2009.02.21 07:00 - visiting the "Happy place" :)

The Guardian for this meeting was Lia Rikugun. The comments are by Lia Rikugun.

welcomes

Adelene Dawner: 'lo Udge ^.^
Udge Watanabe: hello adelene
Udge Watanabe: nice to see you again, it's been a while.
Adelene Dawner: Yep, I haven't been around too much - trying to come more.
Adelene Dawner is amused, today.
Udge Watanabe: glad to hear it!
Udge Watanabe: anything in particular?
Udge Watanabe: hello lia
Lia Rikugun: hello good morning ;)
Lia Rikugun: have you been here before?
Udge Watanabe: yes, thanks, quite often :)
Lia Rikugun: ok wonderful
Udge Watanabe: Fael introduced me many months ago
Lia Rikugun: no need for the notecard
Udge Watanabe: :)
Lia Rikugun: ;)
Adelene Dawner: I'm looking at prefab microhomes - I liked the idea when I ran into it a few years ago, and now that I'm comfortably living in about 150 square feet, I figured I'd look at them again - seems less unreasonable now.
Udge Watanabe: wow
Adelene Dawner: But most of them are at least 400 square feet... some of them have *living rooms* that are 500... All I can say is: You're doing it wrong.
Lia Rikugun: hello ******
******: hello
Adelene Dawner: Hi Pem ^.^
Udge Watanabe: hello pema
Lia Rikugun: hello pema
Udge Watanabe: and hello ******
Pema Pera: Hi everybody!
Udge Watanabe: that is not a "microhome" in my book either
Lia Rikugun: ****** have you been here before?
Udge Watanabe: I've seen so-called 2-room apartments that were only 500 sq ft
Adelene Dawner: *nods*
Udge Watanabe: heh, right on sque.
Udge Watanabe: *squee
******: lia what do you from ?
Adelene Dawner: This apartment is actually 250, but I don't use the bedroom... *shrug*
Lia Rikugun: germany
Adelene Dawner: Still haven't figured out why I don't. Just don't feel the need for the space, I guess.
Udge Watanabe nods
Lia Rikugun: ****** if you dont know we are a group that has meetings every 6 hours
Lia Rikugun: we discuss our expierence after meditation
Lia Rikugun: every 15minutes we take 9 sec to drop everything
******: ok
Lia Rikugun: http://playasbeing.wik.is/
Lia Rikugun: here you can read all the information
Lia Rikugun: hello doug
Adelene Dawner: hi, Doug
Udge Watanabe: hello doug
Pema Pera: We record our conversations there, on that wiki, ******. Do you mind being included in our blogs?
doug Sosa: morning
Pema Pera: hi there Doug!
Udge Watanabe: I guess taht means "yes"
Pema Pera: Perhaps he did mind!
Pema Pera: :-)
Lia Rikugun: i forgot to ask...
Adelene Dawner chuckles.
Pema Pera: np, I asked and that was it
Udge Watanabe: perhaps that saved some time all around ...
Pema Pera: So here is the extra little task, Lia, for the guardian of the session, to delete the lines that ****** spoke, and also the lines that we spoke
Pema Pera: or alternatively
Pema Pera: you can replace his name by "Anonymous"
Pema Pera: both in his lines and in our greetings
Lia Rikugun: ok
Pema Pera: Sorry about the extra work
Lia Rikugun: nono why
Lia Rikugun: hello myna

my first guardian-on-call ;)

Pema Pera: Did everybody realize that this is Lia's first guardian-on-call day?
Lia Rikugun: ups that my foot
Lia Rikugun: :)
Pema Pera: congratulations!
Lia Rikugun: hehe
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Myna Maven: Ooops, so sorry!
Pema Pera: Did you succeed in claiming the chat log, Lia?
Myna Maven: Congrats, Lia.
Lia Rikugun: hm just touching it?
Udge Watanabe: hello myna
Pema Pera: yeah!
Myna Maven: Hello Udge.
Lia Rikugun: so how do i get the link then?
Pema Pera: You will be sent the URL of the log later, Lia, you're in!
Pema Pera: ask me later, if you have difficulty finding it
Adelene Dawner continues poking at microhome layouts 'till the conversation picks up ^.^
Lia Rikugun: until now i didnt get any link
Pema Pera: no, after the session ends
Lia Rikugun: ok

when did Myna join us in Second Life and different virtual worlds

Udge Watanabe: Myna, I've seen your name in the logs, you are one of Pema's colleagues?
Lia Rikugun: thank you
Myna Maven: Udge, no, not a colleague.
Myna Maven: I happened upon Kira back around the beginning of Jan.
Pema Pera: in the sense that I run a program in interdisciplinary studies, perhaps anyone can be my colleague, when sufficiently "inter" :-)
Udge Watanabe: :)
Udge Watanabe: a broad and particularly sticky brush, then.
Pema Pera: Were you introduced by Tarmel, Myna?
Pema Pera: Do I remember that right?
Myna Maven: No. I just happened upon Kira.
Pema Pera hits his head, for his faulty memory . . . .
Myna Maven: You were there actually, the night I found it. And you told me about PaB and the phenomenology workshop.
Myna Maven: I looked up the website and spent a couple of weeks doing a lot of reading.
Udge Watanabe chuckles
Myna Maven: The website is a good introduction.
Pema Pera: Ah! Yes, I do remember talking with you in the Kira Cafe in January, but wasn't sure about the circumstances
Myna Maven: A lot of material there.
Myna Maven: I was fresh to SL. Had tried it out a couple of years ago and didn't care for it. I was about 5 minutes new this second time out.
Lia Rikugun: so it was meant to be :)
Pema Pera: :-)
Udge Watanabe nods.
Myna Maven: I felt fortunate.
Pema Pera: we too Myna!
Udge Watanabe: ripeness is all, to coin a phrase
Pema Pera: there seems to be a time for everything, yes . . .
Pema Pera: hi Bell !
Adelene Dawner giggles. "I'm playing with HUDs again. That's my new PaB module."
Pema Pera has his sound of, so can't hear our dear Bell
Myna Maven: Yes, I had the sense the time was ripe.
Udge Watanabe smiles
Lia Rikugun: it is very relaxing. the bell
Udge Watanabe: In a way it was similar for me, I resisted going into SL for years, despite all I heard about it
Myna Maven: Udge, I was trying it again with a good bit of skepticism.
Myna Maven: I had read, however, something about Scilands, if I remember.
Pema Pera: It took me eight months or so, before I was becoming a regular -- I was working mostly in a different virtual world, Qwaq, but that one didn't have the people networks that SL had
Myna Maven: And I was thinking Scilands might have some interesting things to supplement homeschooling.
Pema Pera: Qwaq is better for workshops, but lacks the human potential of the SL "mobs" :-)
Udge Watanabe nods
Pema Pera: Did you find something interesting there, Myna?
Myna Maven: Yes, Pema. I especially like doing some of the lectures there with him.

  

the MICA talk for the schedule look here http://www.mica-vw.org 

Pema Pera: Today there will be a fun talk at MICA, did you know that? At 10 am SLT
Myna Maven: No, I didn't.
Udge Watanabe: mm?
Pema Pera: Great speaker, Prospero Frobozz, he has been here at PaB sometimes
Myna Maven: Yes.
Pema Pera: you should all become a member of MICA-VW, the SL group for astronomy activities of MICA
Pema Pera: or if you prefer google groups, I can subscribe you to "micamail"
Pema Pera: http://www.mica-wv.org
Pema Pera: the schedule is there on the front page
Myna Maven: We should. We like astronomy there, in our laymen way. We visit the planetarium quite a lot. :)
Myna Maven: "here" not there.
Pema Pera: "Hamlet's Supernova" is the title of today's talk at 10 am
Udge Watanabe: interesting title!
Myna Maven: Thanks for letting us know. And it is quite an interesting title.
Pema Pera: See the web site I just typed above
Pema Pera: for more info
Udge Watanabe <- more a shakespeare buff than an astronomer
Pema Pera: Prospero is also leading a stage play workshop at the Kira Cafe -- he is a regular Shakespeare actor in SL as well
Pema Pera: Mondays 2 pm SLT
Udge Watanabe: (are you sure about that URL? it isn't loading for me)
doug Sosa: i tried that url, didn't work?
Myna Maven: Me neither.
Pema Pera: oops
Lia Rikugun: http://www.mica-vw.org/wiki/index.ph...l_Astrophysics
Pema Pera: http://www.mica-vw.org
Pema Pera: sorry about that
Udge Watanabe: ah, ty
Udge Watanabe: wow. amazing.
Pema Pera mistook wonderful vistas for virtual worlds . . .
Udge Watanabe: I will indeed have to attend that lecture.
Pema Pera: (transposed vw to wv in URL)

  

different stages in life concerning dropping what you have, keeping compassion in difficult phases!

Pema Pera: If I may change the subject briefly . . . Myna, the notion of dropping what you have, to see what you are, how has that worked so far, can you tell us something about how you have been playing with that?
Pema Pera: (or anyone else, of course?)
Myna Maven: I am a contemplative and have been doing this for a long time. I go through different phases, stages. I'm still rather waiting to see what is going on with this stage.
Myna Maven: I'm not sure. :)
Lia Rikugun: how do the stages look like i am curious?
Myna Maven: It would be rather difficult for me to describe them. But I find the stages, for me, take months to years to progress through.
Myna Maven: For me it is a slow moving process with sometimes leaps in experience/realization.
Myna Maven: And they are not always pleasant leaps.
Lia Rikugun: hm
Lia Rikugun: i think you can easily jump from one extreme to another
Lia Rikugun: where you dont know what to believe in suddenly
Lia Rikugun: for me at least
Myna Maven: It's good to keep at open mind.
Lia Rikugun: yes definitely
Myna Maven: The bottom rule for me, when moving through difficult phases, is keeping compassion in mind.
Myna Maven: I'm sitting here typing and retyping, sorry, trying to formulate something and it's not happening. :)
Lia Rikugun: :)
Pema Pera: oh, you're doing a great job, Myna!
Udge Watanabe: mmhmm
Pema Pera: And compassion, yes, that is the key
Lia Rikugun: i know what you mean myna
Pema Pera: compassion for yourself as well as for others
Pema Pera: wearing everything lightly . . . .
Myna Maven: Yes.

  

think back to what is really important in our lives during stressfull times

Pema Pera: As for me, it has been an interesting week -- I was even busier than usual, to the point of not having time some days to read all my email, let alone to respond to them . . .
Pema Pera: that made me a bit frazzled, till I began to realize, with a little help from my friends, that I had identified too much with the sense of urgency of reading and responding --
Udge Watanabe nods
Pema Pera: and I realized that nothing is absolutely urgent; everything is only relative, and I learned to relax a bit more, enough to view all the chores and task as things I had, not things I was, to be identified with.
Lia Rikugun: (sorry fo rsending so mayn mails :))
Pema Pera: I've learned that many times, and I keep learning more and more, and each time it gets a little easier, and it sinks in a bit more :-)
Lia Rikugun: yes you have to remember every day what is really important
Lia Rikugun: i forget
Pema Pera: :)
Pema Pera: why sorry, Lia?
Lia Rikugun: more emails in you rinbox...
Pema Pera: ah! Nono those were the fun ones! Do keep sending them

  

a good feeling to start the day

Pema Pera: Do you want to talk about those here?
Pema Pera: by any chance?
Pema Pera: if you feel like it?
Lia Rikugun: i am not sure
Adelene Dawner perks her ears.
Lia Rikugun: i had a weird feeling
Lia Rikugun: the last day
Lia Rikugun: when i woke up
Lia Rikugun: or maybe it was the feeling that make me wake up
Lia Rikugun: and it was very intense
Lia Rikugun: feeling of love and warmth with an image of flowers spreading around
Lia Rikugun: it felt so true
Lia Rikugun: und pure
Lia Rikugun: and it was wonderful to start my day like this
Udge Watanabe smiles and nods
Lia Rikugun: a love comingfrom insdie going outwards in every direction
Myna Maven: Lia, I had something like that happen once. Very intense. A little different from yours. I've never forgotten it.
Lia Rikugun: :D
Lia Rikugun: this made me feel i want to hug everybody today!
Lia Rikugun: :)
Pema Pera: :-)
Myna Maven: :)
Udge Watanabe: :)
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Pema Pera: you're doing so already in sharing your adventures with us, Lia!
Pema Pera: I'm so glad that you're opening doors now between different compartments in your consciousness, in your mind!
Pema Pera: as soon as we open those doors, so much can happen . . . . and spontaneously, naturally, without us having to do anything at all
Lia Rikugun: it is interesting what you can suddenly see
Lia Rikugun: or feel
Lia Rikugun: which you might not have realized before
Myna Maven: :) It can be quite a journey.
Udge Watanabe chuckles and writes that one down.

  

from lucid dreaming to daydreaming or visiting the "happy place"

Pema Pera: During the last week, Lia, who is now visiting me in Princeton, and I have been exploring the use of imagination, of opening up for a kind of daydreaming that can help us to be more spontaneous -- but rather hard to explain this all in text . . . .
Adelene Dawner: Try? *bats eyelashes* ^.^
Pema Pera: Well, it is something I've been playing with over the years
Pema Pera: it started fifteen years or so ago, when I was experimenting with lucid dreaming
Pema Pera: trying to realize that you are dreaming while dreaming
Myna Maven: Yes.
Pema Pera: you can learn that, if it doesn't happen already spontaneously but it takes time
Pema Pera: after a while I would have one lucid dream a week,
Pema Pera: and I thought, as a scientist, there ought to be a better way, more efficiently
Pema Pera: so . . .
Pema Pera: . . . I took a shortcut
Pema Pera: and set in front of my computer, alone in my room
Pema Pera: and told myself to go into a day dream
Lia Rikugun: :)
Pema Pera: rather than waking up within a dream, I decided to reverse thing
Pema Pera: things
Pema Pera: always a key for new research directions :)
Pema Pera: starting do dream while waking
Lia Rikugun: and working ...
Lia Rikugun: :P
Pema Pera: Funny thing was, at first I was convinced that nothing had happened, after the bell rang after four minutes
Adelene Dawner chuckles. "I thought oyu might be describing that, Pema. I've been playing with it for a while myself."
Pema Pera: (I had given myself four minutes)
Pema Pera: but when I do that kind of experiment, I *always* make notes
Pema Pera: like a lab journal
Pema Pera: so . . . I wrote down "nothing happened"
Pema Pera: and then "hmmm, almost nothing"
Pema Pera: and then "oh yes, there was a sense of a forest"
Udge Watanabe: :)
Pema Pera: and "and ah, I was walking through a forest, and saw a house there"
Pema Pera: and so on.
Pema Pera: It was just such a gulf between normal consciousness and this kind of different daydreaming consciousness that only through writing was I able to cross the gulf
Adelene Dawner grins. "I tend to be a little more practical, most of the time but not always, in that state."
Pema Pera: and once crossed once, it became easier and easier
Adelene Dawner: Deep-deep pondering of whatever project i'm working on.
Pema Pera: yes, Adelene, it is different for everyone
Adelene Dawner: But sometimes I get traditional dream sequences, too.
Adelene Dawner: I describe it as "I'm not dreaming, but I might as well be."
Lia Rikugun: this happened to me, I actually fell asleep then ;)
Pema Pera: So I learned to cross between the two ways of using awareness quite easily, after a while
Myna Maven: I'm familiar because I've done this for years as well.
Pema Pera: yes, Adelene
Pema Pera: we probably all have found our own way in :-)
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Pema Pera: So with this background, when I talked with Lia, she mentioned that she has a "happy place" where she likes to go to, in her awareness, and that's what started me then to share my experiences of these kinds of "sallies" as I call them -- after which Lia began playing with them, with great success -- hence her many happy emails :-)
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Udge Watanabe: aah :)
Myna Maven: :)
Lia Rikugun: :)
Lia Rikugun: I used the happy place before when i was very stressed
doug Sosa: Thanks for the description of that history.
Lia Rikugun: just to let me relax
Myna Maven: I still angst a lot. I need to cultivate my happy place a bit more.
Lia Rikugun: but i never walked around
Myna Maven: :)
Lia Rikugun: so now i found interesting things there
Lia Rikugun: :)
Adelene Dawner: hmm.
Udge Watanabe smiles

  

daydreaming as method to get rest, get back energies during 28h-day-schedules

Adelene Dawner: I wonder how that state compares to REM, as far as brainwaves 'n stuff.
Lia Rikugun: what is RFM?
Myna Maven: I was reading an interesting story about...Hans Berger? yesterday.
Adelene Dawner: (I had a bit of an odd experience with it earlier today that left me wondering.)
Adelene Dawner: REM is the dream-sleep state.
Lia Rikugun: oh ok
Pema Pera: Yes, Myna?
Myna Maven: Adalene, I didn't want to intrude on your relating your experience.
Adelene Dawner: No, go ahead, we can come back ot me if anyone's interested.
Myna Maven: Please, go ahead.
Myna Maven: You had brought it up :)
Adelene Dawner fights with her computer a moment... :P
Udge Watanabe remembers the cartoon of the two squirrels. "You first" "No, after you" "I insist" ...
Lia Rikugun: hehe
Adelene Dawner: Ok, well, I was going to try to switch to a 28-hour-day schedule this past week, but all that accomplished was to completely throw off any semblance of a sleep schedule I had.
Adelene Dawner: It's been something like 48 hours (I honestly don't know, at this point, exactly) since I slept for more than 4 hours at a stretch.
Adelene Dawner: Which is not good.
Lia Rikugun: :(
Udge Watanabe nods soberly
Myna Maven: I empathize.
Adelene Dawner: So, earlier today... or... yesterday? Fuzy. *chuckles* Anyway, last time it was dark, I tried to sleep. Laid there for an hour or so. Couldn't sleep. At *all*. But I could get to that near-dreaming stage just fine.
Myna Maven: Twilight sleep.
Pema Pera: :)
Adelene Dawner: Which reminds me of what I've read about REM being the most important phase, and when someone goes on polyphasic sleep (which I kind of am, now... >.< ) that's the state they'll go to when they do sleep.
Myna Maven: May I ask why you're intentionally moving to a 28 hour schedule?
Adelene Dawner: (Polyphasic sleep is when you sleep in naps through the day, instead of all in one chunk, if anyone's wondering)
Lia Rikugun: do you think then that the daydreaming is heloing you in regaining your energies?
Lia Rikugun: *Ãœhelping
Lia Rikugun: *helping
Lia Rikugun: or did i misunderstand?
Adelene Dawner: Myna: It seemed like it was worth a try? I have no need to keep to any kind of a schedule at all, now, but the 6amto 2-5 pm shcedule I'd slipped into was wreaking havoc on what social life I have.
Adelene Dawner: Lia: It might've. I think so, anyway. I'm functioning pretty well considering how little sleep I've gotten recently.
Myna Maven: I naturally fall into 28 hour schedules. So does my son.
Myna Maven: It can be difficult.
Udge Watanabe: huh
Myna Maven: Not so much difficult for us but keeping aligned with 24 hourers.
Adelene Dawner: I think I'll do fine on the 28 once I get some blackout shades. It's been so long since I tried to fall asleep in the daylight that I forgot I have trouble with it.
Udge Watanabe: ah, I can see how that ties in with home schooling!
Myna Maven: We homeschool for a number of reasons. But, no, we're not 9 to 5ers. My husband is a pro musician and that can make for an odd schedule.

  

how to end the session and good byes

Lia Rikugun: should we close the session? and if yes please help me
Udge Watanabe: if you want to end the session, you can click on the base of the fountain
Udge Watanabe: but it's not actually necessary to do that unless you _want_ to stop recording, for instance for privacy
Udge Watanabe: the session will end when everyone leaves
Lia Rikugun: oh ok
Lia Rikugun: and then i get a link to the webpage
Lia Rikugun: ?
Udge Watanabe: yes, right.
Lia Rikugun: in Second life?
Lia Rikugun: or as email
Udge Watanabe: yes, as a IM.
Lia Rikugun: sorry for asking
Myna Maven: You can also open it up in your web browser.
Udge Watanabe: there is a preferences setting for IMs while you are offline to be directed to your email account
Pema Pera: Thanks again, Lia, for taking up this weekly slot!
Lia Rikugun: my pleasure
Udge Watanabe: if you hve set that, and are offline, then you will get an e-mail outside SL
Pema Pera: I very much enjoyed this, your first session, thank you all !
Myna Maven: Bye, Pema.
Lia Rikugun: thank you see you ssoon
Pema Pera: See you all soon again!
Udge Watanabe: bye pema, take care.
Udge Watanabe: at Prospero's session.
Adelene Dawner: I think I'll head out, too. Feels like naptime.
Pema Pera: yes, hope to see those of you interested in Hamlet and/or the stars there!
Lia Rikugun: :) good nap
Pema Pera: bfn
Udge Watanabe smiles
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Myna Maven: Adelene, I hope you get a good nap.
Udge Watanabe: bye ade, sleep well.
Adelene Dawner: Thanks, all. See you around.
Lia Rikugun: byebye
Myna Maven: I will be moving along as well. Thanks everyone. I enjoyed the discussion.
Lia Rikugun: byebye myna
Udge Watanabe: bye myna, it was nice meeting you.
Myna Maven: Udge, it was nice meeting you, too! Bye, Lia.
Udge Watanabe: I shall head out too, take care of some stuff. Will you be at Prospero's talk, Lia?
Lia Rikugun: I dont think i can come :(
Lia Rikugun: I have a friend visiting
Lia Rikugun: only if i can convince
Udge Watanabe: well, RL is important too :)
Lia Rikugun: :)
Lia Rikugun: ok so take care
Lia Rikugun: and enjoy your day!
Udge Watanabe: the recorder will continue as long as somebody sits here. If we both get up and walk away, it will stop and mail you the URL for hte log.
Lia Rikugun: ok lets try:)