Flowers in your hair

Gwyn wearing Fael Illyar's Astral Flower

If you’re going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you’re going to San Francisco
You’re gonna meet some gentle people there
[…]
– The Mamas & the Papas, “San Francisco” (1967)

On the very first day I visited a public sandbox, Cyrus Apollo, whom I had no idea who he was, gave me an unexpected gift: a white rose, handicrafted with care and love from extreme prim torture (no sculpties back then!), which I could wear on my hair. I suppose it was a random act of generosity towards newbies, or perhaps a clever promotional stunt (who knows! I prefer to believe that Cyrus was just generous!).

But five years ago, when I was still figuring out what Second Life was all about, the flower in the hair made sense. After all, Linden Lab is from San Francisco, right? That’s where the grid was physically located? I never travelled to San Francisco before, but, if I could trust The Mamas and The Papas with their advice, when travelling to San Francisco, one should wear a flower in one’s hair… so I did just that 🙂

(Yes, now you know why I always wear flowers in my hair! Just imagine how the story would have been different if Linden Lab actually had started co-locating servers in Houston, Texas… I might have been wearing a Stetson since Day One 🙂 )

Since then, SL has evolved. A lot. From prim torture attachments we have now sculpties. Flowers for your hair, however, doesn’t seem to be a fashionable item, in the sense that, well, shoes are 🙂 Or hair 🙂 Or, well, basically anything that is sold in SL as fashion accessories… we all know how many billions (yes, billions) of items are out there.

Not so for the flowers-in-your-hair-fans! Sure, a few shops here and there offer some flowers. Most are roses. I have nothing against roses, but, after wearing them for two years, I wished a bit more of variety! After all, I’m supposed to be recognised by the flower I’m always wearing on my hair (hairstyles come and go like the seasons, but the flower remains!) so I’m always hunting for flowers…

A fellow Thinker, Fael Illyar, had a surprise for me the other day we met at our regular discussion hour (every Tuesday at 3:30 PM on the supportforhealing region). She was dabbling with sculpties and produced a new kind of flower, called Astral Flower, which is totally customisable: you can change the sculpties’ size, position, colour, “phantomness”, lightness, and whatnot. And also very generously, she offered me one 🙂 It’s fantastic to have one flower that can change colour depending on my mood (and my outfit!), so I’m really very, very grateful to her!

She has recently started to offer the Astral Lotus Hairflower for sale at her shop. So, if you’re looking for a good looking, customisable flower for your hair, you know now where to find it 🙂

… and as the song goes, once in San Francisco, you’ll certainly “find gentle people here” — which is definitely quite true of Second Life, of course!

Thanks so much, Fael!

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