Gaia Community: Gwen's Blog

2007, A Year In Motion

http://gwen.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 01:45:06 GMT

The last day of the year, welcome to it!

2007 has been a wild, flaming hot ride. From moving from Mexico to Colorado at the end of '06, to the house burning down to romance and starting businesses, this year has had it all. I blogged about it extensively (in a month by month breakdown) over at gwenbell.com. You're welcome to read all about it there. It's been a full year.

This photo was taken today and I think it captures the essence of what a lot of my life is about. Plunging, encouraging others to make leaps even they didn't know they were capable of, and doing the same by exemplifying fearlessness in my own life. Everyday, without hesitation.

To that end, my final post of the year is My Year in Cities, 2007. I covered a lot of ground this year, both here and abroad. Next year holds great promise as we look at expanding the yoga studio, offering an even richer experience for our listeners at Zen is Stupid and I return to Boulder in two short days...this time with a clear picture of where I'm heading and a mission, however flexible, for what I know I can acheive. With the help of friends and family, 2007 has been an incredible, heart-opening year.

My motto for 2008?

Don't hesitate!

Tags: 2007, 2008, year in review, ends, beginnings

If You Haven't Already, Now is the Time...

http://gwen.gaia.com — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:41:09 GMT

to join Twitter. And support Susan Reynolds on her journey with cancer. Susan is a well known blogger and is now famous in the Twitterverse.

From the TechCrunch coverage:

"The benefits of Twitter may still be subject to heated debate amongst TechCrunch commenter’s, but very few would doubt that Twitter has created new relationships and taken social networking to new (and perhaps different) levels.
A cause that’s hot on Twitter today is Frozen Pea Friday, a Breast Cancer Awareness and fundraising day in support of well regarded blogger Susan Reynolds."

Susan was diagnosed this month and goes into surgery today. My heart goes out to her and her family as they work through this difficult time.

Tags: twitter, susan reynolds, frozen pea friday, breast cancer awareness

What is the Impossible Request Life Asks of You?

http://gwen.gaia.com — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:50:33 GMT

It’s like this. When we were kids playing in a sandbox we’d use sifters to sift through the sand, sometimes revealing treasures like, oh, I don’t know, insects and broken toys, plastic hair clips, that sort of thing. Some days leave me feeling that way. Box in hand- sifting through the desire, the tender feelings, the foreignness of the whole thing.

This thing about “I am so complex” is a front. We’re not, as people, all that complicated. We are gushy stuff, sacs, valves, holes and all that shit that makes us feel queasy to think of. And somewhere in all this gushy stuff is a heart and a mind and a capacity to love beyond our imagination. It’s not a valve, that love. We can call it prana, life-force. The thread that connects all of us, that links our stories and selves to everyone/every other living thing in this Universe.

I don’t pay lip service to these concepts. Because I know them. Can we open ourselves up to infinite love? Can we feel the texture and see the colors of it? Can we let it seep into and out of every single act, thought and dream we have? Can I do all these things?

That is the impossible request my life asks of me. Open and open and open and open to grace. See the world and universe as places of abundance. And open when it hurts. Open when there's joy. Know that the two are the opposite sides of the same coin. There is nothing to fear.

Today is as good a day to die as any.

And today is as good a day to love as any.

Tags: reflection, journal, history, requestion, questions, love

Gwen Gets Interviewed!

http://gwen.gaia.com — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:57:31 GMT

I conducted dozens of interviews this year with Buddhist teachers all over the country (from Genpo Roshi to Sharon Salzberg), recorded more than 40 episodes of Zen is Stupid and did all sorts of fun Dharma work. So when I got a request for an interview from a student named Lucas Sutter I was like, "rock on!" He asked some tough questions and the interview covers women, Buddhism, sexuality, that sort of thing. You can find it here. Thought my friends in the Zaadz community would dig it. I only posted one half and if you find it intriguing, I'll put the rest up. If you find it dull, well...しょがない, ne.

Tags: interview, buddhist, buddhism, spirituality, women

What's New in Gwendoland?

http://gwen.gaia.com — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:50:05 GMT

Well, how nice of you to drop by! Wish I had some green tea to offer you.

Lots of good stuff happening in my world these days and I just wanted to give you an update. In the seven months since the fire, I've done a lot of work on myself. Much of it has been done in the community of friends I've found in Chapel Hill, NC (and distance--with Colorado friends) and a lot has been done solo.

My website has experienced a huge surge of growth since I launched it in July. I'm proud of how much it's grown and how I have managed to clear up my focus a lot over recent months. I just launched a redesign with Paul's help. Our design firm continues to grow despite the fact (or perhaps because!) he's in Berlin.

I'm moving back to Boulder the first week of January, 2008. This thrills me so much. A lot of opportunities have come out of the woodwork and I'll be doing a lot of entrepreneurial work alongside TechStars. More news on that soon.

Zen is Stupid has a growing cadre of haters & lovers. Really. People either love the show (coming up on its year anniversary already) or they can't stand it. I dig that about it. It's fresh, fresh mouthed and definitely not for sticks in mud. You can subscribe in iTunes and get the updates weekly every Monday.

At Zaadz, the Yoga A-Pod continues to be the largest and fastest growing yoga pod. If you haven't yet already, please cruise on over and introduce yourself!

2008 promises to be a year of planting new seeds, settling down for a while (although for those that have been following my travels, not to worry, I'll go abroad several times next year!) and launching a new company. Thank you to everyone that has been so incredibly supportive this year--through the fire and all--I am so thankful.

Blessings for a beautiful holiday and beginning of the year.

Tags: gwen, update, yoga, techstars, blog, website, 2007, 2008

Create the World You Want to Live In

http://gwen.gaia.com — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:56:19 GMT

new york from way up

"The kind of spirituality I value is one in which you get great joy out of contributing to life, not just sitting & meditating, although meditation is certainly valuable. But from the meditation, from the resulting consciousness, I would like to see people in action creating the world that they want to live in."
-Practical Spirituality, Marshall Rosenberg

Tags: spirituality, marshall rosenberg, quote

Sharon Salzberg in Raleigh, NC

http://gwen.gaia.com — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 00:39:40 GMT

Zaadzsters--If you're in or around the RDU area of NC, please come out to see Sharon speak and lead a class on the 14th & 15th of September! Pass this on to friends in the area.

Tags: sharon salzberg, chapel hill, buddhism

Zazen, An Easy How-To

http://gwen.gaia.com — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:12:58 GMT

Approaching Zazen (seated meditation)

From Yoga Garden, a new, quick (6.5 minute) visual guide to doing zazen. The first half is serious, the nuts & bolts. The second half is funny, what's REALLY going on in all those stern-faced monks' minds.

Tags: zazen, zen, practice, yoga garden

I'm Moving

http://gwen.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:17:23 GMT

This blog is expanding and moving to a magical new home at Gwen Bell Dot Com. I've created a Met(t)a Project page there and my blog will reside there until I'm at least 90, I hope. This move does several wonderful things.

1. It creates a home for all your Gwen Bell needs. The address won't change.
2. It makes it possible for all my friends to interact with me, even those not on Zaadz.
3. It allows me to tweak my blog to my heart's content and as a coder-designer by trade, this is crucial.

The one not-so-wonderful thing it does is it means you're getting re-directed to that new home. I am sorry for any inconvenience this causes you. Please remember to update your RSS feeds to the new one.

I've been blogging at Zaadz since May 2006 and I've long wanted to make this transition to simplify my increasingly complex online persona, if you will. Thankfully, we live in a digital world and I'm never more than an email or twitter away. My photos, if you're wanting those, will reside at Flickr forevermore. (Which in internet land means until the Killer App emerges.)

In the near future, expect some cool things at gwenbell.com including:

*More fabulous interviews, including one with David Cohen, founder of TechStars (up now!)& with Timothy Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week
*Ongoing news from the road
*Updates about Startup Weekend!
*Tips on How to Be Remarkable
*Attention Economy, Girl & Tech, Micro-branding and more...

Tags: move, gwenbell.com, blog

BlogHer Convention Begins!

http://gwen.gaia.com — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:15:53 GMT

I'm reporting LIVE from the lobby/bar at W Hotel in Chicago Illinois (hence, the pic). My cosmo is on its way. I'll be blogging throughout the entire BlogHer conference. If you want to keep up with me and all the things going on at the conference, please cruise over to gwenbell.com/blog and take a look. I'm blogging it over there because it's an open network where anyone can comment on my blog, which makes it fun fun for everyone! Please join us!

Tags: gwenbell.com, blogher, conference, love!, w hotel

Cuddles

http://gwen.gaia.com — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:05:55 GMT

I know, right. Irresistible. Fur like cotton balls.
(re-posting for Jake & Josh...ya codemonkies, you... ;) )

Tags: cuddles, the dog, omgsc, cute, killing me with cuteness

Heels & Grandmothers

http://gwen.gaia.com — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 04:10:21 GMT

We were coming out of Belk, this chain store that my grandmother is fairly nuts for. I was still in high school and had been wearing a size 10.5 shoe for several years but still couldn't handle going into the shoe department and being told "no" to all the cute shoes and "yes" to the well-cushioned posturpedic ones.

We were coming out of Belk, and I was bemoaning my feet and all the awkward things that happen to me because of my size and my grandmother said, "Gwendolyn, be thankful you have feet." And as though she had timed it to happen, a man without feet, nothing from the ankles down, on crutches, hobbles past us. Very slowly. My grandmother summed it up all very nicely by saying, "now, as I was saying, be thankful you have feet."

From that point on I believed my grandmother to be magical, correct on every count and somehow able to control my fate and the fates of others. I also stopped hating my feet. And my self.

***

I quit wearing heels when I became a hard-core feminist for a couple of months in college. And until this summer I had pretty much sworn them off. I know they're bad for your posture, back, feet and all. But I found a pair of incredible shoes that I wear once every two weeks or so and they make me feel very lady-like. Which happens infrequently for me. I don't know, I'm just weird like that.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is that it doesn't have to be either/or. It can be both/and. I'm tall and have big feet AND I wear heels sometimes. I'm a world traveler AND it's nice to have a home base sometimes.

My grandmother and grandfather celebrate their 50th anniversary next week. I hope to join them for it and be there to represent for mom and her side of the family. I think she would have liked to have been there, too.

And for the record, I still think my grandmother has some magic powers.
I hope she passes them on to me.

Tags: feet, heels, shoes, 10.5, cute, nunu, anniversary

Temptation

http://gwen.gaia.com — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:07:37 GMT

I think that says it all. Happy Friday, y'all.

(Oddly, as I was trying to post this, another tempation of sorts came through on twitter. I'm aghast.)

Tags: temptation, fire

The Risk & Reward of Living Your Life Transparent, Online & Live

http://gwen.gaia.com — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:05:43 GMT

This weekend there were times when more than 100 people at a time tuned in to watch the Live Feed. Thousands of unique IP addresses were logging into vosnap.com. It was the most public I've ever been in terms of the web. I've performed in front of hundreds and sometimes those concerts were recorded, but this was ON AIR.

This isn't the first time that I've wondered about my level of transparency with people reading my blogs and watching my life as it unfolds. My blog is one thing. The sheer number of people writing, reading, watching and commenting on my life this weekend was a little different.

First of all, all mistakes and missteps were recorded and people could give instant feedback on things. In a way it was like Truman Show. Most of the time I barely noticed the camera. When I taught yoga I hardly noticed it was there, but other people remarked on it and looked a bit self-conscious moving their hips with the world watching. I can understand. Yoga is typically a semi-private endeavor. Should it be kept that way?

Then, Buddhist Geeks put up a group podcast. Some negative comments have rolled in on that, including:

After I heard on your recent podcast that a host had connections with S Girls and even considered submitting her self pics, I was dismayed. You all are way too young, folks.

Interesting comment. Interesting because this is an issue I've wrestled with publicly from day one at BGeeks. How to balance spirituality and sexuality. And I will continue to do so, even if we lose one listener or a thousand because of it. That's the truth. Ain't no shame in my game. I'm young, I meditate and from time to time, I'm horny. Big f'in deal.

What's curious about that post is that it's gotten more traffic than any other post or podcast to date. People are curious about sexuality and afraid to open up about it. One thing that I saw in Japan and that still seems to me to be the reason it's safe enough for a 12 year old girl to be out on the streets anywhere in the country at 2 am (sorry this is a run on) is that people are open about sexuality. There is less charge around it. And fewer hang-ups. Could it be that our predominantly Protestant upbringings have actually created *more* fear around our sexuality?

Okay, that's not all that I wanted to talk about in this post. The real point of this post is to take a look at whether we should be as transparent online as we are in our "real lives." Last night at the new technologies meetup on CU's campus one group made the point that everything you put up online is searchable. So, if you don't want us to know about it, he said, don't make it public.

I equate transparency with truth-telling. That doesn't mean my entire life is going to be opened up to the public. If I had a camera following me around for more than a weekend it might start to get old. And the truth is, I'm up to a lot of things you probably don't want to know about.

As a Knowledge Worker*, I think it's one of responsibilities to inform others about what's happening with regards to new and emerging technologies. Even when you mark an entry "friends only" or think your email is for your eyes only, think again. Just this morning I opened up my gmail account and what appeared on the page was SOMEONE ELSE'S account. Everything. Now, it's possible that someone borrowed my computer and forgot to close it, but, the point stands. You're always vulnerable. Start setting boundaries now. Forget feature creep. Start thinking about privacy creep.

I didn't mean for this to devolve into a bunch of warnings. Michael Moore will probably take care of that soon enough. Really, I just want to get a dialog started about how much is too much? Is there such a thing as too transparent? Or is it all pretty much up for grabs when you make your life public through blogging, twittering & online social networks (writing about preferences that you can later be target-marketed for?).

Twitter me with thoughts. ;)

*The Knowledge Worker:
-Works with ideas and manages teams
-Wants to be able to develop and improve processes and forms; encourage collaboration; create workspace environments
-Needs to create, consume, transform and analyze data
-Works in an unstructured, free-form way, maybe starting with a set of ideas which are collaborated on and built into a new document/report/form/business process.
-Examples of this type of worker include middle/senior managers, consultants, marketing execs.

Tags: technology, startupweekend, vosnap, information, internet, transparency, truth, knowledge worker

StartUp Weekend Reflections

http://gwen.gaia.com — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 04:54:18 GMT

Well, I'm nearly back to 100% following Startup Weekend and the near-launch of a new soft innovation, VoSnap. The idea of VoSnap is that you can make a quick vote, or a "decision in a snap." Hence the tagline: It's decided. (To read more about the weekend, check out the extensive & comprehensive break-down of what went right/wrong, here.)

I'd like to just take a few minutes and free-form on how the weekend and subsequent days have been for me. As one of only five women (one on the marketing team, one on the CSS team, one on the dev team, one on the lawyer team plus me equals five) I think I have a pretty unique perspective on what went down this weekend.

First of all, because I had no expectations going in, I approached the weekend with beginner's mind. I was like, ok, I start companies all the time and this will just be like that only bigger. My hunch was relatively accurate. It was "bigger" in one sense. But when I first heard that we'd be launching a web app that would allow us to spend even more time online, I guess I was kind of bummed. It seemed like too small an idea and too many people. I figured we'd wrap the project up by Sunday morning at the latest.

Again, I was wrong. As the room began to break up into teams on Friday night I had a choice to make. At first I went over to the "I'll do anything to get it done" team. Sort of a catch-all team for people that weren't sure where they fit in. I saw that the team was too big and "floaty" for me, so I went over to the Designer's table. (We soon began to call it the Creatives Table, which made more sense). My role over the next 24 hours or so was to gather the information, bits and pieces from all the teams, really, aggregate it and then explain it in designer-friendly terms to the Creative team. I was like a Real Life Feed Aggregator. Once the Creatives executed an idea it was my job to explain it to the whole room of 70 some odd people in a way that everyone could understand.

Oh, and then there was the yoga.

When you get a bunch of tech-types in a room with bagels and Red Bull, you can pretty much forget about any sort of physical exercise. Friday evening, before we even went home, I pitched the idea to Andrew that we do a minute or two of yoga at each meeting. As it turns out, we had 8.5 minute meetings on the hour (almost every hour) with 1.5 minutes spend stretching, twisting and laughing. Because so much of moving around like that is getting a smile back on your face. It really worked wonders. At first there was some mild resistance to the idea. By Sunday, when we missed a "yoga session," I had the dev team coming up to me asking for us to do yoga at the next meeting. This is no joke.

There was some tension in teams at time throughout the weekend, but overall a sense of quiet harmony pervaded. It was so different than how I remember teams working together in high school. Back then kids did as little as they could to get by. Over the weekend there was a buzz of energy. Even people that weren't producing very much tangible stuff were outside throwing around ideas for the next viral video, blogging or twittering. Everyone got involved somehow.

By Saturday night when I finally went to sleep around one a.m. my mind was buzzing with frenetic thoughts. I wasn't able to wind down right away and knew that I would probably get sick. I woke up on Sunday morning with a sore throat but determined to go "into the office" and potentially make everyone sick. :P Sorry, guys. So, I went and kept my spirits up for most of the day. I read some of the more cruel comments left at Techcrunch but just let them pass over my radar. I hung out a lot withe the Biz/Dev team and had a great time getting to know them.

Then, Gambit arrived (see pic).

When Gambit the Hedgehog arrived around 11 p.m. on Sunday night I pretty much knew that we wouldn't have a project to launch. Gambit cheered me up and I bid folks farewell as they packed it in and called it a night around midnight. And that was that.

Tonight, Tuesday, I hung out with the TechStars of Boulder at New Technology night at the Law School. The energy from StartUp Weekend every bit as palpable as it was on Sat/Sun.

Right before the house burned down I was really committed to leaving Boulder and doing some traveling. Following this weekend, my faith in Boulder and the tech scene is truly restored. And I'm thinking I might give it another go.

Tags: startupweekend, startup weekend, vosnap, entrepreneur, tech, dev, yoga

If you're following along...Start Up Weekend Continues

http://gwen.gaia.com — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 18:14:51 GMT

StartUp Weekend continues as more people tune in and want to know what we're doing. Here it is in a nutshell.

A group of 70 super cool, super talented and surprisingly friendly people got together for a weekend in Boulder. Our goal was to build a company in a weekend.

We have founded and incorporated VoSnap, Inc.

There's the inevitable smack talking on techcrunch. But you know how the saying goes...

Keep your eyes open. We launch tonight by midnight!

Bottom line: Starting companies is fun!!

Tags: vosnap, startupweeked, business, quick vote

End of StartUp Weekend Day 2

http://gwen.gaia.com — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 04:35:09 GMT

Start Up Weekend Day 2 is drawing to a close. We've got ten minutes until our next deadline/check in. People are starting to fade. But we're going to launch this puppy by tomorrow...and that's thrilling.

Each of us own a share or 2 of stock in the company and the live feed of the event is available here. We got techcrunched. It's been a big day and the creative team ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCKS!

Buy a shirt. They're so cute. And we did the logo!!

Tags: startupweekend, vosnap, biz, entrepreneur, techcrunch

Laptop Yoga

http://gwen.gaia.com — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 20:23:17 GMT

VoSnap computer yoga at Startup Weekend

Yoga with Laptops!

Tags: startupweekend, start up, tech, business, boulder, yoga, video, vosnap

Start Up Weekend

http://gwen.gaia.com — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 16:44:27 GMT

This is where I'm at, who I'm with and what I'm doing all weekend. I'm at my geekiest best!

Start Up Weekend.

I think I'm in Heaven.

Tags: startupweekend, weekend, business, tech, geek, entrepreneur, vosnap

No Trace

http://gwen.gaia.com — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 04:39:09 GMT

When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

-Shunryu Suzuki

Tags: zen, shunryu suzuki, quote