LANDSCAPING WITH LUNA

[Luna Bliss]

Welcome to Landscaping With Luna, where we learn to paint landscapes in 3D!
As you may have gathered by now, this class is not only about arranging plants, but rather how we can enhance the state of consciousness which allows us to be better landscape artists -- the creative mind, the meditative mind -- that part of us that exists in the here and now, in love.

Please join the Landscaping With Luna group to participate in this ongoing event:   secondlife:///app/group/b2042ca9-9b1d-ff97-f2b0-a27fecae87b3/about

The exact date for the first meeting is not yet set, but here is how we can begin:

                BEGINNINGS

So you want to create a garden. It might be a small center piece to help fill a space in a larger landscape you've already created, or maybe you are planning to create a landscape the size of an entire sim/region in 2nd life, or it might be a small enclave that enjoins a larger garden that seems to 'need something there'. What do you experience as you look out at the empty space that has not yet manifested? How do you feel? Excited and enthused? Overwhelmed? Filled with the anticipation of manifestation in progress? Upset that you think you should 'know something' that you don't know in order to proceed?

For our first class I want you to begin a garden. Walk into the space, look around, feel the emptiness. Describe how you feel. Write this down and bring it to our first class. Just look out at the empty space for now, and pay attention to how you feel. The space is unknown, mysterious, waiting to be filled. You are being asked to fill it. Again, how do you feel as you experience this?

Edited July 26, 2023 by Luna Bliss

[Persephone Emerald]

Where & when is this class?

 

[Luna Bliss]

I'm not sure when it will begin, but probably in a couple of weeks -- I'm trying to suss out the best time so those who want to attend will be able to.

Where we meet will depend on what each particular lesson deals with, or what environment I'm liking that day.  I'll send out the location each week in a group notice, so join the group to stay informed:

secondlife:///app/group/b2042ca9-9b1d-ff97-f2b0-a27fecae87b3/about

[Luna Bliss]

              A GARDEN BEGINS IN LOVE

Likely everyone in this class loves nature and this is the reason why an interest in nature art manifested in 2nd life. My love of nature began in the grass-covered plains of the central part of the USA where I played in the empty wheat fields across from my childhood home. Fields of wheat grass stretched on forever, perfect for making little forts by stomping down appropriate areas to carve out our 'homes' (likely not appreciated by the farmers who worked the fields). Standing in the hot summer sun and looking across the grass waving gracefully in the breeze, in the distance the sky was ever-changing with colorful cloud formations, and even tornadoes on a stormy day, and just like in the photo below there were trees to the side of the field with a creek running through the area, complete with little gulches formed by the rain waters running through. I don't know why, but these gulches, the varying heights in terrain, especially fascinated me. Perhaps it was getting a direct glimpse of the very essence of it all, the ground from which all this beauty sprang. Interestingly, one of the first things I did in 2nd life after owning land was burrow through the terrain for hours, delighting in how the ground could change into different formations of my choosing.

Where did you first develop your love of nature? Traveling back in time through the memories in your mind, can you find a place where it all began? A place where pure love and delight reigned as you experienced the world around you? It doesn't have to be the exact first experience, but only an experience where you felt in your bones the beauty of nature.
Search on the internet until you find a photo resembling this spot you loved and bring it into 2nd life -- or maybe you already have a beloved photo of a 1st life place you visited and love. Bring your photo into 2nd life and place it on a prim, and then set it in the empty spot where your new garden will be manifesting as the class proceeds. Place a meditation pillow on the 2nd life ground close to your photo and sit on it, taking ten deep breaths as you slowly relax. Play a song on your PC that you especially love and close your eyes as you listen to the song -- feel the beauty of the melody, or the bass notes, or the drums, or how all the elements come together in your chosen song. Once relaxed and feeling good, look closely at your chosen photo and experience how you felt in this lovely environment when you were there in 1st life -- feel the warm sun on your skin, or the coolness from a light breeze, or the stillness if the wind is silent. Let the fragrance of the place come back -- perhaps flower scents? or the aroma of soil after a rain? Do you hear any sounds, such as bird song or insects flying around you? Is there a light breeze tickling your skin or blowing through your hair? Is the sun shining brightly, or filtered through clouds? Is the sunlight lighting up aspects of your environment, making them brighter and more alive? Or do the clouds block much of the light from resting on what surrounds you.
This beautiful sensual experience of appreciating the present moment is all there within you as you gaze at your photo sitting in your soon-to-be garden in 2nd life waiting for you to fill it with this love.

So at our first meeting we'll be discussing how we initially felt when gazing out at our yet-to-manifest gardens and how we feel differently upon gazing out at that same empty 2nd life space with a strong feeling of love present.
Try doing this exercise several times as you gaze at your photo placed in your beginning 2nd life garden, until you feel the love you first knew when discovering the beauty of nature. It's okay if fears about your not-yet-manifested garden in 2nd life drift in and out. Just let those thoughts enter and then float away as you breathe deeply and feel the love embodied in your photo of a beautiful nature spot you know and love.
A garden begins in love.

Our first meeting will be Friday, August 11th at noon. Please bring your experiences for discussion, having done the above exercise. You can write a poem about it, or describe how you felt in prose, or just come prepared to talk about it. In the future we will be doing some exercises to deepen feelings of love and appreciation, but first I want to see how everyone does with creating/remembering this love on their own from past experience.
After we've dealt with this first topic of "A Garden Begins In Love" (it might take several meetings) we'll proceed to the next topic, or perhaps cover it alongside the first one, the next topic being -- "Did you forget how to play"?
I'll post the meeting spot soon. Here is the group if you haven't joined:
secondlife:///app/group/b2042ca9-9b1d-ff97-f2b0-a27fecae87b3/about
I look forward to seeing you there!  ♥
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

One of my favorite nature poets, Mary Oliver, wrote a beautiful poem about a summer day out in nature, a day just like today:

The Summer Day
  By Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Edited August 4, 2023 by Luna Bliss

[Luna Bliss]

I need to postpone the class due to take place tomorrow the 11th.

But join the group and let me know how you're doing with the first exercise -- send a note card inworld and I'll get back to you.

secondlife:///app/group/b2042ca9-9b1d-ff97-f2b0-a27fecae87b3/about

I'll post the first meeting in this spot asap.