2012.03.11 19:00 - The Inside of Outside

The Guardian for this meeting was Calvino Rabeni. The comments are by Calvino Rabeni.

Calvino Rabeni: Hi, Raffila :)
Raffila Millgrove: HI Calvino
Calvino Rabeni: Good to meet you.
Raffila Millgrove: you too. i think we have been here together several times.
Raffila Millgrove: or perhaps i am mistaken and remember your name from reading the logs.
Calvino Rabeni: :) That's probably true .. I think my memory is a little hazy lately
Raffila Millgrove: eh. well i tend to blur things a bit... so who knows.
Raffila Millgrove: lol
Raffila Millgrove: HI Santoshima.
Calvino Rabeni: Good evening Santo :)
Santoshima Resident: hi Raffi :) good evening, Cal :)
Calvino Rabeni: Raff, I think you've been enjoying the meetings here recently ?
Calvino Rabeni: I'm always interested in others impressions, I suppose, I wish my mind were able to see things freshly :)
Raffila Millgrove: oh.. yes Calvino. i have come often and had very intersting experiences meeting and learning about others.
Raffila Millgrove: eveyrone.. knows one another.
Raffila Millgrove: and so i say.. it's a hard nut to crack.
Santoshima Resident: uhh
Calvino Rabeni nods
Raffila Millgrove: even tho.. everyone is welcoming and friendly.. you still will feel an outsider.. as a newbie.. for a long time..
Raffila Millgrove: as you don't have any fellow newbies to.. share with.
Calvino Rabeni: oh ..
Calvino Rabeni: Yes I know what you mean
Raffila Millgrove: yeah well that is an LL thing.. that is not the "fault" we'll say of PAB.. becuase there isn't an influx of newbies who are walking by.. or newer people teling their friends.. come over.
Raffila Millgrove: when Pema was first starting the group.. he was busy telling others.. inviting them to come.. spreading the word.. but once a core was established. then not.. so much of the outreach.
Calvino Rabeni: although, well I have had that outsider sense of myself for my entire life ... it changed a bit but at the same time doesn't yield to time and familiarity.
Raffila Millgrove: oh
Raffila Millgrove: well.. some of us are a bit like that.. observers. someone came over here with that name even.. who puzzles me... he lurks in the background.
Santoshima Resident: talk to him
Santoshima Resident: he will reply
Raffila Millgrove: yes i did.
Raffila Millgrove: i think maybe he even sat down with us once.
Santoshima Resident: he's on a mission to observe
Calvino Rabeni: yes I got used to that ... it feels a little tricky to reach out like that
Raffila Millgrove: well he's an anomaly.. and not really.. direct to the question you asked about first impressions.
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: I commend your making the effort ... certainly I wasn't very persistent with doing the same
Raffila Millgrove: you said this Calvin: I suppose, I wish my mind were able to see things freshly :)
Raffila Millgrove: and that is something.. that perhaps all the people who have been here a long time.. share.. they.. already did the 9 seconds. they talked many times... they are in a different space--not so much of discovery .. anymore. and for newer people,... well it's more like "old news" to the older ones..
Calvino Rabeni: It seems to get accustomed to things ... then to see less (and maybe more) then when new
Santoshima Resident: it's not a team
Santoshima Resident: it's not group as unified entity
Santoshima Resident: these are individuals
Raffila Millgrove: San.. i think when they came up with the Guardians and the Friends. they accidentally did a two-tier heirarchy and the consequences.. i think are not very well noticed or addressed.
Santoshima Resident: each feeling whatever degree of outsider/insiderness on any particular day
Calvino Rabeni: When people have things in common in terms of experience ... but something is missing in terms of team identity .. it's a strange sort of partial "we"
Calvino Rabeni: I see what you mean Raff
Calvino Rabeni: accidently .. it seems a lot of things in life are meaningful interpretations of accidental situations
Calvino Rabeni: and accidentally means not "intentional", but there could be a different, indirect way that the situation was "caused"
Santoshima Resident: so by insider/outsider, you mean Guradian and Friends? correct?
Calvino Rabeni: I experience the constant dynamic play of outsider/insiderness
Raffila Millgrove: well i call it the "on paper" syndrome. Some plan, some ethics. sounds very good when described. when put on paper. but when you goto.. live it out in real life... uh oh.. the human factor--many uexpected developments.
Raffila Millgrove: that's what i mean by accidental.. not to much unintentional.. as unforeseen. couldn't see ahead of time.. what might occur when it was put into action.
Raffila Millgrove: ( i mean both: unexpected and unintended consequences.. sorry)
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, you could do the best seeming thing and someone will find a seemingly legitimate way to find it disturbing, or the opposite, people do seemingly horrendous things and get at least some praise
Raffila Millgrove: yes.
Calvino Rabeni: Unintended consequences ... a synonym for "life" :)
Santoshima Resident: :)
Raffila Millgrove: haha. so true.
Calvino Rabeni: It's interesting that ecological systems find ways to embrace the unintended consequences
Calvino Rabeni: there is no "waste"
Calvino Rabeni: not so much "outside" the system, it has a lot more inclusiveness and closure
Raffila Millgrove: i didn't know how interconnected natural things were until i was studying under these park rangers as a camp counselor and they explain that the coyotes would kill the deer that were going blind with this condition caused by a fly going into their eye to lay eggs. and that .. if the coyotes got killed off. the deer population suffered because the weaker ones weren't culled naturally by coyotes and they'd start to starve to death with too many deer and too little forage.
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, and that's like a link in a whole web of such relations
--BELL--

Raffila Millgrove: with humans we seem to be getting connected with those far away from us (very cool!) but we also seem to be putting more and more distance between the ones who live next door. I feel sometimes we are losing our humanness--the touch, the sound of each other's children playing.. it's freaking me some.. you see it in nursing. where there isn't time to touch the patient.. just rush in and out with the meds etc.
Raffila Millgrove: wb San.
Calvino Rabeni: I have a friend who is a nurse and finds the human contact very fulfulling ... although brief, as you mention
Calvino Rabeni: a huge amount is present in a flash during the briefest glance of a human face
Santoshima Resident: hello paradise :)
Raffila Millgrove: there was so much healing in the nurse's touch. they did a study at Havard School of nursing where the show health care providers.. just holding their hands above/but near the patient's skin--effected the patient's rate of recovery and severity of their illness.
Calvino Rabeni: I think that's one of the scary things about second life and online life, the missing real faces and all their inter communication
Paradise Tennant: hiya san .. cal raf :) smiles and waves all round and listens
Calvino Rabeni: Good evening Paradise
Raffila Millgrove: HI Para.
Raffila Millgrove: yes i had this boy.. i wished so much. i could put my arms around him.. some people.. their expression of self. their needs/humaness.. they cannot express in words. they need to feel your touch.
Calvino Rabeni: It's great that nursing schools are often a place for that type of holistic research
Raffila Millgrove: some people express their emotions in how they touch others. how they hold them. they are really screwed in this environment.
Calvino Rabeni: Touch is of fundamental importance isn't it?
Santoshima Resident: yes
Raffila Millgrove: it is. but many can express themselves.. thru words, thru voice. they are ok.. the ones who cannot.. it's harder for them.
Raffila Millgrove: I have someone.. who is like that. comes off horrible in text.. as a way of communicating.. it's not him.. it's not the whole him i know.. it's only an inexpressive, frustarted part of him.
Raffila Millgrove: this reminds me of Pema/Maxine. in an early log. their dynamic of communicaton. in text. it's one of the most impressive things i have ever seen.
Raffila Millgrove: i would like to ask Maxine questions about it. it fascinates me.
Calvino Rabeni smiles .. it seems important to be able to "see" people in that way
Santoshima Resident: and to appreciate the skill
Calvino Rabeni: I meant the first example .. also to see deeper into a story like that second example
Calvino Rabeni: yes it's a great skill
Raffila Millgrove: well a professor at Stanford used his students to do study here about how much avatars are "like" the people who are behind the screen. and the number of points of how much they are LIke their real life person.. pretty high. very interesting. kind of like "you think you can hide hide here, but you reveal much more of yourself than you realize"
Paradise Tennant: smiles yes it all comes through who you really are :)
Paradise Tennant: all the little choices are telling
Calvino Rabeni: true ... reminds me a bit of forensic psychologists ... piecing together the imagined parts of a person on the basis of clues
Raffila Millgrove: good comparison!
Calvino Rabeni: we all do a bit of that
Paradise Tennant: met lots of people from sl in rl and always find them to be them as I know them maybe slightly different packages but the essence just the same
Calvino Rabeni: hmm, though, what's the text behind "you think you can hide ... but reveal" ?
Raffila Millgrove: my husband isn't in sl.. but he watches screen sometimes. he was trying to explain to someone how he sees the avis. he says. they show themselves like real people with body language. they .. move in ways. that reveal how they feel just as live people do. and he gave a lot of good examples. he was tellng others these aren't pixels or little cartoon characters. they are more like real people.
Calvino Rabeni: the desire to connect, but in certain controlled ways one feels comfortable with .. or has adapted to
--BELL--

Paradise Tennant: well there are lots who say we embody bodies of clay here we embody bodies of pixels :)
Raffila Millgrove: example: we are seated here on defined cushions. But if we were standing without the fountain in a circle.. when Para came up.. we would have stepped back so that she could stand with us in circle.. we would not have stayed put.. and forced her to stand outside the circle.. Unless we don't know or like her.. we see this happen.. in other sims... where groups form and include or exclude others. they do it physcially with their avis.
Paradise Tennant: smiles yes naturally
Paradise Tennant: just like the hug animation was one of the first to be created I think :)
Raffila Millgrove: yes but if these were just cartoons.. or pixels that dont' represent us.. we wouldn't be moving to include or exclude..
Raffila Millgrove: and doing it without really Thinking about it.
Calvino Rabeni: well, given we are able to engage in action, and do it in a social field, we find some way to include and to exclude
Calvino Rabeni: without thinking about it
Paradise Tennant: we apologize if we have bumped someone >> we are embarassed if our clothing goes awol and we don't realize it .. these are just little cartoons but they are our cartoons :)
Calvino Rabeni: and perhaps some of it is in the interpretation
Santoshima Resident: perhaps 99.9%
Raffila Millgrove: those are some of the examples Para that my husband gave. .those very ones.
Calvino Rabeni: life is inherently ambiguous .. every inside has an outside, they come into existence as one movement
Calvino Rabeni: the soul embodies and the body ensouls, one movement
Calvino Rabeni: then we stand at the edge ... life happens there .. and feel it a lot when we get too far from that edge
Calvino Rabeni: scared .. wrong side of the edge .. bored .. etc.
Paradise Tennant: smiles as john odonohue so nice put it our soul is much bigger than our body it ihas a radius and would suggest our souls are here too :)
Raffila Millgrove: it's very strange to think.. they would could get our souls inside SL isn't it. Kind of like those early people who were afriad the camera would steal their souls. .would capture it along with their photo.
Calvino Rabeni: as we breathe the same air, drink the same water; think thoughts that more or less make sense to everyone
Raffila Millgrove: we could get our souls into sl.. correction.
Santoshima Resident: please excuse me
Santoshima Resident: g'night
Calvino Rabeni: ah .. bye?
Calvino Rabeni: good night :)
Raffila Millgrove: Bye San. have a great week upcoming!
Santoshima Resident: thanks for this conversation
Calvino Rabeni: be well Santo :)
Calvino Rabeni: Para, earlier we were talking about insider/outsider "ness" I guess it was
Calvino Rabeni: I had a strong insider/outsider experience a couple days ago
Calvino Rabeni: which stirred imagination in some deep way
Raffila Millgrove: oh? tell use more.
Paradise Tennant: listens
Calvino Rabeni: Had a relationship with a First Nation man, via a group of mine ; he was a teacher / mentor / spiritual guide
Raffila Millgrove: (real life?)
Calvino Rabeni: and last week he "passed"
Calvino Rabeni: yes "real" life :)
Paradise Tennant: sorry to hear that
Calvino Rabeni: so all his relations gathered
Calvino Rabeni: for a memorial potluck
Calvino Rabeni: at the long house at the tribal center on the reservation
Calvino Rabeni: there were hundreds of people attending
Calvino Rabeni: because he had started a number of lodges, in places far as England, Hawaii, Mexico
Calvino Rabeni: and he'd migrated, in USA, so had "people" from all over
Calvino Rabeni: and had settled in the Pacific Northwest region
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: I was there .. of course, as an "outsider" as most others were of indigenous / tribal background
Calvino Rabeni: I was "insider" enough to be invited to be an "outsider" there
Paradise Tennant: smiles there are levels to both inside and outside it seems :)
Calvino Rabeni: and worked at dropping as much of that outsidery feeling as I could
Calvino Rabeni: noticing the great diversity that was there naturally
Calvino Rabeni: looks, styles of clothing, ways of expressing and presenting a face, so many differences
Calvino Rabeni: I found the "multi" tribal nature of it interesting ... certainly not homogenous
Raffila Millgrove: so Calvin.. you say it affected you later.. your imagination?
Calvino Rabeni: got a bit puzzled sorting out the common from the differences ..
Calvino Rabeni: yes oh ,well it went into my subconscious, turning this way and that seeking its way of sense making
Calvino Rabeni: And it took some real relaxation to get "closer" (or is it deeper) to it
Calvino Rabeni: For instance the grief .. of loss .. grief is a deep emotion, I'm not sure I know what depths it tries to plumb, usually ones that were not well known consciously
Calvino Rabeni: I like O'Donohue with that .. very patient, not trying to pull things up into the light and force a confession out of them :)
Calvino Rabeni: I could guess .. or let it emerge in other symbols and dreams
Raffila Millgrove: do you mean to say. that you went deeper in to the dark to "feel" or get closer to the thing--rather than dragging it into the light?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes I think that's it
Raffila Millgrove: i would guess that the commonality of those gathered--was their love/connection to/admiration etc. being "touched" by this powerful shaman?
Calvino Rabeni: I could look for differences in dreams ... they have a balance that shifts to allow the different knowledge and voices to come to a new consensus
Calvino Rabeni: They all had that in common, true
Paradise Tennant: loss bridges all kinds of barriers . the same grief regardless
Calvino Rabeni: and more enculturated than I in the world view that holds shamanism
Raffila Millgrove: they came to pay respect, to say goodbye, to express their loss and to be together with others.. so they did not feet cut off and alone in both celebrating his life and missing him.
Calvino Rabeni: I dreamt I'd discovered a large growth of big, colourful mushrooms, these emerge mysteriously from their life under the surface
Raffila Millgrove: didn't they all pretty much have all those things in common?
Calvino Rabeni: No doubt the had such things in common, and others ... cultural habits about the nature and presentation of "self" for instance
Calvino Rabeni: The presence of that in such a group and in my relationship with him, brought awareness of the presence of absence
Paradise Tennant: smiles maybe his parting the gift ..the dream :) a fertile one
Raffila Millgrove: yes. if they were all students and family/associates of the man.. they must have had many shared values and perspectives.. which you too shared with them?
Calvino Rabeni: :) it was fertile
Paradise Tennant: did it go on
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: hm .. the memorial went on for a long time ... each of his lodges sent their people, and they sang/chanted/drummed their songs which were of a prayer-like aspect
Paradise Tennant: and your dream of the mushrooms
Calvino Rabeni: 3 or 4 hours of that ... hardly any words I knew but I got to submerge myself in it like meditation
Calvino Rabeni: so it ended up somewhat refreshing
Raffila Millgrove: did you assign anything to mushrooms? were they the people gathered together?
Paradise Tennant: maybe he was leaving behind an email address of sorts :) for forwarding communication :)
Raffila Millgrove: or maybe the many thoughts below the surface .. coming up?
Calvino Rabeni: hehe I like to think of it that way yes
Calvino Rabeni: and gathered an armful of the fruits of the earth
Raffila Millgrove: a cool message he sent you then!
Calvino Rabeni smiles
Paradise Tennant: sigh I should say thank you and good night .. we springing forward and I will be a slug in the morning if I don't
Calvino Rabeni: His body was there ... I remembered him as alive ..
Raffila Millgrove: great to see you Para. have a good MOnday!
Calvino Rabeni: Bye Para :)
Paradise Tennant: nite nite cal raffila namaste and powerful dreaming :)
Calvino Rabeni: Admirable bedtime self discipline, wish I had it :)
Raffila Millgrove: yes. it's wonderful. to see in our dreams.. people gone.. who are somehow still alive now.... and greeting us. My son told me after his grandma went.. that she would come to talk to him and comfort him in dreams.
Calvino Rabeni: nods
Raffila Millgrove: she came to him for a long time. i know. he missed her so much. i was happy that she could bridge to him like that.
Calvino Rabeni: He drove away in the hearse ;; everyone saw him off . I thought "see you around!"
Raffila Millgrove: well i look forward Calvin .. to see if he sends you more dream email..
Raffila Millgrove: i wonder if you will recognize his messages. i bet you will.
Calvino Rabeni: They did speak that way .. saying .. now he's closer than before - you don't even need to make a phone call :)
Raffila Millgrove: oh they did. that's fabulous!
Raffila Millgrove: i really like when it's acknowledge that time... cannot ... change or destory or stop love.
Calvino Rabeni: I'd hope to recognize them, if they have something unusual in the feeling quality
Raffila Millgrove: the love your teacher had for you.. it can break time and come to you.
Raffila Millgrove: my mother told me that. she said. when i beg her one day out of blue< don't die mommie.. She said--you know how much i love you. Do you think Death could stop my love. could come between us? and i believed her and I am glad i did.
Calvino Rabeni: nods
Raffila Millgrove: she told me she could always come to me if i need her. and i believe it and know it's true. and i will do the same for my children.,
Calvino Rabeni: that's affirming
Raffila Millgrove: she told me her father came to her when she needed him. so in our family we are so lucky.. that we believe in the power of the love we have for each other.
Raffila Millgrove: we know it is so strong that Death will not defeat it.
Calvino Rabeni: that's lucky to be able to believe in it .. others seem to be in the power of it without the belief
Calvino Rabeni: sort of like a broken faith that's nonetheless a faith
Calvino Rabeni: the presence of a seeming absence that's a guise of presence
Calvino Rabeni: or am I babbling :)
Raffila Millgrove: CAlvino.. this is why i liked some of ideas of PAB because i believe in breaking time.. i don't think.. it is this rigid thing--that rules us.. we have power over it too--it runs in different directions.. it's not what we think.. what our society forces us to think on it.. and i never did buy into what we are told about it in school. etc. Now physicists are starting to prove this.. fluidity of time. and it really scares people.
Calvino Rabeni: ah well there are layers of belief
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: hmm, if we "listen" in the right ways, we may encounter it, or perhaps start to feel the rigidity of the container in the effort to move past its edges
Raffila Millgrove: you think there is a rigidity to container? i feel fluidity. i am . into fluid. lol
Raffila Millgrove: my real name is Welsh and it means cascade.. i think it was a lucky name in that. it's a flow of water... a mini waterfall. i am very happy with that idea.
Calvino Rabeni: yes I referred to the rigid you described, the sense of being somewhat ruled by a status quo view that's chafing to the larger longings of the spirit
Calvino Rabeni: nice
Calvino Rabeni: lucky name
Raffila Millgrove: hehe yes.
Raffila Millgrove: cause i do that.. just flow right between all the cracks and crevice.. and that way.. slip out of the rigidty.. just flow right out of it.. haha. (true)
Calvino Rabeni: cascades express the impulses of freedom of the mountains they call home
Raffila Millgrove: yes!
Raffila Millgrove: and they flow right to the sea eventually and make a perfect circle coming back as rain.... so i feel it works out nice for me.. that is me.
Calvino Rabeni: the mountains are thinking .. if it weren't for all these great cascades, I'd feel so stodgy and rigid .. but as it is, they must be content
Raffila Millgrove: hehehe. you are really cute Calvin!
Calvino Rabeni: having the cascades for their expression
Raffila Millgrove: it was enlightening and so pleasant to visit with you this evening. I wish you a happy Monday. must get back to work. Big hug.
Calvino Rabeni: :) hug ... thanks for the conversation .. have a good week !
Raffila Millgrove: you too! bye now.
Calvino Rabeni: BFN