Aware - The Mortal Mist NewsletterDecember 4, 2009
From The EditorGreetings, fellow Mortals!
The last newsletter went out July 8 - shortly before a catastrophic server failure that took us offline for nearly a week. From then to now, I've just not made the commitment to pound out another newsletter, even though I've sincerely intended to do so.
During the newsletter furlough, my wife and I decided to close our machine shop, which was set up at a time when we had employees, contracts for steady, reliable work, and a true need for the space and equipment. Things changed over the years; slowly at first, and then dramatically as the economy began to shift drastically downward. We haven't had employees for three years now, but we sure did enjoy the space a decent sized industrial building offered. We filled that building, wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Machines, tools and unclassified stuff accumulated without rhyme, reason or purpose, just because we had the space for it all.
We had decided back in July that it was time to start looking toward eventually moving out of there. We began divesting, moving, storing, sorting, trashing and working our way through our personal mountain of artifacts. Four months of steady effort and a broken hand later, what remained still seemed impossible to sort through or move in any reasonable amount of time. In spite of this intimidating realization, we made the decision in late October to move out completely by December 1. And we did it. We did it together; with a solid commitment, a flexible plan, and working harder than either of us has ever worked in our lives over the course of a month.
I tell this story because I am totally inspired by how we accomplished what we set our minds on once we made that firm commitment to the goal. Having the general intent was moving us very slowly in the direction we wanted to go, but the real commitment to a deadline is what finally revealed our true capabilities, which were much greater than we ever dreamed.
We're all capable of much more than we often think or believe. Getting results in the pursuit of consistent lucidity in our dreams takes more than general intent. What most of us require is a plan of attack, an honest assessment of what we really need, (and often more difficult and painful to determine, what we don't,) and an absolute commitment to doing the best we can. After that, like a good golf swing or billiards stroke, it is all follow-through.
The most difficult step of any great accomplishment is often making the initial commitment. It usually gets easier after that, because we base our initial expectations on the skill and ability we possess at the beginning of the endeavor. The real surprises in the shop project came as we exercised our commitment and found our endurance and ability dramatically improving along the way, making each step easier as we got closer to the final goal. Commitment fuels the engines of accomplishment.
As for Lucid Dreaming, I'm ready to make the move from general intent to real commitment. Together with the other committed Dreamers here in The Mist, I know real results will be within reach.
I'll see you in my dreams!
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In This Issue:- One Year Ago In The Mist
- A Closer Look at Mortal Mist
- Community and System Notes
- Lucid Dreaming Challenges for December
- December Meeting Place
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One Year Ago In The Mist- The Tagging feature had just been added to our DreamCatcher system
- Naiya and Luminous were preparing to begin the Dream Yoga Workshop
- The Wall, our dream-inspired art gallery, had been implemented - though it had not yet been named
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A Closer Look at Mortal MistThe Mortal Mist community may seem odd to those familiar with online communities and forums. We take pride being different.
First and foremost, we are an
on topic Lucid Dreaming forum. Our mission is to accommodate the exploration and promotion of lucid dreaming.
We have no moderators here, and no specially empowered staff positions aside from necessary administration. This may be a disappointment to those who aspire to positions of power and special privilege, but we have no need for enforcers or babysitters here. Responsibility for the community lies with all the members, who are also the owners. Our ability to function without a "police force" is testimony to the amazing integrity of our all involved here.
Behind the scenes, we have some limited-access forums for special purposes:
- The Locker Room, which many of you are familiar with, is a place to discuss the implementation of specific projects. Child forums are Mod Installations, specifically for the system customizations and modifications, the defunct Wiki Exploratory Group board, and the Super Secret Workshop Workshop, a place to prepare and organize workshops prior to presentation.
- The Newsletter Workshop is for preparing newsletters
- The Graphic Design Workshop, now dormant, was used for graphic design planning of the first generation of Mortal Mist pages.
- Siberia, where unwanted material goes out to pasture.
- The Cave, the administration board - among the least-used and most boring places in The Mist. It is used primarily to discuss sensitive security issues.
One additional private forum exists just for those here who lucid dream naturally. If you are a "natural" and would like access to this board, just drop a PM to any of the admin team. (I don't know what, if anything, goes on there, as I am not a Natural.)
It is the
Admin Team's job to take care of the technical and security needs of the community, from maintaining the server and backups to managing access and accommodating projects. We have six administrators:
Burns, Clairity, Moonbeam, Raklet, Seeker and me.
Raklet and I take direct care of the server and supporting systems outside of the forum software.
The
Ambassadors are representatives of many of the diverse nationalities making up the Mortal Mist community. If you are from an un-represented nation and would like recognition as an ambassador, drop me a PM.
Perhaps the most significant distinction of Mortal Mist is
member ownership. As a member, you can always edit and delete your own posts and lock your own threads. Copyright for everything posted here is held by whoever created the post. No one person will ever own, sell or financially profit from the cumulative investment we all continue to make here.
This also means that
you are responsible for the health and life of the Mortal Mist community. Communities live and die by the energy and attention of those involved, and this is even more the case here. There is no limit to how much you can be involved; from sponsoring workshops to system and aesthetic design to programming and coding to running contests. Needs right now include programming and implementing a way to easily change monthly lucid dreams on the front HTML page and corresponding Featured Dream page, taking responsibility for the Featured Monthly Lucid Challenges, planning and running new workshops, updating and improving our skins and themes, helping to repair the DreamSketcher (which requires Java,) and writing the newsletter. We really need people who are able to take responsibility for projects and see them through to completion.
There is a lot that can happen here. What we will become is limited only by the willingness of you, member-owners, to make it happen. What exists now is a fairly sound foundation. What will be built upon it remains to be seen - though no matter what it is, you can be certain the focus and purpose will always be the exploration and promotion of Lucid Dreaming.
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Community and System Notes- The forum software has been successfully upgraded to SMF 1.1.11.
- We are beginning work on a major porting of all our customizations and modifications to SMF 2.0, which is now out in a release candidate. 2.0 has much enhanced security and functionality, but there is a lot to do to get our special features ported to the new code.
- The DreamSketcher is broken, and we do not know when it will be repaired. The link has not yet been removed.
- wolvendeer is discussing a possible dream journaling application that would interface with the Mortal Mist systems. Discussion is ongoing here.
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Monthly Featured ChallengesDecember's Featured Challenges come from the iconic film
The Matrix, now ten years old. If you are not familiar with the red pill/blue pill scene, you can view it
here.
The Basic Challenge: Take the
red pill.
The Intermediate Challenge: Take the
blue pill.
The Advanced Challenge: Take
BOTH pills.
Post results in
this thread and collect your prizes!
--
December Monthly Meeting Place Enter A Picture Or PaintingIf you go into a picture or painting this month it counts and earns a silver award. If you find another dreamer there or talk to someone in the picture it counts as full credit or a gold award. And dreaming about going into a picture earns a bronze award.
(Please note that iadr will not be checking in as often as usual for the next couple weeks, so be patient this month when waiting for recognition!)--
Final ThoughtsTo borrow from last December's newsletter:
Merry/Happy/Blessed Christmas, Chanukah, Lenaea (ancient Greek Festival of the Wild Women,) Saturnalia, Winter Solstice, Bodhi Day (Rohatsu,) Alban Arthuan (if you are Druid,)Inti Raymi (Incan,) Shabe-Yalda, Hajj, Eid-Ul-Adha, Al-Hijira, Soyal, Winter Solstice Sabbat (Yule,) and Long Night (for Vampyres,) from and to all here in The Mist. Whatever you do or don't celebrate, we're glad you are part of our extended virtual family.
Until next time - whenever that may be. . .
Excelsior!
pj
