I Dreamt of Vanadis

Last night I dreamt one of the weirdest dreams I have ever dreamed before.

Vanadis Falconer
(photo quoted from Facebook)

I dreamt that I was sitting on the terrace of my "palazzo" at Southern Charm with none other than the other Swedish SecondLife blogger Vanadis Falconer. We were talking in voice and were happily chatting away and laughing a lot, although I cannot for the life of me remember what our conversation was about.

Now everyone who knows me well - or has followed my blog through the years - knows that my relationship with Vanadis has been "extremely strained", to say the least.

On June 29th this year I made the unilateral decision to forgive Vanadis, among others whom I felt had wronged me, so that I in time could forget the perceived insults and abuses. I at the same time asked for her forgiveness for my words and actions. Nothing more has come of that, other than the wonderful relief it gave me to get rid of that stinking and heavy burden and to finally let go of the bygone. So it is a complete mystery to me why I had this completely unexpected dream.

I am not even sure how I would actually handle the situation if the opportunity did arise.

A Unilateral Action

Today I have been in SecondLife 2,667 days or, expressed in another way, 7 years 2 months and 18 days.

I would like to think that I have friendly relations with most of the people I have encountered during those many years, some are still close, others I meet sporadically but for various reasons our paths have mostly parted, some have more or less or altogether left SecondLife and some I don't have contact with even if they are still around. But those that we are friends with or have amicable relations with are never the problem, are they?

The relationships that drain my energy, and that I have been thinking much about the last two weeks, are the failed ones. Those relationships that have to some degree turned into open or concealed enmity. I find that it weighs down on me and makes me weary to keep track of the perceived wrongdoings and insults. It has also to some degree turned into an unwanted bitterness on my part that I do not at all care for.

So today I am going to clean the slate by unilaterally forgiving those I feel have wronged me - or someone I love - intentionally or through carelessness, so that I thereby in time can forget the perceived insults and abuses. I am also asking those whom I know feel that I have wronged them for forgiveness. I am going to unblock all those that have previously been blocked from Instant Messaging me in-world or from entering my home sim or on social media sites.

I know that this action will most likely be labeled as "drama" by some, but I don't care one iota because I am doing it for my own sake not anyone else's. My forgiveness is in no manner dependent on the their willingness to forgive me.

As I do not believe a sweeping apology is enough I am going to name each and every one of those I believe deserve my forgiveness and whose forgiveness I need for my words and actions in the past. I will not go into my reasons for feeling hurt by those named, except in one particular case.

I forgive you, Ars Northmead, for dying and leaving me alone and heartbroken for such a long time. I also ask your forgiveness for resenting you for something you could not help. You know I love you, babe, and I know you loved me. Forgiving you was and is always easy.

I forgive you, Andrey Messmer (a. k. a. D R E Y Messmer), and ask for your forgiveness.

I forgive you, Martial Eisenhart, and ask for your forgiveness.

I forgive you, Butch Horton, and ask for your forgiveness.

I forgive you, Vanadis Falconer, and ask for your forgiveness.

I forgive you, Sjöfn Stoneshield, and ask for your forgiveness.

I forgive you, Kynlif Leikfang, and ask for your forgiveness.

I forgive you, Loo Berensohn, and ask for your forgiveness.

I forgive you, PetGirl Bergman (a.k.a. Tina Dahl), and ask for your forgiveness.

I forgive you, Alessia Kranfel (a.k.a. Vesper Kling and Mera Kranfel) and ask for your forgiveness.

Lastly I forgive myself.
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The deed is done and now the rest of my life can start afresh. It is a big relief! 

New Premium Gift

Linden Lab today sent out a new gift to premium members.

It looks like a great little sailboat, I may have to ask seasoned sailor Vanadis for some lessons though! ...or perhaps a sexy male avatar would suit me better...?

Named Avatars 5

I am very pleases to introduce you today to Sjöfn Stoneshield in my series on how we decided on the names for our avatars-

"My cousin, Vanadis Falconer, lured me into Second Life because she thought I needed a little break now and then from the work on my dissertation in psychology.

When I joined I needed a good first name. "Vanadis" was already taken by Vanadis. Since we are almost the same age and cousins, we have grown up with the folklore about the Norse gods Thor, Odin, Frigg and Freya. Now I had to think a little extra. 

We have an old tradition in Scandinavia; If you pick seven kinds of wild flowers from seven different fields in absolute silence on a midsummer night and then put the flowers under your pillow you will dream about your future husband or wife. In the pre-Christian era there was also a goddess named Sjöfn, sister of the goddess Freya, who was worshiped if you had love troubles. The goddess was revered by both men and women.

There was only one small problem with that first name. It was not possible to use the Swedish letters Å, Ä and Ö in Second Life at that time (A´s and O´s with circles or two dots above). The Swedish Ö (O with two dots) is pronounced as "I" in "bird". Should I spell my name "Sjifn"? Nah, it made no sense to other Scandinavians. Should I use the German "OE"? Nah, only Germans would understand that. So I just gave up and called myself Sjofn. 

Then it was time to choose the surname. One name sounded more ridiculous than the other, eventually I came to the "S" and Stoneshield. Sjofn Stoneshield that´s good, I thought. A shield of stone for a strong and independent woman - perfect!

One of the first things I did after joining Second Life was to write to Philip Linden and tell the boy that he should ensure that Swedish Å, Ä and Ö could be used in Second Life names. And because Philip is obviously a well-mannered and obedient boy, Second Life introduced Å, Ä and Ö in the next update. So now I have my dots over the o and Sjofn is now and for eternal time called "Sjöfn Stoneshield".

Ars go Fridars ("prosperity and good harvest" in Old Norse)
Sjöfn"

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If you would also like to participate in the series by sharing your reasons for choosing the name you have given your avatar, please send me an e-mail lundamats@gmail.com. Please include a picture of your avatar.

I may take some editorial liberties with your text and picture, such as correcting obvious misspellings in the US English and perhaps shortening. However I promise that I will not distort any facts and that I will contact you if the changes are of a major nature (or if I have reason to believe that you would think so).

Named Avatars 4

My friend Vanadis Falconer has graciously decided to take part in the fun.

Many of you may know Vanadis mainly for her blog, "Vanadis ser på saken" ("Vanadis takes a look at matters"). I have had a few feuds with Vanadis, but I have always respected her for her ability to stand her ground and for her strong will.

Vanadis Falconer

"I was born curious. When I was a child there was a lot of talk about Norse mythology in my neighborhood, very exciting tales of Thor, Odin, Frigg and Freya and the wicked Loki. The cow that never ran dry and the pig that was slaughtered every night and was back just as happy every morning. Modern research then started to go back to originals before the christian and punch-drunk influences.

It was found that women were the major gods! No one did anything without consulting with their clever wives. 


Freya, the Vaner dis - Goddess of the Vaner, became the greatest goddess among them all.

Growing up with the strong belief that the woman is the superior gender while the man is disposable, "save the women and children first", because of the woman's ability to create life. For the survival of the human race - as for any other mammal only one male is needed for every ten females in order to avoid inbreeding. Although it is nice to have your own "little boy" to play with. All this made it natural for me to take the name "Vanadis" in honour of Freya.

But the strange thing was that when I had to choose a surname the rare name "Falconer" was available. One of Freya's attributes is the Falcon. It was a strange coincidence that I started in Second Life that day, because the next day you could no longer choose that last name. It would take another eighteen months for the next time that it was possible to choose it. It was as if there was a higher power that caused me to log in for the first time that day. The Norns weaving the web of fate perhaps?"

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If you would also like to participate in the series by sharing your reasons for choosing the name you have given your avatar, please send me an e-mail lundamats@gmail.com. Please include a picture of yourself.

I may take some editorial liberties with your text and picture, such as correcting obvious misspellings in the US English and perhaps shortening. However I promise that I will not distort any facts and that I will contact you if the changes are of a major nature (or if I have reason to believe that you would think so).

Just Floating

After a few weeks of almost total focus on first life I have again slowly started to immerse myself back into my second life.

This time I am feeling a certain resistance; I am not sure why really. A possible reason could of course be that the ones that have been closest to me for a long time have for the time being more or less dropped out of Secondlife, some due to personal priorities and others due to actions taken by Linden Lab. Nevertheless I miss them all badly sometimes.

I have also recently accepted a proposal to take part in a mediation between myself and "the opposition", as I call them, or "the innocents", as they prefer to call themselves in this Swedish Civil War in SecondLife. We will in time see what comes out of this, in the mean time I am refraining as much as possible to read most Swedish SecondLife blogs except PetGirl´s, Apmel´s, Vanadis´s and a provocative newcomer (well, so he says and for now I accept it) who calls his blog Znapscrap.

To take part in the mediation I have set up a few conditions.

Primarily I have asked that we actually talk in voice. My experience is that otherwise some participants do not actually read what is written but start typing halfway into what anyone says because they assume they know what the other person is actually going to say. This only results in intentional or unintentional misinterpretations, with voice this can be corrected swiftly.

My second condition is that at least one or two of the "first-liners" take part, not only some of their followers.

Although some time has now elapsed since I accepted the proposal of mediation nothing more has come of it yet, I do not want to speculate in why.

Meanwhile I am taking it very easy and slow, mostly relaxing and trying not to worry about anyone or anything at all. I am just floating around, but luckily facing upwards.

My Favicon - UPDATE

When I saw that Blogger today gave us the option to add a favicon to the blog I jumped on it!

I knew straight away what symbol I would choose for my blog.

The only option for me was the mathematical sign for infinity, eternity, forever.

For awhile I was considering choosing one in the rainbow colors, but I wil wait a while and try that later perhaps.

UPDATE due to Vanadis Falconer´s meddling with my brain I may choose another favicon  soon... damn, damn

I am now considering these three as well as the one I mention above.

Considerations

1. Do I really want to change to a black background like all the other fashionable blogs or do I stick with my colored background?

2. What do I do with the blogs of friends and family that haven´t bothered to update for more than 2 months?

3 a. Should I include blogs that I sometimes read but don´t recommend in the lists of blogs I follow?
3 b. Should I include blogs that don´t bother to link to me?
3 c. Should I include blogs that send me some traffic but I cannot read myself (http://scandinavien.blogspot.com/).

4. What the hell made my follower #40 leave me - and who the f**k was it?

5. Should I only focus on SecondLife here or do I continue to mix it up with real life?

6. What´s the problem with "Sitemeter" that Vanadis was hinting at on her blog the other day? Should I keep it or drop it?

Being human isn't easy...

Better Than Sex?

This is a blog response to Vanadis Falconer´s post "Låt oss tala om sex!" (Let´s talk about sex!) where she discusses the morals that seem to guide SecondLife, Iphone, Blogger etc., and the morality clauses that all these services carry with them. The fear of nudity, the fear to discuss anything sexual in an open and outright why is crippling.

At the end of her post Vanadis makes the parallel - that comes naturally for many of us Swedes - between the need for sex and talking about it as much as we need the traditional Swedish crisp bread called "knäckebröd".

Remembering my childhood years in Pakistan, where one of the true highlights and big thrills was the arrival every six months or so of the "package from home". That package was an enormous crate (2 x 2 x 4 meters) filled with all kinds of goddies for the Scandinavian community.

It always contained such delicacies as enormous amounts of knäckebröd, several 20 kilogram containers of  lingonberries, several 20 kilogram containers of pickled cucumbers and all other food that we Swedes in the diaspora yearned for.

I totally agree with Vanadis, really it is as important to talk about sex with an open mind as to enjoy eating knäckebröd. Hell for the time being I am totally relying on knäckebröd alone and it keeps me sane!

Välkommen till bloggosfären Vanadis!

Nu bloggar även Vanadis Falconer om SL i bloggen "Vanadis ser på saken" Välkommen Vanadis!

(Ja, ja jag erkänner jag läste det först hos den som vanligt välinformerade dronningen!)

Bilden kommer från Vanadis bidrag till mitt bloggprojekt "Nakna avatarer i SL"

Nakna avatarer i SL 43

Den vackra Sjöfn Stoneshield blev lite sur när hon hade sett inlägg nummer 35 i denna serie. Detta eftersom kusinen Vanadis bara hade skickat med en bild på henne medan det fanns hela tre på Vanadis själv.

Jag vill ju inte orsaka någon familjekris med detta fredsprojekt så jag meddelade Sjöfn att jag jättegärna skulle publicera fler bilder på henne. Och det ångrar jag inte för en sekund! (Bildtexterna är Sjöfns egna.)

"Tränar i Humlebaekk inför World Nude Bike Ride day 10 juni"

"Underbart att få njuta av sol, bad och mjuk strand"

"Vad kan vara bättre än att ligga på en tropisk sandstrand en ljum kväll och bara njuta av livet."

Nakna avatarer i Sl 35

Vissa måste man nästan vrida om armen på för att få bilder. Jag nämner inga namn men sätter ut nationalitet och initialer på "skurkarna": Fyra kända svenska bloggare PGB, VK/AK, SG och bA, en svensk bloggare och journalist KU, en svensknorsk bloggare LB och hennes make med samma initialer. en svensk singer-songwriter BJ och hans amerikanska hustru NB samt ett svenskt par som är mest kända för att driva ett stort vitt hotell med en underbar blå sal där de har massor av trevliga evenemang EA och JP finns bland dem jag tänker på...

Några sådana metoder behövde jag inte ta till med den vackra Vanadis Falconer. Hon skickade mig minsann en liten underbar bildserie på sig själv och en bild på sin kusin Sjöfn Stoneshield. Bildtexterna är Vanadis egna.

"Som reporter måste man läsa in sig på en massa urtråkiga papper tack och lov måste man inte göra det på kontoret om man är freelance"

"Eftersom jag är äkta blondin så har inte vätesuperoxiden frätt sönder hjärnan så insidan är lika vacker som utsidan."

"Livet ska levas fullt ut. Alla sinnen ska vara med. Att dyka naken i 27° tropiskt vatten är en riktigt sensuell upplevelse."

"Den "nakna docenten", Sjofn är docent i sexologi vid Köpenhamns universitet, tar sig ett kvällsdopp tillsammans med Vanadis."