The Guardian for this meeting was Maxine Walden. The comments are by Maxine Walden.

This meeting seemed to have glimpses of our varying perspectives, about retreats (how many, how formal, how frequent), about lectures (whether arcane or illuminating), about the immediate experience of the Pavilion's fountain. Whether the 'world' is created by our own illusions. My own experience of deep fatigue during this hour, as I reflect now, may have had to do with how enormous but also how just barely glimpsing of all these varieties of 'reality' are... 

Maxine Walden: hi, Aphrodite!
Aphrodite Macbain: Hello Maxine. Long time no see
Aphrodite Macbain: How are you?
Maxine Walden: very well, thanks, and you?
Aphrodite Macbain: well thanks. If you see some funny writing, it's just my cat on the keyboard
Maxine Walden: yes, seems alike a long time...I could not make the guardian meeting this morning...good things come up?
Aphrodite Macbain: It was an excellent meeting. We mainly talked about retreats
Maxine Walden: ah!!! wonderful, wonder what your cat might like to write?!
Aphrodite Macbain: pay more attention to meeeee
Aphrodite Macbain: w
Maxine Walden: :) yes, the ongoing lament from a kitty....
Aphrodite Macbain: she's always very affectionate when I'm busy
Aphrodite Macbain: you have one?
Maxine Walden: funny how that works....isn't it
Aphrodite Macbain: I think people are like that too
Maxine Walden: I have had cats and loved them, don't now nor dogs which I also love
Maxine Walden: yes, guess we all are that way...
Aphrodite Macbain: seeking to maintain the balance

About retreats:

Aphrodite Macbain: You have run/attended many retreats, haven't you?
Maxine Walden: I have attended several, never officially run one...
Aphrodite Macbain: any recommendations?
Aphrodite Macbain: I am keeping track of them and am compiling them
Maxine Walden: ah.. you are keeping track of recommendations for retreats?
Aphrodite Macbain: Haven't seen you for ages either
Aphrodite Macbain: yes I am Maxine- all the material that was on the recent emails anyway
Aphrodite Macbain: in hopes of pulling together a hand book
Maxine Walden: ah, OK, let me read all that and put a few remarks on the email myself...sorry not to have by now
Aphrodite Macbain: There are plans to have retreats more frequently - at least once a month
Aphrodite Macbain: I have compiled them and will post them.
Maxine Walden: ah, wow, great, so accruing all the info possible will be very helpful
Aphrodite Macbain: no eed to read through all the emails.
Maxine Walden: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: yes,. and sorting what has come up- how many people, how many hours
Aphrodite Macbain: whether there s/b a facilitator/greeter
Aphrodite Macbain: whether there s/b more than one
Aphrodite Macbain: Oh I don't remember that waterfall being behind me before!
Aphrodite Macbain: wonder if it's new or I've just been inattentive
Maxine Walden: well, just thinking...think that a group of 8 or so for sl retreat may be ideal, if the group round is used...
Aphrodite Macbain: that whas what most people recommended
Maxine Walden: haven't noticed the waterfall either...
Aphrodite Macbain: Hiya Eliza
Maxine Walden: hi, Eliza, good to see you
Aphrodite Macbain: did you stay for the full lecture?
Aphrodite Macbain: I found it a wee bit arcane
Maxine Walden: Aph is filling me in on items re retreats which have been brought up

The Art History workshop talk is also brought in:

Maxine Walden: was this the art history talk, Aph?
Aphrodite Macbain: yes- on relics
Yakuzza Lethecus: hey everyone
Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Yaku
Maxine Walden: hi, Yaku!
Eliza Madrigal: oops...
Aphrodite Macbain: Eliza must be busy
Eliza Madrigal: I just typed lots of text into an IM
Maxine Walden: ? Eliza?
Eliza Madrigal laughs
Aphrodite Macbain: ha ha
Maxine Walden: hahaha, I've done that!
Eliza Madrigal: here it is:
Eliza Madrigal: Eliza Madrigal: I enjoyed it... found him pretty clear and one never knows what associations pop up from those things [13:11] Eliza Madrigal: Not sure, re Brian... I was zoomed in onto the screen [13:11] Eliza Madrigal: Hi Yaku [13:11] Eliza Madrigal: oops [13:11] Eliza Madrigal: hah
Aphrodite Macbain grins in recognition of something she often does
Maxine Walden: :)
Eliza Madrigal: oh my :)
Aphrodite Macbain: what did you glean from the talk?
Eliza Madrigal: well for me I considered tibetan culture...
Eliza Madrigal: though it wasn't part of that presentation
Aphrodite Macbain: yes? relics?
Eliza Madrigal: and the way that across the board 'objects' are felt to held significance
Eliza Madrigal: *have held
Eliza Madrigal: and retain that
Eliza Madrigal: imbued with attention/faith
Aphrodite Macbain: fetish objects? what is the difference?
Eliza Madrigal: also, the painted representations are simply beautiful and detailed...
Aphrodite Macbain: yes true
Eliza Madrigal: of these 'sacred' events, etc
Eliza Madrigal: ah I find great difference...
Yakuzza Lethecus: hey dash
--BELL--
Aphrodite Macbain: Yes Eliza?
Eliza Madrigal: "two ways of looking at the world, as if nothing is a miracle or everything is'
Dash Earthboy: hey y'all
Maxine Walden: hi, Dash
Maxine Walden: hi, Lugh
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Dash, nice to see you again, and Hi Lugh
Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Lugh, Hi Dash
Dash Earthboy: hi Lugh
Lugh Fehr: hi :)
Lugh Fehr: sorry aph
Aphrodite Macbain: ah rastaman!
Aphrodite Macbain: handsome devil!
Maxine Walden: :)
Lugh Fehr: :P
Eliza Madrigal: Maxine were you sharing thoughts on the SL retreat before?
Aphrodite Macbain: I was giving her a rundown of this a.m.
Aphrodite Macbain: more retreats are being planned
Maxine Walden: yes, I was mentioning my experience and thoughts, that for full sharing maybe 8 max in an sl retreat
Maxine Walden: yes, heard more are planned, maybe once a month?
Aphrodite Macbain: otherwise going round the circle becomes cumbersome?
Maxine Walden: yes, otherwise, with more people going around in a circle speaking individually -- run out of time, withh 90 min sessions...
Eliza Madrigal: yes, ten does seem a lot.... 9 was almost too much in the first, so this seems consensus
Aphrodite Macbain: retreats of 2-3 people was also suggested
Maxine Walden: hmm, interesting...
Eliza Madrigal: yes, and leaving room for spontanous retreats as well
Aphrodite Macbain: we will need a booking manager for the retreat place
Aphrodite Macbain: :-)
Dash Earthboy: logistics
Maxine Walden: And for me at least having a clear boundary re time and number of sessions is important, offering a reliable container as it were..
Maxine Walden: yes, :)
Maxine Walden: I can see it now: book your own retreat....
Eliza Madrigal: yes, it seems important to 'close' the planning a few days beforehand
Eliza Madrigal: so have to start weeks in advance
Eliza Madrigal: with commitments
Maxine Walden: I agree, Eliza
Aphrodite Macbain: yes, and to be able to plan these in advance would help avoid booking something else
Aphrodite Macbain: at that time
Maxine Walden: yes, aph, would help in several ways
Eliza Madrigal: but I hope that you enjoyed it Maxine... or found it meaningful in some ways...
Dash Earthboy: still the best-made plans...
Aphrodite Macbain: also need to consider the timetables of everyone, east and west
Maxine Walden: I did, meaningful in several ways...and found it really as immersive as rl retreats, which surprised me
Eliza Madrigal: yes, amazing...
Maxine Walden: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: I'm wondering though whether having one a month, or two, would weaken the specialness of them
Eliza Madrigal: glad :)
Maxine Walden: interesting wondering aph
Aphrodite Macbain: :-)
Aphrodite Macbain: I wonder as I wander
Maxine Walden: :))
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Dash Earthboy: i wander as I wonder
Aphrodite Macbain: I have a yoga class in 30 minutes so I must go. Lovely to spend time with you all
Eliza Madrigal: so its funny... but 'they are what we make them' has an overlap between relics and retreats :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Take care
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Aph, enjoy
Aphrodite Macbain: Byee
Dash Earthboy: bye Aph
Lugh Fehr: byebye nice yoga
Lugh Fehr: i love yoga
Maxine Walden: bye aph
Dash Earthboy: 'sup Yaku?
Maxine Walden: interesting, Eliza, your point about relics and retreats
Dash Earthboy: guess I missed that Eliza
Eliza Madrigal: there was an art history presentation this morning Dash, about relics...

Eliza opens the topic of our embuing meaning to objects, and events in the outer world.

Eliza Madrigal: and my musing was that we bring meaning to things....
Eliza Madrigal: it would be superstitious to say that something has meaning on its own, in a sense
Dash Earthboy: ah! ok thanks

Maxine Walden: what we embue to things, events...seems so crucial...
Eliza Madrigal nods, yes exactly
Maxine Walden: :)
Maxine Walden: in fact it is interesting to me to consider that we 'create' meaning in the world by what we embue to it, from the inside out, as it were
--BELL--
Dash Earthboy: yes, my son sees my record collections and music instruments as junk
Eliza Madrigal: in retreats we gather with others as ourselves, in a way
Eliza Madrigal: so Einstein's musing that everything is a miracle or nothing is, seems about that... life is treasure waiting to be uncovered, or else it is exhausting :)
Maxine Walden: yes...
Dash Earthboy: i think life is a temporary solution to a permanent problem :)
Maxine Walden: oh, Dash, care to say more?
Dash Earthboy: yes, it's something short-term in the universal scheme of things
Eliza Madrigal: not sure... feel that whatever is eternal is here now...
Eliza Madrigal: but that's two sides of same coin perhaps :)
Dash Earthboy: oh for sure, this is part of eternity
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Dash Earthboy: history is part of eternity too
Dash Earthboy: so should we forget it because it's in the past?
Maxine Walden: and then there is the perspective that the past is also'now' in terms of being 'memory'
Eliza Madrigal: mmm, nods...
Dash Earthboy: i hear alot of what i call "corrupt thinking" by so-called positive mental attitude advocates
Eliza Madrigal: and individual memor and collective memory also another angle
Maxine Walden: yes and then whether there is anything but 'now', that the past (memory) and the future (desire) are really part of 'now'
Maxine Walden: different perspectives slice the pie of reality in different ways...
Dash Earthboy: sounds a little like semantics
Eliza Madrigal: really just context..
Maxine Walden: agree, Eliza, context
Eliza Madrigal: for some reason this fountain seems to be a display of that right now for me... of time.... of 'now'
Dash Earthboy: context is an imprtant consideration
Eliza Madrigal: drawing from past future etc
Lugh Fehr: its a kind of phisics
Lugh Fehr: in a way
Eliza Madrigal: hmm

I wonder if an exercise in the pause might aid our appreciation of our many perspectives on a single 'thing' and possibly about our varying version of 'reality'

Maxine Walden: would it be interesting for us to sort of contemplate the fountain in terms of our own contexts during the next 90 sec pause, and then share our perceptions?
Maxine Walden: perhaps note how our perceptions intersect or not...how we may perceive the fountain from a myriad of perspectives at the same time?
Eliza Madrigal: hmm, sure Maxine.. always game :)
Lugh Fehr: the fountine is our collective mind in the center we throw our thoughts in it and its made of moving water much like mind it even forming shapes in it
--BELL--
Lugh Fehr: and the thing that says recording is the concuisness recording evrything seeing evrything
Maxine Walden: I seemed to 'see' various things: the fountain of course becoming mist during the pause, it as a receiver of my 'projections' , it perhaps as a portal toward understanding others' minds (as in thie exercise) it as a symbol for 'centrality' as Lugh was suggesting...so may 'things' about fountain at different levels...
Dash Earthboy: in order to stream some New Orleans music out of Nashville a friend does there, I'm gonna have to vacate Second Life for now...good to see y'all...enjoy your day or what's left of it! :)
Eliza Madrigal: mmm... interesting Maxine...
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Dash :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye dahs
Lugh Fehr: bye dash
Maxine Walden: bye Dash
Eliza Madrigal: re different levels that is a bit of what I considered as well... Lugh's mention of the recording...capturing a kind of history....
Eliza Madrigal: yet being here now, and reading it later are quite different in some ways...
Eliza Madrigal: one always brings their own spaciousness or sight ...
Eliza Madrigal: but it isn't really their 'own' either
Maxine Walden: :)
Lugh Fehr: hehe and if the pool looks deep inside it will find a comfy cushion
Eliza Madrigal: hehehe
Maxine Walden: maybe our quiet contemplations here, each with his/her own views...that is a deep pool too
Eliza Madrigal: indeed indeed
Eliza Madrigal is picturing triptychs of play as being session scenes...
Lugh Fehr: it is a weird beautiful place this exsists in virtual world made only from light with the trees and the colums and the people and the fountian
Maxine Walden: :)
Eliza Madrigal: ah context of light, Lugh, nice :)
Lugh Fehr: and i allso the silence i rarly sit in silence and at pa im always allways in silence except for the humming of computer and clicking of keys
Eliza Madrigal hums
Maxine Walden: :)
Maxine Walden: yes illusions (light etc of SL) as reality...but maybe all of reality is at least partly constructed from our 'illusions'
Eliza Madrigal: feels freeing to consider
Maxine Walden: our wishes, fears, perceptions as 'creating' what we 'see' in the world
Lugh Fehr: they say a dream is not real ..how so what is it then its not planet earth but its exsistance is real cant argu whit that we all have seen it
Lugh Fehr: an simmiler is sl
Eliza Madrigal nods.... made of time?
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: :) Thank you Maxine, Lugh, Yaku...running to a meditation fast :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye eliza
Maxine Walden: I am afraid I have to go...the hour has gone fast. Nice conversation
Lugh Fehr: byebye eliza tnk you
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye everyone
Lugh Fehr: bye evryone