14 December 2011: The story of Irukandji that I've put on this page refers to "old Irukandji" located on the Second Life grid from 2007 to 2009.  Newer versions are in the planning and that's a threat :)

Three Years in Irukandji

I never intended for Irukandji to happen.

I was drawn to Virtual Worlds in the hope of finding a new artistic canvas.  I liked that the avatars had a manga-esque quality that was very similar to my painting style.  I went there to create.

But something happened, a catalyst or a series of catalysts, and definitely an epiphany or twelve.

I hadn't expected that I would learn about myself through my avatar.  I found a mirror that stared back at me every day, judging my virtues and failings in equal measure.  And I found friendship in strangers, and they a friend in me. 

And so it was that in the middle of my life, I found myself for the very first time.  I learned of what I am made, the things that matter to me, and the things that no longer do.  I've emerged from the experience a different person, a truer person. 

Irukandji did that to me.  For myself and hundreds of other, perhaps thousands, Irukandji was real and it's passing is lamented.

This is the tale of the sixty islands and seas that comprised the Kingdom of Irukandji, before their untimely demise along with the once-wonderful grid that contained them. 

Irukandji will rise again one day, not in Second Life but somewhere; somewhere safe this time away from corporate greed and mismanagement.  It has to.  The world needs it now more than ever.

I will tell Irukandji's tale through the islands themselves because each was a work of art and love, as individual as one brush stroke to the next.

Click here to see the canvas of the most creative three years of my life.

Xay Tomsen,
a Prince of Irukandji in exile