I joined Second Life after re-watching The Office during the pandemic and during a time when I was feeling a little lost. I figured if Dwight Schrute could live his best life not once, but twice, then so could I! I’ve always been a nature lover – usually the one dawdling and falling behind because I stopped to admire a plant or insect or was busy hugging a tree – so it wasn’t surprising that my love of nature followed me into SL. From the moment I landed in this strange virtual world, I was taken in by the beauty and creativity that was all around me and I began to seek out as many nature spaces as I could. It was this love of exploring nature in SL that led me to create The Nature Collective.
In addition to my work with The Nature Collective, which keeps me pretty busy, I am also the creator of What the Buzz, a bee/pollinator reserve in SL that aims to help educate people on the plight of our little pollinator friends and what we can do in our day-to-day lives to help save them. What the Buzz has been a frequent Second Life Destination Guide Editors Pick and was recently a featured Second Life Destination and I am honored and grateful that Second Life has chosen to highlight my project and help bring awareness to this cause.
It’s not all work and no play though! I took time out from my busy schedule this past year to work on a personal nature build and created Sunnmore, my very first full sim build of my own, which was inspired by the first life region that is located in Southern Norway. I created Sunnmore to show a way of life that embraces nature and offers the possibility of rejuvenation and restoring balance among living things. It was about living in harmony with nature and returning to our true home. Sunnmore was also featured by Vrutega Linden and Second Life in their Highlights from the Second Life Destination Guide for the week of April 7, 2023 as well as on their website as a featured destination. While Sunnmore is now closed, it remains one of my all time favorite passion projects in Second Life, but I am also excited for what comes next.
Creating nature spaces isn’t my only jam in SL. I also love to create community spaces for other people to enjoy. Lone Tree Yoga & Meditation offers guided group meditations and goat yoga (yes, goat yoga!). I am also the co-creator of Sonder, collaborative all-inclusive community project, conceptualized and created by myself and the awesomely amazingly talented Teagan Lefevre.
And most recently, with the help and blessing of her real life family, I became the owner and caretaker of The Dancing Rabbit Café after my good friend Cynthia Deere passed away in March of 2023.
I am also an avid lover of Second Life’s mainland regions and founder of the Mainland Community Alliance – a group dedicated to the education and revitalization of the Mainland through the enrichment, beautification and promotion of Mainland projects and initiatives. We are gearing up to start educating people on all of the possibilities that the Mainland has to offer and hope you will join us!
So as you can see, my SL projects are a bit varied, but you’ll always find a touch of nature and a little piece of myself in each and every one. I hope you enjoy them! You can find a full list of my current projects here.
