Schedule for October 2014

Meditation sessions take place daily, 11:00-11:30pm SLT, at the following location: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Triphosa/157/245/1000.

It was a nice meditation session earlier today at Refugium, just before I needed to leave for work in RL. Our opening thought was from Psalm 108, “My heart, O God, is steadfast; I will sing and make music with all my soul.” We ended with a line from Hildegard von Bingen, “The soul is not in the body; the body is in the soul.”

The daily sessions take place from 11 to 11.30pm SLT. All avatars are welcome.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Triphosa/157/245/1000 

Refugium: Centre for Contemplation

Refugium is a Latin word connoting, among several different things, a refuge, a quiet secluded spot for reflection. I chose that word for a small spiritual retreat I’ve recently made in Second Life.

Ever since the Viriditas sim closed – a place I’ve blogged about before and which meant a lot to me at the beginning of my SL experience – I’ve felt the need for an inworld spot dedicated to the practice referred to by some as Christian meditation, contemplation or silent prayer. While the terms are not entirely interchangeable, they all point to a mindful practice that goes beyond words; that resorts to silence for want of vocabulary that could express the inexpressible.

Viriditas was just such a place, inspired by medieval mysticism and dedicated to a contemporary contemplative practice. The daily sessions I attended there, whenever obligations permitted, were at 6pm local time, just when I would get back from work and sit down to have a cup of tea. After a stressful day, I would look forward to those thirty minutes at Viriditas, which to me meant half an hour of peaceful silence, centering, letting go.

With the coming of autumn, my favourite season, and one which every year puts me in a more reflective mood, I decided to open a place that would fill the gap left after Viriditas. At the moment, it is pretty small, located 1,000m above my home parcel. I intend to be there for the daily meditation sessions and hopefully have others join me. I will start on September 30 from 11pm SLT (already October 1 in my time zone) and take it from there.

If you’re interested in joining me, or if you’d like to visit the place, here’s SLurl: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Triphosa/157/245/1000

Viriditas in Second Life

Most friends who see me logged on between 9 and 9.30 am SLT know that I probably won’t be responding to their IMs immediately. The reason? I’m most likely to be at St Brigid’s, meditating. The church hosts daily silent prayer meetings organised by the Viriditas group. On the Second Life website, the group is described as "an ecumenical center for Contemplative Christianity offering visitors opportunities to experience the sacred through silence, stillness and spiritual community.“ Its ethos and groundedness in Christian monastic practice, leading back to medieval mystics, make these meetings  truly meaningful and soul nurturing.

The group’s name itself speaks a lot. Latin word viriditas traces back to Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), one of the most important medieval authors. She wrote books and treatises on theology, also on medicine and natural sciences; a true polymath, and a woman of profound spiritual insight. Not much attested elsewhere, viriditas was the term she frequently used to refer to an aspect of God as a life-giving force present in everything that lives and breathes. In English the word literally means "greenness”, but it is more commonly translated as “greening”, interpreted as a process. Some have suggested that Hildegard used such imagery inspired by the verdant forests surrounding the convents she worked and lived in, in the Rhineland area of present-day Germany. In any case, she was using it as a powerful image of the divine as that which inundates the world with growth and vitality.

True to that imagery, St Brigid’s is also located in a beautiful sim,  surrounded by lush vegetation. If you ever find yourself in need of some peace and quiet from the crazy world of SL (or RL, for that matter), do come for a stroll, or sit in a silent half-hour meeting. Upon arrival you will be offered a notecard briefly explaining the basics of contemplative spirituality, which you can also pick up inside the church. Everyone is welcome to silent prayer, regardless of religious affiliation. Even if you have little interest in things spiritual, you will enjoy Isa Oaklourne’s lovely design.

To visit, click here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dreamzland/127/117/24

Originally posted on my old WordPress blog in March 2013; edited to reflect the sim’s change of location.