gehirnnebel. It was said to be caused by the Gehirnnebelwurm, which moves into and burrows around in the brain. Spread out in the brain makes it impossible to remove or poison, without killing the brain itself, so doctors say there is no cure. But wait, I had also heard that although you can't cut or poison it out, there is a way to starve it out. The gehirnnebelwurm lives on the glucose that circulates in our blood. Human cells, on the other hand, are not limited to glucose for their survival. If we only eat foods that do not break down to make glucose, the energy is delivered to the cells by a process called ketosis. The gehirnnebel worm can't thrive unless it gets glucose and will become dormant until it gets some. While these pests slumber, the brain has time to heal itself and, within a few days, the foggy brain begins to clear. I looked forward to telling Jack and Jill that a slight change in their diet could quickly lead to a wonderful improvement in their health. The next time I logged in, there was something I needed to re-write scripts for, but I was hoping that I would also find Jack and Jill. As I finished my repairs, to my delight, both showed up within a couple of minutes of each other. As I began to tell them that I knew of a possible "cure" for them to test, I soon noticed that Jacks brain had gone AFK and my news was going right over his head. Jill, on the other hand, was hearing the news, but was becoming agitated by it. Before even hearing what the cure is. How could I possibly have a cure, when doctors said it was not curable? How could I know of a cure, if I had never had gehirnnebel myself? I soon realized that helping Jack and Jill would not be as easy and fun as I had hoped, so I sat down and waited for them to regroup, so I could go into more detail as to what the cure might be. Keep in mind, at this point I hadn't said what the cure was and neither had bothered to ask what it was. Naturally, Jack was confused, because he had missed most of what had been talked about and Jill was getting very heated in her arguments, while still having no clue of what the cure was. Ultimately, her emotions got the best of her and she removed me from her friends list, muted me and poofed away. Now Jack was even more confused. When I explained that she got angry at me about claiming a cure, without either of them having learned what said cure might even be, Jack delighted me with his response. "So, what is the cure?", he asked. Since I didn't want to go through another argument with an uninformed person, I told him he should first get some background information, by doing a web search on the topics of Ketosis and Paleo Diets. If after reading about it he was interested in trying it, I could show him how to do it. For now, this is as far as the story goes, but we can already see the moral of the story.

   Fundraising teams can raise billions of dollars for scientists to find and make a cure available, but for the cure to work, those that need it most, will need to keep an open mind and not be kept from using it by unearned authorities that want it banned, because they can't get rich by curing with methods that go beyond their barbarous treatments of cutting and poisoning.
   As our teams continue the quest of finding the cure, we must also know about and prepare for the greedy individuals that will do everything in their dark power to keep us from the cure.

[I would like to point out that I hold no grievance towards Jill and forgive her social blunder. She had warned us that her friend skills needed work and this is not uncommon for those with brain disorders. If she would like to be friends again, I will welcome her back]

The only dumb questions are the ones you forgot to ask.

Sha