The 2008 Bioneers conference starts this morning … I’m up early, partly because I’m excited – this is the first year my reclusive love-monkey will be accompanying me – and partly because I drank a (perfectly-prepared) latte far too late last night.
I’m going to be live-blogging the event again this year, for all you who can’t make it to either San Rafael or one of the 18 "Beaming Bioneers" satellite locations.
Hold on to your seats …
Light has been following me around for weeks now…
I think it’s in love with me, the way it wraps itself in alluring fabric and wafts by casually with side-long glances until I can’t help but stare, fascinated.
She’s taken to coming by my room every morning at the crack of dawn
sparkling outside my window, dancing with the leaves and tapping the edges of the glass with her long prismatic rays, enticing me to come out & play.
His blazing passion surprises me
with the heat of his heart’s desire through the short winter days, sharp shadows harboring potential secrets and drawing me in for shelter.
She’s back again at dusk,
her richness overflowing onto the surface of every living thing – the sky, the grass, the tress, the red wagon parked next to the house and the green garden hose, coiled like a snake. The depth of her joy makes each one glow with intensity.
He sweeps in with the stars in the night sky
and torches lamps in every house, whole neighborhoods laid out like the warp of a glittering carpet at my feet as I look down from his height.
She’s my playmate, my friend;
he’s become my shy lover, my demanding muse…
I guess I can admit it now.
I’m totally in love with it; this light, this electric flame illuminating all things and filling my life with an iridescent shimmering that never sleeps, but stays humming its sweet song through my dreams.
She’s woven herself into my skin and I can’t go anywhere without her.
There is nothing more fascinating to me, no pleasure more compelling, no companion more dear.
We’ve taken to sweeping across the night sky together now;
long glittering tails of color streaming behind us … falling to the earth like jewels that sprout and blossom in rash profusion on the ground.
I can no longer tell where I leave off and she begins,
this light-being we have become.
This light-being we have become
encompasses all I’ve ever been or will ever know,
and each day is created new for us.
The weatherman says it’s going to rain soon; my guy is making sure our garden is prepared and on my walk this morning I saw people busy re-tarring their roofs and cutting those branches precariously situated above power lines. The energy of change is loose in my world and summer’s heat has been chased into memory by the last few days’ crisp breeze.
What’s most fascinating to me about all this, though, is the light, and what is happening to it now that we’re moving into autumn.
If a year were to be superimposed on one day, this season would be the first dawning of sunset, the beginning of twilight; my favorite time of the day. The colors are intensified, and the light soft, almost swollen.
Earlier this year, during the Winter Solstice Dreaming ceremony I did with my dear friends Pele Rouge and FireHawk in the Santa Cruz mountains, I wrote this love poem to Light, which I found the other day and thought I would share with you here.
If you know me or have read this blog for any length of time, you know that bringing sacred space into the online sphere has been one of my strongest dreams and passions ever since I entered this field. In my work I am always seeking to create environments of peace and beauty where silence is welcome and hearts connect, where we are aware of all our relations within the natural and spirit worlds and can enter deeply into our essential nature as Humans and relate together in the sure knowledge that we are one interconnected spirit and body.
I’ve been integrating color and images and movement into user interfaces, cultivating the practice of kindness and respect in conversational forums, and generally evolving these sensory-based language(s) as my ground-of-being online. I have been blessed with many successes, large and small, in beginning to realize my dream, but the other night my ability to imagine what is truly possible took a quantum leap.
My friend and playmate in this realm FireHawk Hulin (aka DragonWolf Goheen) invited me to join him in Second Life to explore something he and the ever-amazing David Sibbet (aka Sunseed Bardeen) had been working on with the exquisite Michelle Paradis (aka SingingHeart Amat) … something truly unique in my experience, and totally magical.
We sat in circle around the fire in this beautiful clearing made
sacred by our intention and David & Michelle’s artistry and told each other
stories. We shared the stories of our dreams and visions, the stories
that had brought each of us to this place in this moment of no-time.
Late into the night we spoke the words that brought us each into our
full being – together in a state of honor and respect.
We spoke through a long sunset, its last rays illuminating a variety
of lush flower beds that framed and colored each of the eight gates
that stood and marked each direction of our circumference. We continued
to speak as stars filled the sky above us and the sounds of soft
singing and drumming were joined by those of crickets and the night
sounds of the clearing. We were completely there, our small circle of
four; in that time and place, in body and in spirit.
I know that not everyone would be interested in exploring a virtual
world environment, even if the learning curve for navigating it was not
so steep. In the past I’ve thought of that fact as a reason not to
focus my creative energy there, but the other night a different
realization appeared to me. If the people who do play in Second Life –
the ‘geeks’ and futurists and early-adaptor trend-setters – are able to
experience something so truly transformational there as I experienced
the other night, then perhaps some of that peace and beauty will be
reflected, even in some small way, in what they create and write and
say and do in their own First Lives, or the ‘real’ world where the rest
of humanity lives.
This realization of larger purpose and
intent would make any time I spent in Second Life completely
justifiable, but on a more personal level it was enormously joyful and
generative to just let my imagination run free and experience the pure
pleasure of unbridled creativity… tasting that bliss is worth a lot
to me and I can’t wait to see what we’ll imagine next!
weDialogue
Welcome!