BeautyDialogues

In Dresden, Seeped in Beauty

I'm in Dresden with World Café friends, helping to design a very unusual event that will be held later this year here in Europe. I'll write more about this as it evolves but right now I just wanted to share some of the beauty that my host and friend here in Dresden has created. Sabine Soeder is not only ravishingly lovely but everything that comes from her is Beauty. She and the extremely talented and SMART Chris Chopyak are visually recording our conversations as we/they speak and it is absolutely catalytic having these images to reflect our collective meaning-making AS IT IS HAPPENING.

Sabine's husband Ulrich led us in an exercise this morning where we went inside and listened for the form that could represent what we were feeling emerging in ourselves. When we'd translated that form into a physical gesture/movement, someone suggested we then make an image of what we were noticing to show to each other. The tree above was Sabine's.

Reaching for the New

One of the most prevalent concerns I come across with new blogging clients, especially those who are starting to blog as part of a business strategy, is anxiety about their writing "voice".

Many feel a strong taboo - for whatever reason - against revealing too much of themselves, they aren't sure about sharing their most closely held dreams and hopes for themselves, their work, and the world. Instead, they imagine they need a standard "professional" tone to give them a voice they can feel comfortable with and others will recognize. In other words, at that moment of truth they look to the conventional rather than braving the step out of the box to find their own voice. Unfortunately, nothing could be more misguided.

Now I'm not saying there aren't occasions in which that standard professional persona might be exactly what is called for, but one of the great opportunities opened up by this era of social media and blogging is transparency; we get to see each other as we are - I begin to learn what it's really like to be you, and glimpse what you see and what you dream of. Not to mention the slightly unintuitive marketing truth that the more specific and unique your "brand", the easier YOUR people can find you.

My whole blogging experience is an example of going out on that particular limb. When I first started writing about my ideas for a more "human", nature-connected and sensory-based online experience, I felt pretty out there. I wasn't sure anyone would understand or take me seriously, and in the beginning I wasn't even sure what I meant by it myself, but it was a road I just had to follow. Now I have at least two paid projects going that are expanding my ability to develop exactly that niche, clients who wouldn't have known about my particular passion if I hadn't "put it out there".

So I keep telling my fledgling bloggers to brave their dreams and dare to be exactly who they are. If enough of us do so it just might change not only our own work, but what it means to be a professional.

True Beauty

"Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways."
~ Neal Stephenson, Anathem

This randomly chosen signature on an early email seemed particularly apt this morning in light of a gift sent by my friend (and co-founder of the Beauty Dialogues) Ashley Cooper.

See if you agree - check out this video (one in a series of SoulBiographies) by filmmaker Nic Askew. It's about the beauty of taking a "second glance" at that beauty right in front of you:

Seed Pod

When I don't write anything for a while it's usually not because there's nothing going on. Rather, perhaps because there is SO much going on ... I often feel like this seed pod, ripening and ripening until I'm ready to birth a thought into the world.

Survival School

Six important years of my life - between the ages of 15 and 21 - were spent in a back-to-the land commune in rural north eastern Vermont. It was one of the seminal experiences of my life, and I’ve always felt fortunate to have had the opportunity at such an early age - to bond so deeply with nature, learn key survival skills, and know without a doubt who my friends are and what really matters in this world.

"Moonlight in Vermont" - photo by Professor Bop

I know that Vermont, although resolutely rural, is not wilderness, and that even though we built our own shelter, grew our own food, cut the wood that provided heat for both and did so in one of the most extreme climates in the US, it was not the same as a wilderness survival experience.

Still, when I read an article by Laura Read about Wilderness Survival Schools in the SF Chronicle Magazine this weekend, I saw some similarities in what happens to the human psyche when you live in nature, giving me an even deeper appreciation of all those years immersed in the beauty of Vermont's green hills.

Here are a few quotes from Read's article:

"Most good schools teach that wilderness survival is not only about making a fire, capturing food and building a shelter, though those skills are important. It also requires an intimacy with natural systems. Students learn how things work in the environment around them, and how they themselves fit into that environment."
~ Laura Read

“It’s not what’s in your pack that makes the difference in survival, it’s what’s in your heart.”
~ Lawrence Gonzales, National Geographic Adventure columnist

“Survival is not so much about technique; it’s about the opening of your mind to possibilities.”
~ Lawrence Gonzales

“We want people to realize that they are part of nature, and nature is their home – that they can trust nature, but that they can also trust each other.”
~ John Chilkotowsky, Program Director, Wilderness Awareness School

“There’s something elemental in nature that invites you to be who you truly are.”
~ John Chilkotowsky

"Things Look Brighter in Vermont" - photo by Paul+Photos=Moody