Love and fear most be the two most controlling of our emotions.

I have traveled all over the world chasing love. I’ve trembled in my boots in mortal fear. Deep lose must be up there too, but other than the lose of a lover, I have not had a profound lose to death. My father has past and I do feel is absence, but it’s not the same. It was his time and I am proud of him and the good life he lived.

I have never been with a dying person at the time of their death. When my father died I was away in France. The family did not tell me how close it was. I guess they did not want to spoil my vacation.

My mother has witnessed death many times. She seems to be good at it, however I’m not even sure what that means?

I remember her telling me about Granny’s death. I was home about a week before she died and got to say good bye.

Granny is what I called my mother’s mother, my grandmother. She was a gentle heart, always loving and sweet. My fondest memories of Granny are of being in her lap and listening to nursery rhymes.

Hickory dickery dock, the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck twelve…

There were three little kittens. They lost their mittens…

What my mother told me about granny’s death is still strongly ingrained in my consciousness. It’s sad that these had to be her final thoughts. It seems she was ready to die for quite a while. She deeply believed in God and was ready to, as they say, meet her maker. It must be hard at the end, once you are resigned to death, and death does not come. Morning after morning you wake.

After a while I think this got the better of my Granny…she would cry and say, “What have I done wrong? Why won’t God take me?” To have those kind of doubts at the end…how sad; how unfair to a gentle soul, who deserved more.

Granny made my mother and my mother made me; and for this wonderful chain of begetting, I am truly greatful. How fortunate I am…this is my thanksgiving.

I woke this morning, as I have for the last few mornings, with a new lightness of being…a feeling of floating, of contentment, of serenity.

I sing to my love…

Good night, good night Tatchi,

Good night Tatchi,

Good night, good night, good night Tatchi,

I’ll see you in my dreams.

The song is an old American folk song called Good Night Irene.

Again it is something I learned from my father as a very young boy listening to him sing and play the guitar. I wonder why my father’s songs are coming back to me so strongly and with new meaning. I feel like I’m tapping into his romanticism and reliving some of is passions and dreams. I didn’t know he was such a romantic. I now know why my mother loved him so, and why she stayed with him all those years.

At his wake I gave a little speech. I don’t remember what I said, except for one thing. I looked at my mom and I said, “In a world where divorce is the rule not the exception, you and dad actually did it. You loved each other forever. Yours is a true love. You are both bless. He goes to his grave a loved and blessed man. What more can you ask of life?”

So I sing to my love from two hearts. I sing to Tatchi of my love for her and my longing to find the one eternal love, a love that lasts forever. I gave up on this dream long ago, but maybe, just maybe, I have found her. I want to believe again in eternity.

Good night, good night, good night Tatchi, I’ll see you in my dreams…

My love still speaks in broken English.

I promise...

I know I’m supposed to help by correcting her speech, but I don’t want to. I love the way she speaks. It so sexy and charming and brings smile to my face. I’m even beginning to speak like her. I should have written “It is so sexy and charming, and it brings a smile to my face.”

Last night she said several times, “I am confuse-id.”

I knew something was distracting her but I didn’t know what it was. I also knew this would be our last night together for a little while, so I wanted it to be a comforting and a safe haven for her to return to in her mind.

Today she begins a very public week, starting with a 200-people birthday party and fundraiser for her television productions. She was raised in an atmosphere of celebrations and feels nature and happy in high culture celebratory events. Every night for seven days she will be celebrated in one way or another.

And on her actual birthday, August 15th, she will enter a church for a cleansing ritual. She told me this earlier, but the details escape me. All I remember is that she will partake of some toxins that would make most people very il, but for her, they will purge her body and soul of the toxins that have accumulate over the past year. This may sound primitive and dangerous, and maybe it is, but the way she told it to me, it sounded like just what she needs. I wish her well and that it does just what she says it will do.

I truly believe that this will be her year, the year that her fortunes turn skyward and she finds happiness, what we all strive for. This week will be the turning point.

It is time for me to step back into the shadows and let her take flight. And as she does, she will carry my love in her heart and be nourished by it when I am not there to feed her. She will return to me, reborn in lightness, with a deeper understanding of herself and how we fit into each others life. I know this to be true and I fear it not.

But last night she was confuse-id. I felt it all day and all night. She did try to explain but it was too painful for her. It seems another love still haunts her and my love for her is not yet powerful enough to conquer this painful memory and melt her cold cold heart. But I have no doubt that it will.

I woke this morning with the lyrics of a song running through my head and I believe they were planted there for a reason.

http://www.jango.com/music/581-Norah-Jones?l=0

I’ve tried so hard my dear to show
That you’re my every dream
Yet you’re afraid each thing I do
Is just some evil scheme

A memory from your lonesome past
Keeps us so far apart
Why can’t I free your doubtful mind
And melt your cold cold heart

Another love before my time
Made your heart sad an’ blue
And so my heart is paying now
For things I didn’t do

In anger unkind words are said
That make the teardrops start
Why can’t I free your doubtful mind
And melt your cold cold heart

There was a time when I believed
That you belonged to me
But now I know your heart is shackled
To a memory

The more I learn to care for you
The more we drift apart
Why can’t I free your doubtful mind
And melt your cold cold heart

I know this song well. As a child my father would sing it, over and over again. He taught it to me when i was learning to play the guitar. I also sang it over and over again, until the lyrics were burned into my memories like a branding iron.

Tatchi, I promise you, I will not give up. I will melt the last icy pieces of your heart and he will no longer haunt your dreams. I will free you to love again completely. That is my birthday wish for you, and my gift. Whether your heart is meant for me or for a future love, matters not. What matters is that you will be free to love again, to trust again, to let your heart sour to knew heights. This I will do for you.

Happy birthday my love…

THE EXPERIENCE:

You’re taking a walk in Second Life and you start hearing people talking, but there are no avatars around. You’ve curious and try to locate the source of the voices. As the voices grow louder, you notice five rocks in a circle that appear to be in conversation. It’s definitely not idle small talk; they are talking about holism and reductivism in a rather theoretical manner. Soon you start to pick up their names, strange names like Anteater, Achilles and Tortoise; but oddly familiar. Then it dawns on you this is a dialogue from Godel, Escher and Bach called the Ant Fugue.

PROJECT TITLE: Conversations in the Garden

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The creation of a five rock theater that performs philosophical dialogues in the Second Life environment, supported by a web-based playwriting tool to create and manage plays.

THE CHARACTERS: The characters in the plays are animated rock (yes, big stones). Five rocks will be set up in a circle. They will be built from Second Life sculptie objects.

WHAT IS NEEDED:

I need one or two examples of an animatable sculptie in the shape of a rock. A single rock will be made of one or more sculpties depending on how the animation process works.

One or two copyable versions should be all I need. I will be modifying the sculpties using SculptiPaint and creating the pre-programmed gestures using the SL Puppeteer program.

To get an idea of the shape of the rocks, just image a rock with an elephants trunk attached.

THE SCRIPTING:

The following is a list of functions needed in this project:

The lead rock must be able to:

• Sense when an avatar is approaching
• Record and save an avatar’s name
• Alert the other rocks to begin a play
• Choose which play to enact
• Choose whether to pick up where the play left off
• Begin the play
• Leave a cue to be picked up by a specific rock

The other rocks must be able to:

• Recognize their cue
• Play their part
• Leave a cue for the next actor
• Send a completion cue to the lead rock

The rocks must be able to speak in two forms

• Text-to-speech
• Wave files

The rocks must be able to sync basic gestures with specific clips of dialogue

• This means that the rock will have a pre-programmed set of gestures, which I will create after I see a few examples.
• When an audio clip is entered into the database by the writer a series of gestures can be selected to accompany the audio clip.
• In addition, when a gesture is to occur can be set by the writer
• All the audio clips, text-to-speech text, gesture settings and timing will be stored in the database

ABOUT THE DATABASE

• The playwright composing environment will be a PHP and MySQL web environment that I will create myself, you need not concern yourself with his except to advise as to how to integrate the two environments.
• I’m assuming that once the play is finished the contents of the database will be uploaded to the SL environment.
• I do not know how this works and need you advice as to how to accomplish this.

THE WRITERS’ INTERFACE:

A web-based playwright environment will be created to assist writers in creating dialogue for the Rock Theater. It will include the following:

· Text input fields for each segment of dialogue

· An uploader for audio clips (wave files)

· The ability to choose from a series of gestures

· Associate a gesture with a segment

· Choose when a gesture will be animate.

Please note: I am very new to Second Life and I may be misunderstanding how things work, so please look at this as an outline that can be modified depending on how the technology works in Second Life.

Thanks

Remo Campopiano

AKA: Political Magic

When I was a younger man I would take giant leaps of faith, which took me to exotic places, very strange and exciting places. Later I learned that this was the world of the paranormal. I loved this world and felt at home.

Later, when I studied philosophy with Dr Teeter and my special friend George Wilke, I turned my back on this world. The taught me to ground myself in body of human knowledge and the mind of the great philosophers and spiritual thinkers.

I adopted this credo; if you don’t know it first hand, then you don’t know it at all.

I saw this as a period of maturing, growing up, where I would leave behind my childhood fantasies and my fear of god. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe all these years I have been on the wrong path. What if I had not? What if I had lived my whole life in leaps of faith?

Last night my lover revealed to me, a new layer of her soul; one that the mature me could only see as unbelievable. Not that I felt she was telling untruths; it was that my belief systems could not encompass what she was saying.

The conflict in my mind, compounded by the conflict in my heart was tearing me apart.

I have spent my whole life creating a belief systems that grounded me as an honest, loving and caring man. Now I don’t know anymore.

Here is what she said to me.

“I can see into the future. I can look into the eyes of a stranger and know them intimately, know their past and know their future.”

I asked how…

A kiss in GAIA Rising

“I have studies with great masters and they taught me to reach profoundly powerful levels of meditation. These are great gifts from the .hmmessage P { margin:0px; padding:0px } body.hmmessage { FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY:Tahoma } collective unconscious.”

I asked did you see our future when we met…

“Yes, I observed you many time before we meet. You stood out with a powerful radiance. You shined like no other avatar and I could see deep into your soul. It was no accident that we met.”

Hearing all this, is shaking me to the core. I don’t know what to say so I listen some more…

“There are truths and there are truths. Your truth is your truth. My truth is my truth. They are not the same truth, but they are truths none the less and one does not negate the other. They live side by side in the oneness of the love we share and they make us much more than what we apart.

I don’t understand…

I’m stretching as hard as I can. I want to believe. I want to understand but my mind is whiling around chasing my heart and falling again, falling into tears and a state of madness.

What is happening to me. How can she have this power over me to make me question the foundation of everything I believe.

It’s not like I live a normal everyday life. I have made it my life’s mission to seek the truth, to live the righteous life of a good man. I see myself as an enlightened soul. So how can I be so beguiled and enchanted by her if her truths were not true.

I could not stay in this state of limbo for long with truly going mad, so I had to make a decision…

Its been many many years since I’ve leaped; and last night I leaped.

I chose to believe her.

I believe her.

Her truths are my truths.

Our souls will merge.

I am powerless with her and I am powerless without her.

And it was meant to be…

If this is madness, so let it be. But I think not. It maybe just the opposite. It may be the true reality, the true me, the truth I long for and have yet to know.

I must know; and the only way is it serender to her, avatar and soul…

We were getting tired and we had a very special treat to share tonight so we retired to the privacy of out home in that sky.

Tatchi got her voice card working and for the very first time I would hear her voice, the voice of my warrior angle. What would it be like? Dark and raspy from her cigarette habit? Low and sexy from her theater and film experience? Loud and dominant from her aggressive nature? I had no idea and the suspense was killing me.

So there we were, in bed, in dreamland, in love and in each others arms.

It was just a giggle but it was her voice. The next I heard “Hi” and another giggle. A smile wrapped around my face. The joy was palpable, a physical lump in my throat that made me speechless.

The illusion is complete and the love is real.

But that was it. That is all she would give me tonight. She was so shy about her ability to speak in English that she had exhausted her nerve. I understood and thanked her.

What bliss, I thought. Sometime the pure beauty of it all propels you forward to places you should not go. I went to one of those places.

I started talking about the possiblity of meeting in Italy; yes, the real Italy. When you cross the two world, the illusions shatter like little pieces of silver. A sadness came over us both as we remembered the great divide in our age. She is 29. I am 59.

She said, sobbing, “My father is old like a grandfather, and he is your age.” I can imagine her head dropping in tears; as mine does the same in humiliation and shame. We just killed the illusion and we both felt it deeply.

Wait…!

What’s that!

There is someone here!

It was my landlord. She came in the guise of a raven…a large menacing black raven. Poe could have conjured up no better raven; no more potent an intruder.

Tatchi was taken by surprise, which is not like her, she is always so cool and in control. It must have been the deep sadness we were feeling and the sudden and violent menace attacking our glass house.

Tatchi let her in…

I tried to message the landlord, asking if there was something wrong, but I received no response, because the two women with in dialogue. It seems that we were breaking a long list of rules and that we were in violation of our agreement. At first the dialogue seem conciliatory and that this could all be worked out.

The raven appeared to leave and we laughed about the situation and felt it no big deal, we’ll work it out in the morning. The good thing is the spell of sadness was lifted and we started to laugh again.

But no such luck…

What just happen?

The walls were gone.

Pictures were suspended in mid air. We were still lying in bed, in a tender embrace. But then the bed was gone.

There we lay together suspended in air watch everything we had built vanish piece by piece. You just can’t image the profound sense of lose. We said nothing, just held tight to each other. We couldn’t cry; but we did start to laugh, a nervous laugh that morphed into sobs.

It was all gone…all of it. It was impossible not to see the irony. We had just destroyed the illusion in our minds with our words…

Tatchi said profoundly, as she often does, “Words have power.”

Did we bring this on ourselves?

And then one more indignity…

In an instant, we were violently separated and could no longer see each other. I wasfalling, plummeting out of control. It was like dying, like the approaching land was real and that there was no hope of surviving the impact. It under a minute of falling but it felt like eternity; maybe it was.

A sense of peace came over me, knowing my last moments were holding my true love and hearing her voice, here real voice, saying, “I love you. I was born in love with you; and I’m dying in love with you.”

Yesterday started with it normal flutter of excitement. We mounded our magic carpet, we keep it on the roof of our sky-platform home. We wanted to survey the local area and get a feel for our neighbors and what they were doing. Carpet riding is as magical as it sounds; two people bound together in the same visual experience, flying through the air in communion.

But of course, reality had to poke us with it’s ugly little finger, a motif that would plague this day again and again. Yes, the carpet broke down; mechanical problems.

So we moved on…

I wanted Tatchi to experience a beautiful place I found called Crucible. It is moody like a propical rain forest and sensual like the moors of Wethering Heights.

But when we arrived we noticed we were not alone; and it appeared that he was stalking us. I asked nicely to allow us our privacy, but he still appeared to be following us. I made some hummorous comment referring back to the poem that I wrote for Tatchi; something like “Tatchi, maybe it’s time to get out your uzi and blast this asshole back where he belongs.” Guns? Me? Where did that come from?

He responding by accusing us of being rude. And that is when I lost it.

I am not a violent man; not at all. So what came out of my mouth at that moment shock the shit out of me. I said very loadly and in anger. “You are the rude one and you better get the fuck out of my way!”

Within a few seconds, I found myself slammed down to bottom of the swamp struggling to free myself from the mud. I had never been banned before so I had no idea what was happening.

My only option was to teleport back home.

Back home I tried to explain to Tatchi what had happened, but before I could get very far, I get a message from Cuwynne Deerhunter, the guy that did this to me. He identified himself as the owner of the land and said he was just working on HIS sim and that I was the intruder.

[2008/08/07 17:54]  Cuwynne Deerhunter: I was working on my sim. Building. You were in my home. In the future when you visit somewhere it is advisable to do an about land check and see who’s property you are on.

This troubled me. I hated people that cling to an illusion of righteous indignation when you might actually be the culpable one. I also, wondered why I would respond so violently, I don’t do that in the real world? Is it the fact that danger here is not physical? Is this an extension of the Gangis Ring metaphor; that without physical reprisal, we revert back to animal aggression?

Well all this made me feel ashamed and I felt I had to do something about it. So I wrote him back:

[2008/08/07 17:56]  Political Magic: I did not realize this and I apoligise. We were there because it is such a beautiful sim and a very romantic place .
Political Magic: Congrates…
Political Magic: I don’t usually act that way, but it was a special time for us and we wanted to be alone.
Political Magic: Hope you understand.
Cuwynne Deerhunter: I understand that. Many people visit here, it is very flattering. If you feel that your behaviour was an aberration, I am willing to accept your apology and lift your ban.
Political Magic: Thank you…
Political Magic: Some day we’ll sit and talk, but now must get back to my love.
Cuwynne Deerhunter: Very well. Let us call it a misunderstanding and not mention it again.

Now that is a proper gentleman.

I felt better, but I don’t think Tatchi understood why I apologized. She is much more aggresive than I am. Maybe it is her youth. Maybe when she reads this she will understand.

The events of last night were the most dramatic, powerful and meaningful of any experience so far in Second Life. It is hard to conceive of such a story line, but it all happen. Let’s start with the end. Here is the letter I just wrote to my Second Life landlord:

It is have for me to believe that you could have done such a cruel act. All you had to do is tell me I was breaking the rules and I would have corrected it.

But what you did was unforgivable and I do not want to be associated with you or Odyssey. I will make my personal apologies to Alan, who I’m sure will understand, because he is a true artist. I think you understand what that means. Artists don’t make art; they make life, and art flows from their life. This is what was happening here and it was going to be glorious.

But I must thank you for one thing. Your actions, are cruel as they were, did create the most exciting night we have every experienced in Second Life, and will make a great chapter’s end to my book. This chapter will be entitled Icarus’ Decent*. Fortunately for you I don’t use real name, because you will not fair to well in the story line. But I must admit, coming in the night as a raven was brilliant.

So, please honor your promise and return the 10000k and we’ll be on our way.

*Daedalus fashioned a pair of wax wings for himself and his son, Icarus. Before they made their escape from the island prison, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun. Overcome by the sublime feeling that flying gave him, Icarus soared through the sky joyfully, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which melted his wings. And so, Icarus fell into the sea in the area which bears his name, the Icarian Sea.

So, we are homeless at the moment, picking up the pieces and wondering how one day could change our world so dramatically. If you think that this is just a game and we are not feeling the great despair of homelessness, then you have not been reading this blog from the beginning. Pain is pain, sorrow is sorrow, lose is lose; matters not which world it comes from.

Homeless, but we had each other, and we could always find place to dance in the moonlight. So that's what we did.

I woke up this morning whispering her name out load. The borders between realities are no longer visible. Definition no longer has meaning. Souls move in and out  like the sultry clouds in Heathcliff’s moors.

I always dreamed of playing the piano.

I never new she could do such magic. She disguised her layers with a vale of childishness and irreverence. No one could know the ancient soul that lay just beyond the rebels guns. Did Buddha ever carry an uzi? I wonder…

She said no.

She said if you want to love me, you must love me. And I knew immediately what she meant.

We were to be reborn in pure light, never to be soiled again by the earthly body. We both have the magic of the ancients in our hearts and we can sour to places others would never know; and dive to depths that would crush the unenlightened heart.

I knew exactly what she was saying and all she said was no, which was the same as saying yes.

What I wonderful dream I woke to this morning.

And the true wonderment is, it was not a dream…it was our life together in Second Life. As unfathomable as it may seem, it is more real than any earthly mortals can conceive. Reality has no bounds when ancient souls collide in Second Life.

She said no.