Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Pagan
Adventures in Wortcunning: Planting a Virtual Garden

Adventures in Wortcunning: Planting a Virtual Garden

Last updated on: December 4, 2015 at 5:00 pm by Anne Duthers

Adventures in Wortcunning: Planting a Virtual Garden 2015-12-04T13:36:45+00:00 Anne Duthers

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Today, I went to a meeting of the Garden Club on the virtual campus of Grey School of Wizardry to talk with friends from across the country about our latest projects. We discussed planning and building an herb garden for the school on that 3D simulated, 2D reality. Okay, that sounds a little silly until you look at the landscaping options available in the marketplace “in-world.” Specific flowers, fields of them. And not just vague flower-like approximations, but narcissus and forget-me-nots a botanist would recognize.

A portion of the Grey School of Wizardry's virtual campus in Second Life / Anne Duthers

A portion of the Grey School of Wizardry’s virtual campus in Second Life / Anne Duthers

Would you like an ancient oak tree that changes leaves with each season? How about a hive of honeybees that never sting? Roses absolutely anywhere, with wisteria and morning glories, too. Spending hours in-world, I built a house beside the ocean, with a beach and waterfall and horses – Oh yeah… It was easy to go wild constructing my own landscape. Equally easy to return time and again to enjoy the fruits of my virtual labor. My aims, entirely altruistic (of course). The idea is to take this construction knowledge and build something the whole student body can enjoy and be proud of.

The challenge is to construct an educational Physic Garden in the simulated reality. Physic is an arcane word for healing or healer. The goal is to build a magickal garden that will be useful to the students of Grey School no matter which department of study they specialize in. Of course students of Wortcunning will want to visit and study the plants and their uses. Then too, I expect we shall see students of Healing, Beast Mastery, Defense Against Dark Arts, Wizardry, Lore, Alchemy, Natural Philosophy… alright, just about everyone.

As we visualize it now, a circular garden is laid out like an astrological chart, with large planting areas at each of the signs & natural houses, set according to the virtual North of a simulated compass. Each plant, carefully selected for utility and versatility, is placed in the bed according to its proper location in astrological correspondence. With the flip of a virtual wrist you can take a cutting (copy) and descriptive note card to explain the herb and its various uses, according to interest. A virtual garden to teach constructive life skills.

It never occurred to me that I would enjoy spending time in a simulation. I like living in my 3D world + time = life. I prefer hanging out with food and flowers, books and art, to test tubes, microscopes and equations with more letters than numbers in them. My husband is entirely the other way, finding magick at the heart of every scientific discovery.

Each morning I am in awe as he describes in detail the amazing nuances of each new breakthrough, retrieved from the bowels of the internet using his version of Solomon’s Key-words. Quantum is soooooo last century, we’re talking Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, intelligent radio signals from space, and M-Theory. I think he has a different internet.

We know that there are vast amounts of space between the particles that make up each atom of anything. They are charged with electric energy in one way or another and either connect, or don’t with the particles nearby. When all the energy holds hands, it is a solid thing. And when the energies maintain their boundaries, solid things remain separate. For instance, your hand hits a table (ouch) but it goes through water or air.

An avatar stuck in a wall or between heaven and earth? / “FlammarionWoodcut” by Anonymous – Camille Flammarion, L’Atmosphere: Météorologie Populaire (Paris, 1888), pp. 163. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

In the virtual world, this is not always the case. There are times my avatar gets stuck in a wall, or enjoys wingless flight. Just like in a dream. In fact, the simulated reality is so very like a dream world that it is easy to translate magickal concepts to the students there.

For me, it is easy to believe in the power of little things. The butterfly who spreads her wings and thereby causes a whirlwind on the other side of the globe. Like any big project broken to its smallest components, it’s one thing at a time and keep moving forward. I’ve been able to conceive of creating big change on a quantum (very tiny) level. This is how my magick works, beginning with a thought and expanding into action.

As evidence to my faith, I know my computer responds to moods by the consistent way it merrily retrieves data when I am contented, or alternately freezes with threatened data loss when I am in a last minute panic. But that is Quantum Theory, and being played about with until the late 1920’s, is positively last century in scientific thought.

Apparently, it is a digital universe we live in, and a very convincing simulation, too. The all-inclusive Big-Bang was just the [ON] switch for this evolving universal reality. He’s been listening to physicist Tom Campbell on YouTube watching the 16 hours of lecture associated with the idea and encapsulating it for me during 15 minutes between coffee and the commute. Mind = Blown and I am out the door, on my way to work. It doesn’t take much to set my brain spinning as I drive through the country lanes to the suburban roads that turn into city streets and thoroughfares.

At work, I turn on my computer to build an e-shop for the Academy of Arcana gift shop. I take every product we have, and convert it into its digital semblance through photos and descriptions. People from anywhere will find these and with desire peaked, place orders, wherein, (as if by magick from another realm) their desires appear in the mailbox. Did I say “magick?” Oh, my…

Because it is for “Magic” that the M in M-Theory stands. And perhaps the forward thinking men of science have come ’round to believing in it once again.

Click here to like
Patheos Pagan on Facebook.

Click here to like
the Agora on Facebook

Adventures in Wortcunning is published bimonthly on alternate Fridays. Subscribe via RSS or e-mail.

Please use the links to the right to keep on top of activities here on the Agora as well as across the entire Patheos Pagan channel.

Adventures in Wortcunning

Defense Against Dark Arts

Grey School of Wizardry

Previous Post

December 3, 2015

Wyrd Words: Odin's Greatest Enemy, Depression in a Heathen Context

Next Post

December 5, 2015 The Rantin' Raven: The Second-Meanest Cat

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Lakeside Hearth Adventures in Wortcunning Alone In Her Presence Arts, Crafts & Cooking Birthing Hereditary Witchcraft Book of Blackbirds Book Reviews Born-Again Witch Cauldron, Sword, Spear, & Stone Cermony and Liturgy Columns Community Dandelion Seeds Dear Jasmine Druid Thoughts Editor's Picks Everyday Pagan Family & Household Practice Family Traditions Full Frontal Magic Gateway Goddess Guest Articles Happily Heathen Health and Wellness Hearth of Hellenism Heathen Woman Hills of the Horizon History Holidays Horse Goddesses Interfaith Interviews Irish-American Witchcraft Jewish Witch Lamp & Labyrinth Letters from Midgard Literature, Media, Film, Music Loop of Brighid Love, Sex & Relationships Magic or Magick Making Light Naturalistic Traditions Nature News Outside The Circle Pantheisticon Politics Prayers, Poems, Blessings & Stories Queer Femme Mystic Queer of Swords Recipes Ritual and Practice Science and Research Seekers and Guides Seeking the Grail Socially Responsible Magic Spear of Athena Star Made Witch Syncretic Electric Technology The Blooming Staff The Busy Witch The Cartomancer The Crow's Nest The Dance of Pagan Recovery The Hearth of Hellenism The Lady's Quill The Other Side of the Hedge The Path of She The Rantin' Raven The Witches Next Door The Zen Pagan Theology, Ethics, Philosophy Tree City Witch Urban Earthwitch Wayfaring Woman Witch on Fire Wyrd Words

Select a Month January 2026 March 2025 December 2024 June 2024 April 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Jesus drove the merchants and money-changers out of the temple with this.

Select your answer to see how you score.

Sword Stool Stick Scourge