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Archive for Beauty – Page 29

Internet as Conduit I

Driving home from the World Café Stewardship Dialogues yesterday, I had the honor of sharing a car and conversation with evolutionary dialogue pioneer George Por, who manages to find the time with everything else he is doing to write a fascinating blog on collective intelligence.

It was one of those conversations where one is almost swooning with the
pleasure of discussing out loud what one’s secret heart most desires.
In this case we were discussing the magic of aligned design – the
conscious use of line and form, light & color, to evoke and
catalyze awareness & a sense of connection between all beings – and
our mutual belief in the power of the internet to convey and awaken
consciousness of & for good.

I am still a bit overwhelmed with the internal resonance of this conversation and my delight in meeting such an aligned soul. For one of my deepest passions is using the internet as a conduit for thoughtful, consciously spirit-filled communication, a vehicle for awakening consciousness & illuminating Beauty in and around us.

This potential drives my desire to work towards evoking what I am calling ‘sacred space’ online. In less exalted terms, I’m motivated by the idea of creating an environment where there is the possibility of solace from the ‘noise’ of the everyday world, a quiet clear place to meet and work with others who share an intention to seed ‘good’ in the world, a place where collective wisdom can emerge and take conscious form.

This vision I have is very different from most of the chaotic information overload we’ve all seen online, although the experience of creating a transformative environment is familiar to many of us from our face-to-face work together.

My contention is that the way to invite sacred space online is not dissimilar to the way we seed it f2f… What’s needed is a clear intention and conscious invitation, a well-designed structure with beauty at the center always, a warm welcome and respect for each person that is drawn to respond to the invitation, and a knowing that each one is meant to be there and has something of value to share.

This whole sphere is something that is only just beginning to be imagined in this medium, and I see those of us who are investigating it as visionary pioneer guides, laying the paths and preparing to lead the way forward by applying what we have learned about all this (the online environment, creating sacred space, building community, etc.) so far.

There is a lot more to be said and done about this subject, and I hope I will be an active part of those conversations and actions, but I offer these musings as part of an ongoing collective conversation. I look forward to what is coming next for us all as Light continues to bounce around between us in cyberspace …

One Word

Beauty
Today at the World Café Steward’s dialogue we took pictures of each other holding a piece of paper with the one word that expresses our feelings or thoughts about the World Café. This was mine.

Seth Godin

I listened to a Skypecast sponsored by Typepad today, with Seth Godin. I knew him briefly in my days working with Fast Company, read most of his books and have always liked him. He didn’t disappoint me this time either, declining to pitch his new book Small is the New Big by saying if we were interested we would go to his blog and buy or download it. But what he did say warmed my heart.

His message was simple. He talked about blogging being a force for authenticity in the world,
citing the fact that one couldn’t really lie consistently day after
day, and eventually the real ‘you’ would be known. And once we let
ourselves be known, people begin to relax and others can’t help but tend to love us.

In answer to someone’s question about the best, fastest way to build a massive readership, he said that it didn’t really matter. If we were telling the truth to 5 people, it was far better and more effective than talking crap to 50,000. He gave a big boost to all the small bloggers who were there, and prioritized the sharing of what is real and true in our lives rather than slavish devotion to some supposedly effective business strategy.

You can listen to it yourself here.

BlogHer Beauty

I’m at BlogHer (a conference for women bloggers)… and let me tell you – Beauty is everywhere!

I’m at BlogHer (a conference for women bloggers)… and it’s pretty amazing on a lot of levels. I look around and there is a sea of women – radiant & connected both literally & figuratively.

The tables are packed with people talking to each other. They are
young and old, and with an astounding variety of color even for a tech conference (well, sort of a tech conference… most of those assembled are not techies, but regular people who happen to blog).

Still, in a
miracle of multi-tasking, almost every one of us has a sleek laptop
plugged in (sporting some outstandingly beautiful screensavers, I might
add) to a wireless connection, and a digital camera ready to capture
the excitement electronically
.

Many are speed-typing their experience directly into their
blogs, making this a ‘live’ event for the 1000s of women that are unable to be
here in person. This ‘culture of generosity’ (or ‘culture of love’ as
some of my friends began to call it after the first cocktail party) was
the dominant note sustained throughout the whole conference.

While waiting for my first workshop (Primping Your Blog) to start, a beautiful woman wandered by my table looking confused. She was disoriented having come in late, so I invited her to join us. After she sat down I read her name tag & saw she was Susie Bright! She didn’t stay long, since the wireless connection sucked at that table (like everywhere else as it turned out), but before she left she gave me one of her ‘clits up!’ buttons, which was very cool.

I’m loving the lunch keynote which is on Web 2.0. Because this conversation is part of BlogHer, we’re talking about Web 2.0 through the eyes of women and how our particular sensibilities, values and concerns have contributed to and continue to impact this latest iteration of technological development.

Listening to Caterina Fake who was part of the original team that created Flikr (now acquired by Yahoo), and Meg Hourihan  who helped start Blogger (now part of the Google empire) talk about the role they played in their companies, as women, was awesome. I felt an incredible pride and connection to them (& by extension all the ‘girl geeks’ in the room), hearing about how their passions and commitment to a more ‘personal’ atmosphere, to promoting individual ‘voice’ & creative expression, creating connection & community was central to the success of these seminal enterprises.

My celebration of them is a celebration of myself, and of what we as women bring to the world of technology and to everything we do. We have a contribution that makes a real difference, that has real value, and seeing it expressed this clearly all around me is hugely stimulating and empowering.