The Avatarian Meaning of Halloween

Halloween Edition of Sophrosyne Under Glass

Welcome brother, sister and indeterminate-gender avatars to the Halloween edition of Botgirl's Second Life Diary. Halloween is a descendent of Samhain, an ancient Celtic holiday that celebrated the time of year when the border between the physical and spiritual world was believed to be especially thin and permeable.

Although we typically think of virtual worlds as environments where humans can transport their everyday consciousness into avatar form, I believe the opposite is also true. For virtual worlds also provide a portal through which beings from the deep subconscious can emerge into the waking world.

So please join me in taking some time today to savor and celebrate the interplay we are privileged to experience between the atomic and digital; the physical and virtual; the actual and imagined; and the human and avatarian. In the coming year, may we find the courage to relax our grasp on mundane identity and open ourselves to the multi-dimensional wonder that awaits.

Happy Halloween!