Avilion

Please excuse my temporary absence, but real life has a way of insinuating itself. It won’t happen again, promise!

In my last post I mentioned that while hanging out with Joro she mentioned she was late for Druid class! Honestly, I’m not sure why I’ve been been drawn in lately to the world of fairies, ancient history and mythology, but I have to say I was curious to learn more about a Druid cult. (Yes, I know that Druids were quite real, so don’t fire up the email.) Normally I’m happy in my designer jeans or a Boho skirt dancing on the beach with Hans or attending a fashion sim opening gala. It just goes to show that once you open a door, you may be blasted right through it and into next Sunday.

Needless to say I tagged along to Druid class. We landed at the portal to the ice caves of Avilion Mist, one of the six medieval role play Avilion sims. When you land, turn around and click on the large framed glass that looks like Snow White’s mirror, and you will magically find yourself in the ice caves.

I had not been in the ice caves for some time (Hans and I took a little swan ride there some time ago), and I was amazed how large they are. I’m not sure if they’ve been enlarged or I just missed a lot of it last time I was there. Since she was running late, Joro took off like a shot weaving through paths and skipping over ice flows until we reached this impressive meeting place carved into the ice.

The topic of the day was role playing with herbs. The Druids act as healers when the Avilion sims have combat during their Calls to Arms. Apparently this requires quite a bit of education and ongoing classes. After all, it could be disastrous to administer chamomile when the proper remedy is lavendar! Well, the teacher and head Druid, Osiris LeShelle, very nicely let me participate even though it was obvious I had just sort of wandered in and crashed the party. I have no idea about her healing powers, but you have to admit she knows how to dress for effect. Below you can see at least two of her students, the dragons on the left, have a real appreciation for her sartorial splendor.

They have a sort of hearty, hale fellow well-met attitude over in Avilion, unlike those gorean sims where they all take themselves sooooo seriously. (Yeah, they hate me in Gor. I went on a little self-guided tour once and quickly learned those kneeling women get really pissed off when I offer them a cup of coffee. I mean, I figure if they are so tired they can’t even stand up, they can use a pick-me-up.)

I have to say that I was impressed that the cards Osiris handed out were grounded in real beliefs about the properties of herbs and not just made up for the role play. We were asked to practice healing role play, so below you see Joro and I doing just that. I’m telling her I burned my arm when I got accidentally pushed into the fire while trying to break up a brawl back at the castle. Some of those knights like their mead, and there was no AA in medieval times. She prescribes a poultice of lavendar. (Okay, I admit I have no idea if lavendar is good for burns or not.)

Much as I’ve enjoyed my little foray into this subculture of Second Life, I think it’s time for me to get back to my beach house, slip into a sarong, mix a pitcher of margaritas and turn up the reggae. I’ve enlisted the aid of Joro’s fried, Devi Moonbeam, who is both fae and a Guardian Avilion, to make guest posts from time to time to update us on the life of fairies and other medieval topics.

Though the fairy lifestyle is new to me, I had ventured into medieval Second Life before when I visited Avilion and some other medieval sims as a human. It was right after I discovered gowns by DeFleur. Of course you can buy wonderfully detailed medieval wear there. But DeFleur also has some camping chairs that reward you with absolutely KILLER gowns, so I had to wear them someplace. (Are you beginning to see a trend in my SL?) I stopped by DeFleur today, and I saw there are now many outright freebie gowns you can pick up without camping as well as the gowns in the chairs. Here is a photo from a few months ago - this red velvet number called Autumn Red is still available in one of the DeFleur camping chairs.

I popped over to Avilion today wearing another DeFleur camping dress called Gilda. (See below.) You don’t exactly wander around Avilion in your capri pants and a tube top, after all. The hair below is Seibsa in the color Sunset from Curl Up and Dye, a great place to go for period hairstyles.

So anyway, I was heading for the little shops - not the ones in the castle, but the ones in the village. On my way there I came upon a clearing where I found a small gathering of fairies and dragons.

I had wandered awhile so I sat down for snack, and what do I find but Vegemite. Well, this is SL, so why not?

Thus sustained, I continued to explore and I was pleased to find Indonesian gamelan instruments on the other side of the clearing. I actually took a real life lesson or two on some of these musical instruments when I lived in Bali, but I guarantee you that I play the set at my Second Life beach house much better. Below is a photo of friends and I playing gamelan at Hans’ and my place about a year ago.

When I made mention (without breaking character) of how wonderful it was to find a gamelan orchestra in Avilion, a passing, nosey gentleman I was not addressing looked completely aghast and very heatedly informed me that not one of them was a gamelan instrument, rather all of them were “elven” instruments. I told him I would be sure to inform the Balinese and Javanese gamelan composers, musicians and dancers of my acquaintance of this fact. After all, who are they? They only spend their very real lives playing, dancing to and caring for such instruments, often in service to their gods.

Here is a photo of gamelan in Avilion.

Role play is great - each to their own in SL. But don’t steal sacred items from someone’s real culture and pretend you invented them. In Bali (and some other islands) each gamelan instrument is believed to be imbued with a spirit. So should someone in Second Life comment upon an “exotic” item, such as a gamelan instrument, perhaps the Second Life role player could work the instrument’s heritage into the story - the elves brought it across the ocean on a magic cloud from the Spice Islands (Indonesia) - or whatever. Or just don’t comment at all. Whatever floats your boat. But blatantly and loudly denying someone else’s history is much worse than offensive. It’s just wrong. The Balinese believe in karma, and they believe in the spirits of their instruments. So think twice before denying an important aspect of a culture’s identity. Or the universe may bite you in the butt.