Integral Gender Issues

This thread is meant to at once be a potential “clearing house” for issues that might come up on the Integral Women thread and, when that time comes, the Integral Man thread (or whatever it will be called). Thus, all sexes welcome to particpate in this thread! :-)

I am starting this with a discussion carried over from The Wounding of Boys thread so as not to drive that one nine miles off-topic.

Here is the recap:
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Re: The wounding of boys

timelody said Today, 4:09 PM:

Hi All,

I don't have time to go in depth at the moment - good, great subjects. But I did want to say a few things.

First, I agree with Colin, obviously what we don't want is a gender polarization. Very un-integral. But I do think -as, say, Mary said - some breaking off into “groups” could be a very healthy thing. So in other words, I support the women's thread but I did immediately think that the men have to start their own - and like the women's, only posts from men.

The beauty of this space is that obviously nothing is really “secretive” here, conversations are open for all to see. So in other words, it offers the opportunity to “see what it's like” in ways that we may never have had the chance.

Then from there, sure, there can be a lot of potential integration and learning of perspectives. Maybe, in fact, there should even be a “third” thread for inter-gender dialogue, that may come out as a result. etc.

Am I saying something anyone has said already? Or am I saying something where there are issues of potential polarization that I am missing?

Regardless, I already have something I initially wanted to share on an Integral Man thread.

And, yeah … something in me feels “apologetic” for even saying that, putting those two words together.

There are wounds in a matriarchy as well.  Either isn't integral, that's the point.

But again on topic of the thread I am out of time. :-o

Tim

Okay - PS - with regard to, say, Colin. This is what I think is the most interesting and pertinent question:

What feelings, regardless of anything else, do men have that women don't and perhaps never will or can't and women have that men don't and perhaps never will or can't?

I think that would be a very fruitful discussion.

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Frans said Today, 4:19 PM:

Tim,

Thanks for dropping in.

On your question:

“What feelings, regardless of anything else, do men have that women don’t and perhaps never will or can’t and women have that men don’t and perhaps never will or can’t?”

My immediate answer is: none - unless we can never be integral. Is that too simple or idealistic..?

Frans

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timelody said about 1 hour ago:

Hi Frans,

My immediate answer is: none - unless we can never be integral. Is that too simple or idealistic..?

Yes, I do think that it is. There are absolutely some things that are confined to the sexes by nature and type. For example, do you really think that you will ever be feeling postpartum depression, Frans? You can create/construct a perspective (mentally, emotionally, etc.) you can sympathize or to some extent empathize, but this is not something that is ever going to happen to a man.

One of the prime examples, though, as an example is this. I will never, ever, ever truly be able to feel (and so fully understand in 1st person) what my wife goes through in terms of deep and profound yearnings and longings to have another child. I just don't know how I am ever going to truly know what that is because I will never experience that same thing in the first person. I can create/construct a perspective, i can sympathize, empathize, I can do a lot of things and all of them good and all of them necessary and positive, etc. But would in the end just be wrong to say that “I know how it feels.” I don't and I never will.

I could think of some more, but we should save for a later discussion.

On the note of my last point (feeling, affect, reality, etc.) I am actually interested in what the Integral Women have to say about it -so if you want, discuss it on that thread (or we could elsewhere, I just don't want to go off-topic on this thread anymore). I have watched and known, actually when I think about it, countless women who have ultimately suppressed this desire to replace it with the will of their husbands -which is in those cases, of course, “I don't want any more children.” I have also watched this affect not really go away and turn into other things. One I was actually the victim of as a child (don't ask -too deep … yeah, just not really appropriate - send a PM if you want) but another, it is true, is the source of a great deal of the undercurrents on the thread I started on JoHanna's name. (So i.e. husband in this case said “I'm not having any more kids.” Me? Oh, I said it! But there is something in me -along with other things, of course -that just can not  (okay, thus far) bring myself to take such an ultimately both male and selfish attitude in the face of my wife's - I don't even know what the word is - kosmic feminine nature; body, mind, soul and spirit. What an awful thing to take from someone if that is ultimately who they are! Okay, this is not meant, of course, to be a discussion myself and my wife, just meant to prompt possible inquiry into the authentic -and again Kosmic-nature, across all four quadrants (or t least two) of these kinds of things.)

Okay, back to the nature of the wounding of boys.

Thus far, i can not for the life of me think of anything that was a definite wound.

These things must also be looked at and thought of in terms of levels (as at least some attempt at a point right now). A “wound” at red might not actually become a “wound” until amber, orange or green! Green, frankly, is inclined to see everything that occurred as a wound becasue of the emergence of it's awareness of cultural (and so family, friend and societal) conditioning. We have to be very careful about the life interpretation -or worldviews-that come out of this level. (obviously -but I just wanted to make that point).

I should go over and read Lauren's full post though.

Okay, Peace, Tim
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Frans said about 1 hour ago:

Tim,

Of course; i didn’t think it through, it was my immediate (and wrong) response.

Maybe at some point in evolution we will be able to experience across physical gender-specifics, until then we can only imagine…

Frans

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David said 11 minutes ago:

On the subject of wanting more children, aren't men going to be thinking of long-term practicality issues whereas the woman might not be so much? That wouldn't be selfish necessarily (it could be if the man just wanted to save money for expensive golf games); they might just be looking at the situation in a different way, thinking of the whole family but from a different point of view.

“Green, frankly, is inclined to see everything that occurred as a wound becasue of the emergence of it's awareness of cultural (and so family, friend and societal) conditioning.”

This is really interesting. A lot of people have noted the level of victimization in our culture today, and this could be part of the reason–Green, because Green looks for exterior causation. So, if there's an issue, it's not the fault of Green, it's the fault of somebody or something else. It might account for the increased  interest in therapy to some degree–Green therapists and Green clients–lots to talk about!

Re: Integral Gender Issues

I apologize for this horrible copy/paste job :-( -had to rush off for more than 15 minutes. Perhaps Mary, Pelle or arthur could fix it?    ( – Fixed, MW)

Anyhow, the thread is started and i will respond to David, Frans a little later.

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Just wanted to post a quick observation…

The integral womens thread is about being 'more feminine' - a space for the women here to float and bubble along in communion.  The Integral Men's thread is also about being 'more feminine' - a virtual men's group where we can get emotional with each other. 

Interesting no?

Re: Integral Gender Issues

I don't want the men's thread to be about being more feminine at all. I want men to use their agency to be able to see and deconstruct the limitations of the male gender role, and stop believing in everything that feminists have forcefed us for the last decades. Being more emotional and even more feminine is nothing but a tool to create even more space inside of ourselves to access even deeper and more authentic parts of our masculinity.

Deida did a great thing when he busted us out of green, but I take issue with the monological approach of men only needing to be more masculine. Even if we are, let's say 80% masculine and 20% feminine, we still need to go very deep in our (smaller) feminine part, otherwise trying to go deep within our masculine part will only lead to a disembodied masculinity. The same dynamic goes for women, they need to go deep into their (smaller) masculine part, otherwise they will not be able to protect the softness and depth of the feminine from the forces of the outside world.

(BTW our posts belong in the Men's thread as well Ewan, so I'm cross-posting them there).


Pelle

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Wow, this pod is jumpin' lately!! Weeeeeeeeee! (both as WE and as, wow this is fun!)

Mary wrote in the wounding of boys thread: Since you have lived both as a woman and a man, I actually think you'd have a lot to contribute to both the Integral Women and Integral Men threads - but I'll leave that up to the respective thread-starters to decide… (OTOH the argument could be made that being male-identified means you should stick to the Integral Man & Integral Feminine threads).

Hi, Mary. I appreciate the value you (and others) place on my rather unique perspectives. I would stick with the latter argument here, though; unless a female group is explicitly opened to transgender people (which is happening in many lesbian groups), I tend to stay out, simply because I primarily identify as male and am encountered as male in the public sphere.

Tim wrote:
Hi Frans,

My immediate answer is: none - unless we can never be integral. Is that too simple or idealistic..?

Yes, I do think that it is. There are absolutely some things that are confined to the sexes by nature and type. For example, do you really think that you will ever be feeling postpartum depression, Frans?

This helps point out potential differences between men and women; however, we will be best served to keep always in mind that we need to be even more inclusive. In other words, some women will never know what it's like to experience post-partum depression either. Many men will never know what it's like to experience the intensity of sexuality powered by testicles, because they don't have any. This applies to more men than most people realize. I could go on…. The big message, for me, is that all of us have unique perspectives and experiences, and, sometimes, we share those experiences with others. The likelihood is that we share more with members of the same sex; however, this is an oversimplification as well. It's a valuable conversation to have (men with men, women with women) as long as we all remember that that, too, is partial.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Colin,

“The likelihood is that we share more with members of the same sex; however, this is an oversimplification as well. It’s a valuable conversation to have (men with men, women with women) as long as we all remember that that, too, is partial.”

I couldn’t agree more! Beautifully put. Some women will identify more with the masculine (consciously or not) as some men will identify more with the feminine. So, the division between men and women is arbitrary at best. I hope we will meet somewhere again and realize that any division lives only in ourselves, and that’s the only place it can ever get better - not going there is living a lie, needing “more time” to look at things as women or men is giving in to the ego - male or female. I think it was Tolle who said: “you will get all the time you want and you won’t go anywhere”.

Frans

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi Colin, Frans,

Yes, I absolutely agree and did have that in mind when I posted. Wish I had more time.

:-)

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Frans wrote in the wounded boys thread: “Don't you agree - all of you, men and women alike - that we can find ample reason for either gender to feel like and act the victim role? It seems that that is what's happening a lot - men blaming women (we say we're not and pointing at society's and culture's influence but who are we kidding?) and women blaming men for “poor us”, whether we're men and women as groups or individual men and women. In the end it doesn't matter what happened in the past, unless you want to be stuck there forever, it matters what we do differently now”

The big message in all of this for me is that we need people who are willing to look at themselves and step up into leadership roles (both in the UL and LL sense) to put an end to pointing fingers. Finger pointing simply never works. It creates a dynamic of attack and defend. Engaging with people to address injustices and propose changes that promote the greatest depth for the greatest span is a better approach, IMHO. Men need to stop blaming women. Women need to stop blaming men. Religious fundamentalists need to stop blaming queer people. Queer people need to stop blaming fundamentalists. Ad infinitum. We all need to stop blaming the Other (edit: though most of us humans, from a worldcentric perspective, simply won't stop this blaming and Othering). There is no Other in this integral game. The problems we face were not created by any one person or any one group. We are simply here now, deeply wounded and whistling in the dark (not this pod, the world). How can we begin to heal? And the answer needs to be multi-faceted. No answer will be universal. No masculine answer will apply to all men, and vice versa for women. We each need to start with healing ourselves; then we can open up to helping others help themselves. No one knows what anyone else needs without listening. Assumptions would be best tossed overboard.

I fail at these lofty goals on a regular basis; and I keep getting back on the horse. This is a wild ride, and we need people who are willing to take bruises as part of the process.

I think we're all doing a fabulous job of this in this pod. Let's keep at the game, no matter how hard it gets. And it helps me to remember that breaks for rejuvenation and healing are also needed.

Tim, I'm looking forward to more from you, time permitting!

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi Colin,

So here's the central question (don't read to much into that, just have to word my sentence some how ;-) -

From you, from your perspective, what is it, or what are the things, (interior) that made you ” a man?”

I think you might have the most valid and useful perspective to share in all fo this. (The line of inquiry into gender specific “feelings.”)

I saw a television show a while ago-maybe others have seen it and know the case (it seems a bit famous) - where two twin boys were born and one of them had his circumcision botched. The doctor was very interested in how male/female are “conditioned” and told the mother that male/female was all conditioning and that, thus, the solution to the problem with her son was to remove his penis, basically, turn him into a girl: Just dress him up in dresses, give “her” a name, make-up, female identiy, all of that enitrely and it would all just work out.”

The deeply horrifying (IMHO) truth was that it absolutely didn't work out. She always felt like a boy, wanted to be a boy, hated things for girls, etc. all of this all through growing up while the mother just tried to follow doctors continuing orders. Eventually he found out and wanted nothing more than to simply recalim his identity as a boy. (Remember, he had a twin brother.) Went through painful surgery, etc.

So that's another things that influences my inquiries and thinking. What are these things -obviously not exterior but interior - that define our gender identity?

A fascinating question! IMHO

And incidentally, I do see these things as going not just body-mind, but often if not always, body, mind, soul and spirit. (Although, maybe it genuinely stopps at “soul” but who's counting. ;-)

Okay, in a rush again! Sorry for sloppiness -if there is any -which I am sure there is!

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Tim wrote: what is it, or what are the things, (interior) that made you ” a man?”

I've looked at this post like five times now, and I am torn: keep in all the details that some might consider irrelevant to the thread or delete them to maintain some sense of direct response to the question. I am erring on the side of throwing caution into the shithouse. I think my experience offers an exaggerated example of the many ways that we deny our interiors when they don't align well with exteriors, expectations, demands, etc. And I think it might be helpful for many people to see my example and dive deeper into their own experiences in this fragmented world. What have each of us given up?

Oh dear, that's a great question with a complicated answer. Interestingly enough, I could ask this same question of a genetic male. What are the INTERIOR things that make you a man? I think that most people don't spend much time considering this. Honestly, I haven't spent as much time as one might think considering it either. I feel that I don't have a neat bullet-format answer. I'll just wander around a bit instead. Bear with me on the tangential details; it's hard to construct this picture in fewer words.

From my earliest memories (4-5 years old) I identified as male. Unfortunately, it manifested as a deep incongruency between my interiors and my genitals and the whole LL. Yet there was an absolute certainty to it: I am male. At that age, it was primarily about the stereotypical stuff: I never wanted to play “like girls do” and I always wanted to play “like boys do”. I was a rough and tumble kid, always with scraped knees, dirty hands, playing “Crazy Tackle” kamikaze style with the boys. My mother insisted that I participate in Girl Scouts, too, though, and I always felt like an outsider there. And it wasn't just that I couldn't relate to the tasks that were on the agenda; I felt like I couldn't relate to or understand the girls either. OTOH, I could totally relate to the boys, with one glaring exception: I was left behind as they all filed into the boys restroom. I would secretly go in while no one was there just so I could see that world and feel like I was a part of it. And, then when I would go into the girls or womens restroom (where they didn't know me), I would be confronted: What are you doing in here?!! I simply looked like a boy with my clothes on. It was all very awkward, for everyone. I was the only one, in those situations, though, that was forced to deal with a very deep pain and shame. People blamed their discomfort and lack of understanding on me.

My brain is wired in a way that is classically male: high pattern recognition skills, intense interest in science, IQ tests showed I should be an engineer, etc. From a very early age, I was super agentic. All of that changed over a ten year period, slowly, as it dawned on me that I didn't fit anywhere, but the expectation was that I should look and act like a girl. So I stuffed my boy and my agency. I shut down inside, fragmented, repressed, and took on a false persona that more closely matched people's rigid, demanding expectations. For anyone that says, Screw them! Be yourself!, try having literally everyone around you telling you that there is something wrong with you and that you should be a certain way. Certainly there are those who aren't queer that can identify with this as well. After awhile, the pain of being targeted over and over and over again by unintentionally misguided people, who said they cared and had my best interest in mind, made me turn against myself.

It wasn't until just over 4 years ago that I revisited all of this in therapy (again). The critical difference is that I was seeing someone who had experience with (trans)gender issues. The therapists I told in the past either didn't know what to do at all (one at the age of 10) or assigned blame to the patriarchy (one at the age of 25 who was a lesbian who said I wasn't male, I just wanted a penis because it meant power - and I believed her; again with the looking outside of myself).

Furthermore, I was/am attracted to women, but I didn't want to be with them as a woman (what the hell does it feel like to be a woman, really, anyway? …that's my perspective). I wanted to penetrate and only penetrate. There was always a sexual component starting at puberty; though, I want to reinforce the idea that sexual orientation and gender identity are separate. I identified as male before I identified as sexual.

So, after all that contextualizing, I guess it just comes down to this: when I looked at the world around me (that all of us are deeply imbedded in) when I was a kid, I identified as being in the boy camp. This has changed since then because I did try to live as a girl and woman in the world and was treated as one (as a weird one, which is a whole 'nother issue), so I have some access to what it's like to be a woman in this culture at this time.

At this stage, I identify as special. 8)  More specifically, I identify as transgender: I am neither male nor female and I am both male and female. I live in the world as male, though, mostly because that's what other people project onto me. There are still days when I do identify as male to my core (and I feel this at the soul level, too); there are never days when I identify as female, though. That said, I do allow masculine and feminine energies to flow through me.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Holy shit, you guys. When are we supposed to have time to read, let alone respond to all of this?

It does seem obvious that next summer we need to have some workshops on these issues at the gathering. We have time to plan, and it's totlally off-topic, so don't respond here, necessarily. Just keep it in mind and let whatever ideas germinate until such time as more concret planning starts.

(And that, folks, was feminine agency.)

Liz

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Colin, awesome, beautiful, thank you so much.

Let's see, in order to keep some organization, I think I have about five points I want to touch upon,

First, yes, age 4, 5, 6 is generally the beginning – or perhaps the emergent stabilization -of gender consciousness. I find this interesting. One the one hand it is an emergent stage of consciousness. But on the other, what ever is potentially there to emerge does seem to be there before one is conscious of it. I love watching this in my children -but if I start talking about this, I'll probably write 20 paragraphs. So we'll leave it at that. (it’s just that I’ve seen the “boy” and “girl” patterns and interests emerge completely naturally –from the beginning, quite frankly –with no conditioning towards this on our parts.)

Second, you said you do not consider yourself either sex. Are you aware of the at least centuries old recognition of this in India and thus some other Asian countries? The culture literally acknowledges a “third sex” that is both/and/neither/nor. The extraordinary thing from our cultural standpoint is that this is fully recognized and accepted, has been for a long time and even had its own traditions. The unfortunate part from our cultural standpoint is that this recognition, acceptance and tradition is still within an amber structure. i.e. must vow celibacy, live in a certain place, way, role, etc. which is, of course, fine if your amber, but certainly not orange or beyond. But either way this is at least far preferable to a situation where “everyone you have ever met or known tells you that there is something wrong with you” Which brings me to my next point:

You have mentioned the queer community quite a lot. Again, watching another television show ( I don’t watch much TV but when I do I usually learn and retain something ;-), I saw one of the leading doctors for sex-change say that “this is the most discriminated against population in our society” and noted this because even the gay communities often shun this type of identification (although, you know better than me –this does seem to be changing a bit as more awareness emerges). I only bring this up because it, again, all comes down and has to do with that identity thing. Fascinating –what is it? I don’t remember what my “fourth” point was so I’ll move to the main and last;

You said: My mother insisted that I participate in Girl Scouts, too, though, and I always felt like an outsider there. And it wasn't just that I couldn't relate to the tasks that were on the agenda; I felt like I couldn't relate to or understand the girls either.

This is the heart of the issue I’ve been wondering about since all of these discussion started.

I went over to the women’s thread. Everyone who’s posted I love and we’re all good friends. Quite frankly, I’ve noticed for a long, long time, since I was about 14, that I just enter into conversations with women with great and tremendous ease. It might even be true that I find it far easier to talk to women, build friendships that I do with men. Maybe that’s not really the case but the point is that, usually, the gender gap is quite small –and, especially now with daughters of my own (four!), I would like to know what women are thinking, I want to know how they feel, want to know their perspective, their point of view …

But after reading about four or five posts into that thread, all of a sudden I was away of some kind of something which can only be called a boundary. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be there anymore.

I was so taken aback by this –though it’s certainly not the first time I’ve experienced it –I was almost going to start a thread right then and there but I didn’t have time.

What was/is that boundary? Because it was or is the same as what you described at Girl Scouts. It’s like, at a certain point –get me out of here, I don’t belong! But I don’t want that to sound just like the “icky’s” that emerge somewhere in middle childhood before puberty (although I think in all that is some natural part of it –transcend but include), a host of other perspectives could be placed upon it. “They don’t want me here, anyway” I don’t want to invade their sacred space –a space that it seem should and must exit – a lot more.

And I chose this word boundary because it is a post-green word that needs to be used once again.

Ken says one of his most popular books is still (the very green) No Boundary. (A book he also doesn’t really like to tell people he wrote any more). Green has a side it –or maybe it’s the whole damn thing –that wants “no boundaries,” “freedom!” at all cost, etc.

In part the importance of this topic of boundaries –natural boundaries that do exist –however relative –was in the conversation we had about children and sexuality.

But it is something to explore and which applies here.

This is what I’ve been wondering about. What are – or is – the “boundary” between identity as a male and identity as a female? No answers.

But what a great topic for Integral discussion.

We should all talk about it.

Okay, all for now.

Thanks again!

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Tim, I appreciate your inquiry and obvious compassion. This is fascinating stuff, isn't it?!

On emergent consciousness of gender identity: Yes, it seems that this really solidifies starting around age 4; however, recent media portrayals of young transgender children suggests that it starts as early as 2 in some. Because I have no conscious memories before the age of 4 (interesting!), I don't remember exactly when my male identity emerged.

Tim wrote: Second, you said you do not consider yourself either sex. Are you aware of the at least centuries old recognition of this in India and thus some other Asian countries? The culture literally acknowledges a “third sex” that is both/and/neither/nor.

Yes, I am aware of cultures that recognize a third sex. Some Native American tribes also recognized ”two spirits”; some were shamans who were both feared and respected, according to the accounts I've read. This demonstrates to me that, though the appearance of transgender people in the public sphere is very recent in the U.S., people that identify as the opposite sex than their assigned sex and people that identify as both/and/neither/nor have existed for millenia. Why? Hell if I know. There's all sorts of speculation; one (loose) theory that is gaining steam is that in utero hormones play a role.

Tim wrote: I saw one of the leading doctors for sex-change say that “this is the most discriminated against population in our society” and noted this because even the gay communities often shun this type of identification (although, you know better than me -this does seem to be changing a bit as more awareness emerges).

Yes, this is one way in which I have been tremendously fortunate in my adulthood: I have family and friends that are wonderfully supportive. Recognition and acceptance by gay men and lesbians has been an issue. This has been changing, as you said; mostly in urban areas. Portland is fantastic in this regard. Queer people are everywhere here. Lucky me.

That said, I have no doubt that my life might be in danger in other parts of the U.S. and the world, if anyone were to find out. That's why I am an advocate for insurance companies being required to pay for reassignment surgery, which most don't. Many states are allowing people to change their sex marker on birth certs and IDs, so people are doing this in increasing numbers. But when insurance companies have specific exclusions in their policies (which > 90% do), it sets up a barrier to full transition. And this simply puts people's lives in danger: emergency personnel, nursing homes and other health care environments are sometimes hotbeds of emotionally and sometimes physically violent treatment of people that have genitals that don't “match” their other sex/gender markers. With increasing awareness via education through activism, signs suggest that this is changing.

Tim wrote: What are - or is - the “boundary” between identity as a male and identity as a female? No answers.

I don't have any easy answers, either. The boundaries that exist in this world are not limited to gender identity, though, that's for sure. Pick an identity and there are boundaries between that and different identities of the same category. I think some of it comes down to xenophobia. That which is not me is threatening at lower developmental levels. That which is not me is objectified (and sometimes marginalized) at amber and orange, perhaps. That which is not me is fascinating and equally valid at green and higher. That which is not me gets smaller and smaller as one ascends the developmental spiral, it seems; especially as one taps into subtle connections and causal oneness. 

Thanks for playing!

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi all,

Here's a “clearing house” post.

I think it's safe to say that over the last century or so, with the information age's mass media, that our opportunities for exposure to role modeling have exponentially excelerated. Here I'm thinking particularlly of the modeling done by music, art, literature and cinema.

Reflecting on a few observations made in my teens has me wondering about how cultural arts might feed our individual repertoire of masculine or feminine expressions. One thing I noticed was that some modes of thought were patterned after the musics I was familiar with, that elicited a substantial affect, and that expressed perspectives I identified with vicariously or implicitly.

The other observation, or recognition, was that a good deal of the music I had a strong resonance with were the vocal music of women. It seemed aparent that I habitually internalized emotive examples irrespective of gender, but that the women vocalists won a more intense affinity with my interior affect. To the extent that the lyrics sung by women
(in English) were representative of a collective feminine voice, I wonder if I may have thereby calibrated some of the contours of 1st P Feminine in our own perspective.

At some point, it seemed for me, a voice would pass from mere memorization, to mimicry (recalling the song / reperforming it mentally), into an active 1st Person identification through interior recontextualizing. That last phase feeling like an essence, or spirit of the piece, which I would then notice as a kind of scaffolding for my “own” expression, an underlying influence of pattern, or mood, or inflective sequence.

Now I'm considering that earlier habit of assimilating cultural expressions as excersize, as practice for the process of accessing types in self.

-just wondering,

jiki

edit: p.s., As I took a walk, thinking about this just before sitting down to write, a neighbor's sound system, somewhere across the hill, was playing Gwen Stephani, singing “I'm Just A Girl” .  - no shit -

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi Jiki

Now I'm considering that earlier habit of assimilating cultural expressions as excersize, as practice for the process of accessing types in self.

Yes. I think you say the ket thing here:

One thing I noticed was that some modes of thought were patterned after the musics I was familiar with, that elicited a substantial affect, and that expressed perspectives I identified with vicariously or implicitly.

There is and UL and a LL to the whole thing. (And where the exteror quads are simply the product and mode, etc.) Perhaps more vivid if we put it in reverse -musics and so on that do not elicit that affect or identification in you, or anybody, etc. You both learn about something from another, but discover it in yourself at the same time. (or, not, in the cases where it does not elicit affect or identifcation) To me, this is the beauty and even purpose and value of art. (In fact, it's a very common occurence that when one fully expresses something deeply from their own heart -and often “just for themselves” with no thought of an audience -those are the artworks that people go crazy for. becasue they see themselves. Incrdible, really.)

I think in this part:

but that the women vocalists won a more intense affinity with my interior affect.

There could be both some kind of interior feminine identification but also something else: a masculine -feminine attraction -whether that be ultimate sexual or simply energetic, but probably in the deepest sense, well, you know, Kosmic Yin and Yang.

I suppose that could be open for discussion - but I also, once again :-) want to make sure I am fully following you're thoughts and questions here.

(incidentally, I never responded to you on the What's Happening at i-I thread but I did follow your clarification and had some futher comments - but I'm kind of feeling I wanna just leave that thread alone right now. Maybe in a PM sometime. Also -since we're on the subject, you;ve sent a few PM's I haven't responded to - I just want you to know I'm not intentionally ignoring you. ;-) Where is that citation of the Stanislavsky quote? Then again . . I could have just said all this in a Pm. Oh well. :-) Back on topic.)

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi Colin

Wow, buddy, just wow.  What a story!

There's something I find just totally fabulous and facinating about those kind of retrospective phenomenological accounts.  There is no 'bullshit' its just “this is what happened, and this is how I felt about it” - pure subjectivity with no bells and whistles.

Tim, as usual mate, straight to the heart of the matter - “what is it on the interior that gives someone their gender identification - who they are”?  Totally facinating.

And Jiki, can you say more about that dynamic of gender and musical resonance?  Do you think the female role modeling you were doing was a reflection of soemthing deeper?  The deeper structure that Tim mentions?  Or was it more of a surace feature of identification themes that were imporatant during that period?  Do you still resonate with that type of music in the same way?

The deep structure is the big issue though - how much is it due to something that arises following birth, and how much is due to there being something already there?  Its a four quadrant affair thats for certain.  Ken's spoken quite a bit on the role that UR biology plays - the transcended holons of previous human (magenta, infra red etc); the transcended holons of previous mamals -the triune brain etc.  And all that must have a corrolate in the UL - there must be deeply ingrained cultural habits that mirror that stuff.

Going all way down, where does this masculine and feminine duality come from?  ken talks about the funadmental drives of any holon - the fundamental processes that exist in the manifest universe: Eros and Agape; agency and communion.  Masculine and Feminine are expressions of these drives, the way they show up and manifest at a very high level of develop (when you hit body/biosphere - you dont say matter is masculine of feminine, like a rock - but you do see masculine and feminine in organisms - plants animals, humans).

But what is it that means Colin is born in a womans body, but with a masculine essence - at what point in the evolutionary hierarchy does that split start to occur?  Does it happen with plants?  Does it happen with fish, with mammels?  Dopes it happen with magenta level humans?


Ewan

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Okay – another “clearing house” post, this time in response to the list that Pelle provided in a post in the Integral Men thread –

When I initially look at Warren Farrell's list from The Myth of Male Power, I can't help but think, “wow, men have certainly been screwed over” - I mean, it's really quite a devastating set of facts and statistics, painful to read, and I appreciate how it forces me to look at certain things, disturbing things, that I've taken for granted about the roles of men in this world today …

And yet, and yet - the implication that “men do not really have the power” still seems  disingenuous. Men being the disposable sex - there is a horrible, sickening truth in that. But I want to look a little closer at this quote of Farrell's:

“Feminism claims that men are powerful, and they do this by looking at the few men who have power in society. But most men don't have any real power, they work because they have to support their families, they answer to their boss, and they put off their own hopes and dreams indefinitely. A lot of men will even take dangerous jobs to support their famillies, jobs that most women would never even consider, such as mining, garbage collector, firefighter, police officer, soldier, the steel and oil industry, etc etc.”

It may be true that the majority of men don't have any “real power” - but when Farrell emphasizes this it seems to me that he's avoiding certain nuances about social status and sex/gender. Of course most men don't have any “real power” - but neither do most people, male or female. Most people work because they have to support their families, most people answer to their boss, most people put off their own hopes and dreams indefinitely. Men certainly do take on dangerous jobs that most women would not consider - but of course  women generally don't consider these jobs because of the strength requirements involved and because activities like mining and childbearing don't mix. (And women who do enter traditionally male fields are often ostracized, harassed and hounded on the job - as is also true for men working in traditionally female fields …)

But it remains true – significantly true – that the high status holders, decision-makers, and agenda-setters in the world are male. World leaders and representatives are usually male, as are most corporate heads. Real power - if by power we mean the ability to direct national and corporate and economic and religious agendas that affect the lives of millions of people and that can impact the future of the planet - is in the hands of very few people. And presently, those few people are by and large male. Ordinary, lower status men and women are, in many ways, “at their mercy.”

And if most of these male power-holders have limited or no access to the healthy Feminine (or to the healthy Masculine, for that matter) - well, this is a problem, isn't it? Is the fact of their power and the problems that result from a misguided wielding of that power really just a “myth?”

We must not turn away from this point that Farrell makes about men being “the disposable sex.”  But neither can we avoid the truths about who it is that holds a certain kind of power.

Mary

Re: Integral Gender Issues

thank you for that Mary. I was sitting with Pelle’s list… feeling a tightness in my throat, the usual constriction when I am concerned that justice is not being served….and breathing the sense of injustice too…the sense of all that men have done and continue to do to care for those they love.

It is interesting to say, ‘what is working isn’t working’. I have been watching the ‘blaming’ thing too on the threads, again with the same constriction, and the same breathing. This morning, I am kinda thinking: Bring It On…. not with the intentions that we start a gender war, and a ‘who had it worst’ contest, but because there are a lot of parts of this puzzle that I simply don’t get. There are behaviours that might have made sense when the men were fishing all day, and the women were tending the children and making the bread….. or the men were getting blown to bits and watching their friends higglety, pigglety die as ‘fodder for canons’, to return to the Wisteria Lane reality of a Barbie doll housewife….. who knows how these patterns have arisen, and what patterns remain long after anyone is inhabiting the characters….
Maybe a good and honest inventory is in order….. maybe ‘blaming’ is a way to get the inventory…and then wash the blame out of it….

What is clear for me, that the revelations of who we are as integral men and integral women, and learning to embody these, will not lead to a secretly more repressed, and constricted life…but a full-bloodied, alive, vital expression of who we are and what we want. I want the truth. I want the shadow work taken seriously, in a day-to-day, ongoing manner. I want to digin the garden of truth. I want to be as conscious as is humanly possible. I believe that love, true love, unconditional love is possible as state of being…. I believe it is what our human experiment is all about.

I am following the wounded boys thread. I feel the weight of the ‘performance’ wound. I remember a couple of years ago, when my son David was not on the honour role in grade eight, I said, “David how come all those other kids are up there. Make your mother proud. I want some awards.” He laughed, and then theatrically hung his head rounded his shoulders and said in a deep resigned voice, followed by a sigh, “Okay mom.” Today he is at the top of his class, not doing any more work that ever, but he knows he can do anything he wants…. do I love him more because he performs? not a bit…. the truth is it is a joke. Do I love that he knows that he is free and capable and confident? you bet I do!

Unconditional love…. I remember reading in one of Deepak Chopra’s books, “If you want to be loved unconditionally, you must not put conditions on the other person” In my upbringing, there was in words if not in deeds, the sense of loving the sinner but not the sin. We are capable of unconditionally loving each other, while at the same time, not accepting or tolerating or enabling bullshit behaviour. And we can love each other fully while talking about what this behaviour is…. that is also what love it, respecting that the other person can ‘take it’…. More often than I care to recall, I dissociate, when I am in an intolerable situation, and yet it is amazing what brings me back together…. what centers me in my power. It is not hatred, or a vengeful desire to have power over the offending other….it is love. and most often it is my heart-anger that centers me, and allows the contriction to open and love to flow.

I love how Lauren wrote on a post a while ago something like, when love does not flow it is because one or both people are wounded. (those were not her exact words, but that was the gist.) The Confounding Knot is inhabited by a wounded lover looking at another wounded lover. The first reflections of in this Knot may emphasize ‘blaming’ the other for the wound….and this is interesting to pursue to a point…we often know the other better than we know ourselves…. and we often think they have the solution to my disease…. but there is the simple truth— “I am the solution to my own life.”. In non-violent, conflict resolution, only one party needs to get their stuff straight to release the tension, to begin to heal the dysfunction. It is really hard not to want to heal the ‘men’s wound’, for women. Who do you think buys all those books that the odd men write for each other? Women gobble them up all the time… “ah yess, finally!!” we might sigh, flipping through Iron John, and The Myth of Male Power. But the truth is,women need to stay with our own situation, our collective and singular 1P, and hold the space for our truth and perspective. This is not a power play. It is an essential acknowledgement of the feminine perspective. It is cannot be ignored or manipulated without a great harm settling over the land. And as scary as Kali might be, I can only know my own intention. My intention is to bring Love into this world, to be a conduit for love. Not only this, I believe this is true for all of us, no matter how confounded we might be on our path. Sometimes love is gentle and sweet nectar from the Beloved, and sometimes it is heart-rage that scorches the fields of the soul, and makes way for new possibilities. Regardless of which, this is our Calling.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

These are beautiful posts you two -Mary and Jane.

Jane, you inspired te thought - well first, the love, the love, the love. I love what you said about the blame turing into the love.

And that then leads to the other thought - we need each other. So, so much. It's all about goddamn love. Of course this means heterosexually, but I think that's just not even the heart of it;  it also means mother, father, sister brother, regardless of anything else. We are all both sexes - we all have a father and a mother, even if we never knew them. (This is what my teacher used to say. A woman, by the way.)

It's just so strange. No one can hurt a man more than a woman. And I suppose it's true in reverse. Profound.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, I have noticed those dynamics going on. The blame is about hurt, the hurt is about love, and the love is about finding one another.

(But I would still get the “ickies” at a girl scout meeting if I was supposed to be a member. :-)

Peace, Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi Mary

Fascinating questions - I've thought about this dynamic too, and this is the issue I've been fliging about in my head…

I think the notion of 'positions of power' is a tricky one - it seems like its mixed up with so many green values that I struggle to disentagle it in my own 1st person.  I wonder firstly: how much of the green agenda creates the issue in the first place, and secondly, how much my green alergies shape my attitude to it - haha mind games are som much fun!

With that in mind… a 'position of power'  is a bit of an ambigous term it seems.  If we mean political power, CEOs etc, then yes -male dominated (LR).  But if we mean cultural power - role models, icons etc - then I'd say there were just as many prominent women as men - actors, musicians, writers, speakers etc (LL).

But yes, people who control LR systems are usually men, I think the agency that (particularly orange) masculinity is so skilled with comes to the fore here - politics puts more emphasis on LR change than LL, as does business (its shifting yes, but its still LR focussed to a huge extent).  The ability to agentically deal with interobjective systems, is easier for a more agentically focussed person, as you dont need to take the 'people' component into consideration so much in the current climate.

What I wonder is this: the current situation (more men in position of 'political' power) is obviously appropriate for the moment (otherwise it wouldn't have evolved that way).  The more interesting question is what a culture with a large Teal component will do about it.  Do those types of leaders have to be agentic by definition?  As a though experiment: what would happen if the president of the US, or the UK prime minister was someone who was totally feminine and comunal focussed, with no or very little agency?  The whole place would collapse - without a doubt.

So what would a teal leader be like regardless of gender?


Ewan

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Ewan, to say again, ‘what is working is not working.’ It looks to me, as we have things, as you say, with the present political male agency:’ the whole place is collapsing, without a doubt.’ It is time to stop the polemics…. do an acknowledgement of the differentiation and strengths of the masculine and feminine, a inventory of the shadows, and a way of working through these shadows…. and to begin the exciting work of the true, real integration of restoring balance.
Jane

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi Jane

I didn't see our post until after I'd posted mine - just read it.

Actually, I said that if those political roles were filled by totally feminine/communal people the whole thing would collapse.

‘what is working is not working.'

Although I know what you mean, I really don't find it useful to divide it between working and not working - surely an Integral view shows the relative appropriateness of every level.  Masculine agency has been the most appropriate 'leadership' quality since infra-red.  The idea I was traying to play around with, is: is leadership, by definition agentic?


Ewan

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Cross-posted from the Integral Men thread:


Frans:
I never said we shouldn’t; all I say time and time again is that we don’t need to do this in a blaming and complaining way, holding on the role of “I am just as much a victim as you” - we can and should start leaving all of that behind right now without any more whining (Rick - we agree!) - learn why we are who we are and realize that women are in the same boat - the only boat we have and it’s called Life.


I think we're reaching some kind of agreement Frans. What I'm simply saying is this:

For years and years men were responsible for protecting women and children, and prepared to give their own life to do so. Men were also responsible for providing the financial womb for women and children, and this often included doing work that was dangerous and shortened the lifespan of men (it still does). Faced with having to deal with this role, male culture developed into a culture that repressed emotions and that was prone to violence. This was a natural development under the circumstances, it was men's way of dealing with their obligations and responsibilities. It was not because men were inherently evil!

Therefore, all I'm saying now is that I will not go along with the branch of feminism that blames men for every kind of problem in the world (wars, violence, environmental issues). In fact, I will stand up and oppose that kind of discourse. But this does not mean that I will start playing the blame game myself! There is a huge difference between refusing to accept false blame, and starting to blame others.

I'm simply saying that both men and women have done the best they could with the roles they were dealt from evolutionary and survival factors. Now we have a very different LR, and we have the opportunity to redefine our roles in a way that will allow both men and women to thrive in a way that was never possible previously.

Nowadays I feel a lot of compassion for both women and men, not only one of the genders. What I'm interested in is having a dialogue with those who also have reached a point where they feel compassion for both genders, and have moved beyond the need to play the blame game.


Pelle

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Mary:
But it remains true – significantly true – that the high status holders, decision-makers, and agenda-setters in the world are male. World leaders and representatives are usually male, as are most corporate heads. Real power - if by power we mean the ability to direct national and corporate and economic and religious agendas that affect the lives of millions of people and that can impact the future of the planet - is in the hands of very few people. And presently, those few people are by and large male. Ordinary, lower status men and women are, in many ways, “at their mercy.”


Exactly, Mary. It is a tiny group of men who wield real power in the world.
But these men, the corporate heads and others, reach their position by sacrificing their family life and their own health. It is a dysfunctional system that demands those kinds of sacrifices of its leaders, and how can we get anything else than dysfunctional leaders and dysfunctional decisions under those kinds of circumstances? In some ways women are probably “smart” not to pursue those kinds of positions to the same extent, because if they did they would be asked to sacrifice their own health and family life too.

What we need is a new approach (an integral approach!) to being a leader and making decisions, including a healthy environment for leaders that will attract both developed men and women to the positions of leadership. Todays corporate and political culture is not only masculine, it is very dysfunctional masculine - and thus unhealthy for both sexes and both polarities. What we need is a mixture of healthy masculine and healthy feminine energies in most or all workplaces, including positions of power.

Pelle

Re: Integral Gender Issues

I have been wanting to add something here in response to the questions of blame – and it's already been said but I want to emphasize it again–

When people feel that they are being held personally responsible for the ills of the world, it's usually quite counterproductive. And I think this has been a big problem with certain strains of feminism and multiculturalism. The recognition that males or that whites are the powerholders in the world gets twisted and mistranslated into “maleness and whiteness are at the root of all the problems in the world.” (A conflation of LR with LL?) Thus, a man or a white person may end up feeling that who they are through the accident of their birth is, as Pelle previously phrased it, “inherently evil.”

I've seen this happen before, especially during my stint in green academia…

I can remember some of the less-helpful racial diversity workshops I had to attend, when whites would be subtly forced to confess that they were racist. It would start out with a desire to get whites out of their denial about the realities of racism and to see some of the unrecognized privileges granted to them and not to people of color in the U.S. – but would end up as a blame-game with whites as the whipping-boy. Sure: there were the horrors of slavery and its aftermath of insidious varieties of oppression and discrimination in this country – but nobody who has been born in the past century is personally responsible for these things. We can only be responsible for how we deal with the legacy of these horrors today …  and that begins with a recognition about how racism has actually hurt all of us in some way or another.

Similarly, when it comes to gender issues, we can admit that power has been concentrated in the hands of men without blaming maleness in itself for the abuses of that power.

Ewan – I agree that simply having women / communal people as the main power-holders in the world would not work either. Replacing patriarchy with matriarchy? Not.  While I think that leadership is primarily agentic, I think (as others have already said) that more of a balance is needed: a communally-informed agency.

While agency may have held sway for so long because it served evolutionary purposes, unhealthy agency run amuck now presently threatens our evolution. So perhaps all of these recent challenges to an agentically-controlled world is also in service of evolution …

Love all these threads, people,

Mary

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Pelle,

Do you feel too that if we were face-to-face we’d need about 2 minutes to understand each other - where now we need 10 posts back and forth?

“What I’m interested in is having a dialogue with those who also have reached a point where they feel compassion for both genders, and have moved beyond the need to play the blame game.”

Yes, yes,yes - let’s please do that. All the hurt is real, all the abuse is real, men and women acted very disfunctionally, but it was the best they could do at the time in the circumstances they were in - we as a group can go beyond that, and if we don’t I think we’re missing the boat.

Frans

Re: Integral Gender Issues

I'm posting this in response to a comment made earlier about openness in India and Asia to a third gender.

What if there were not just two genders, but 5?

Sulawesi's Fifth Gender

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Okay, let's see if I have a minute to swim back upstream to where this thread started.

David: On the subject of wanting more children, aren't men going to be thinking of long-term practicality issues whereas the woman might not be so much? That wouldn't be selfish necessarily (it could be if the man just wanted to save money for expensive golf games); they might just be looking at the situation in a different way, thinking of the whole family but from a different point of view.

Right, yes. This is very true. It is also very true when not only is this generally the direction of what is expected of the man, husband, father, men, and the deignated role, but -to emphasize this strongly as something which should be recognized (and sympthath-empathized with) by all (so in other words, I want to throw this out to more than just David) - this is generally seen as just about the only way that a man can express, show, give LOVE for his wife, his family and children. I want to emphasize this strongly becasue this is, not just IMHO, but truly, something which often gets shoved under the rug, devalued and not regonized, especially in a postmodern, sometimes (maybe often) feminist and even Boomeritis environment. That man out there working endless hours into the night, so on and so forth, perhaps even to the interior neglect of his family, is more often than not existentially motivated only by his love to do his absolute best for those that he loves -and to fulfill his role as it seems to have been laid out for him, but then also, perhaps maybe as the most important issue, to EXPRESS his LOVE. (To quote something from the quite wonderful, actually, one man show “Defending the Caveman” -when a man finds out that his wife, woman, girlfriend etc. is pregnant and then disappears into the garage to start building a dresser or something, this is not becasue he is ignoring the mattr at at - it is becasue he is “trying to love something that hasn't even been born yet.”)

Okay, tangent! :-)

But back to themain subject. It is also true that, indeed, problem in the LR of family sustainability, safety, securtiy can be a terrible scary thing. I speak from experience - it can be a nightmare and again, ven existential. I mean, we've mentioned here in a few of the posts about suicide. In this case it can apply to both men and women -and has -but, true, it usually in LR concerns falls to the man. We are even facing this now to some extent for the first time ina while. It's not the end of the world, but sustainability and flow of resources (money) issues in the LR have reared their scary, ugly head to some extent and so, yes, when that happens it can absolutely, 100%, definitely be something that you never, ever, ever want to go through again. And obviously, the more children one has, the more frightening this can be.

All that said, however, I do still feel that more often than not  -or at least just often -this is ultimately used as an “excuse” or simply a sort of mask to other present issues; one of which is often simply “I don't want any more children” and this is becasue I'm a little too fond of my independence, just, you know, don't want to embrace the more communal, or to attempt to meet what might even be my wife's needs, half way.

Now obviously this has different dynamics at different levels. Amber tends to love offspring, many of the polygomy csubcultures have as their core value, reproduction -and incidentally, a man reproducing as many children as possible -so with multiple wives, there can be multiple pregancies at that same time, or more of them. Okay, whole other issue. Just want to hgihlight some value differences that can play a role.

And lastly,  I see the LR or budget thing as perhaps a hallow “excuse” easily used, because plenty of people with large families exist on smaller budgets than folks who might be rich and have 1, 2 or no children. But so this is what I have often seen: the wife truly wants more children, the man simply doesn't and maybe “get his way.”

So thus, I see it as a necessary compromise, something to explore, that is only fair.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Quick note:

I just wanted to make sure that in the above statemtn I “emphasized strongly” I'm not directing it in any particular direction or towards “the men” here or “the women” here - it's just one of those oft ocer-looked things that might be important to regonize in any gender issues discussion.

( i just don't want “the women” to pick that up as “resentment” or anything, etc. Personally, I've never really quite had this problem  in the more ordinary or conventional way myself, but t I do witness some of the major pressures of these issues in other men all the time.)


:-)

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi y'all,

Its a real challenge for me to enter a thread with such vertical clarifications refining the view, while my inclination is to flash the thread horizontally ( from way-out-in-UL-field, as I PM'd Balder ). Every answer spawns several questions, for which I'm grateful!

I agree with Tim that men remain generally, mostly excluded from the 1st person feminine perspective. I can, with some eventual certainty, say that I know how Tim feels regarding the question of more children, even though my wife and I suspect that we may never have children of our own. And it ain't for lack of trying. That the question of children seems decided for us in no way implies that we have each settled it in ways even remotely similar to one another. Even if we were to have one baby, I could not say that she and I had wanted the same child for the same reasons.

     ~                                                                       ~                                                                          ~

To rephrase my intent in my post of last night: Are there ways in which the historically recent availability of the diversity of cultural artifacts (which express gender perspectives) might be compounding our opportunities to develop our gender identity line?

The example I gave of a LL impact (or enhancement) on UL, in turn, impacting (or enhancing) UR, was meant to ask: Is our engagement of the ededic representations of examples of gender perspective(s) habituating us ( regrooving, if not rewiring ) to the later stages of the gender line?

Ewan asked, ..”can you say more about that dynamic of gender and musical resonance?”
Yeh. The gender aspect only came up as I examined that LL, UL, UR seqence in light of this conversation. Resonance may be the wrong word. The sequence, as I first saw it, began at literature and audio/visual media, then interfacing with interiority, then integrated, as a subtle formative groove, into personal expression. I don't know how much of the identification I can atribute to a hormone induced “resonance”. It was too long ago to be able to tell. I do recall that as a celibate Zen seminarian I had some stints of a kind of grace period, a freedom from testosterone tyranny, which were accompanied by a sense of holonic completeness like a 24/7 presence of a soulmate, a soulmate like an inner twin, but different. That was after my second year, in which my teacher, who gave me the name Jikishin ( meaning, Direct Mind ) would tease me about it meaning “one-track-mind”.

-but I digress…

To be continued,

jiki

Re: Integral Gender Issues

To rephrase my intent in my post of last night: Are there ways in which the historically recent availability of the diversity of cultural artifacts (which express gender perspectives) might be compounding our opportunities to develop our gender identity line?

I would say absolutely yes. Yes, absolutely.

Do I like Tori Amos. You betcha! The first time I heard her first album -well, there is that way to get behind the female mind through art -perspectives. (Did I just date myself?) (Wow there's a double meaning in that last question.)

And of course, I would champion drama in this regard, maybe as the most powerful. It is the power of presenting perspectives that may not be accessible in any other way (beyond 1st person) -and beyond that, perspectives in contexts, interpersonal, socail, cultural, historical - that I love and am so fascinated with about this art form.

Anyhow, yes. I am just as fascinated to think about how these things were not available only as recently as a hundred years ago -at least not as they are today.

Further, again highlighting drama, there is some incredible evidence that children -well, let's put it this way: children are able to take Simba and Grover and Elmo's perspective -in a 2nd person - long before they can actually accomplish that same task in real life. There is powerful suggestion that this helps development in that reality overall (if not lots of others). The cognitive structures that allow certain types of perspective taking are indeed the same as fantasy and pretending, etc.

So it is clear that we are not only excercising all of this more en masse, but tht we are teaching our children to do so.

Evolution, rolls on!

(And in art!)

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Love it, Balder! Thanks for bringing that in.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

I posted a response to Tim earlier here.

Now I'm pulling something in here from the Integral Men thread.

Rick (holden) wrote: So he told me to meditate and seek out the underlying causes of my depression and to just shine a light on them, and not be taken in by them….This seems to me a very masculine and very effective way of dealing with these issues. This way we don't really have to get into the details, and still deal with the issues.
I think the more feminine way of bringing out feelings and reifying them and making them more significant is just deepening and reifying the delusion that we are trying to overcome in the first place. We have to understand that these feelings and thoughts are nothing more than mental and conditional constructs (emphasis mine).

Hmm. That's an interesting statement. It ruffles my feather a bit. This seems to be the agentic interpretation of emotions. It is purely ascendent. This casts the “feminine” as delusional. I offer that emotions can be a powerful tool for diving into subjective awareness. To say that “feelings and thoughts are nothing more than mental and conditional constructs” seems to me to be ascendent gone awry. For example, love is a feeling that none of us could survive without. It is not merely a construct. Emotions also hold information for vertical development. To only view them as witness takes the edge off of them, for sure. And it often results in the emotions changing or loosening their grip. This can be helpful. However, to do this always, to the exclusion of diving into them (while holding them loosely yet allowing them freedom to come through you), is to be partial. Not integral. Emotional expression is not necessarily reification. A world in which everything is rendered a construct is a flatland. Reductionism can be helpful to explore things from differing perspectives; holding onto that to bypass emotions all the time sets one up for fragmentation, though. Sure, you can develop horizontally and attain nondual awareness. We don't need people detached and sitting in nondual awareness, though. We need people who are engaged with vertical development as well. If we care about human survival and all beings achieving enlightenment, that is. From a Buddhist perspective, isn't that what being a boddhisattva entails?

Edit to add: I like what someone else said, too, though (can't remember who). Men have historically repressed their emotions to survive. We couldn't have emotional men out in the fields or the factories because shit had to get done. We are beyond that now. We can have both emotional awareness and expression and productivity that is able to disengage somewhat from emotions.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Earlier I said: Emotional expression is not necessarily reification.

Actually, in my experience, emotional repression is reification. That which we repress (or  merely detach from through witnessing) stays with us. It might change in the moment when witnessed, but it's often not gone from our interiors. Emotional expression, OTOH - diving deep into the subjective depths - results in the subtle energy being engaged directly; out of this engagement comes movement. When we engage we move through and then beyond the emotion.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Another thing to add: I came to this perspective after YEARS of repressing or detaching from emotion. I've done it that way. I've also done it in a more “feminine” way. I find that, once again, an integral tool chest is the best means for me to grow into even higher stages (vertically).

I graduated summa cum laude with a BS in molecular biology, so I'm used to living in my head. No more relying on my head alone for me, though. Intellectualism can be dangerous for some of us. Some of us need more of it to be balanced; some of us need much less and might be best served by going into our hearts and bodies.

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Hey Colin,

I just wanted to say I'm with you as regards your response and reflections …. and although I've not practised Zen I think I know where Rick's coming from …. I just don't happen to agree with the sentence of his you've highlighted in bold …. but for an individual on the 'path' who is focussing on seeing > realising the essenceless or lack of inherent existence of 'things', be they thoughts, feelings, emotions - then what Rick is outlining is a valid method and attitude to adopt, imho.

It's late and I'm tired, and don't have the focus or clarity to articulate clearly just how hugely important I think it is for us to feel our feelings, without identifying with them or reifying them of course – so this sentence will have to do : )

But on a related matter, to illustrate what I'm getting to understand to be the importance of having a developed and balanced feeling function, I'd like to offer what my Jungian person said of it recently …. that it's the capacity, related to the Heart, of discerning the real value of something.

Much love,

Lol

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Ewan : The idea I was traying to play around with, is: is leadership, by definition agentic?

The beginnings of most movements or organizations need leadership that is agentic. That is, there has to be a clear decisive direction in which to go. However, the communal aspect needs to be incorprated to some degree, otherwise no one would follow. This was accomplished in various ways in our history i.e. force, consensus, etc. Now once momentum is generated and the path is known to at least some, then the communal can take over. So, some folks are leaders and some are managers. Some are both and some are neither i.e. followers. Silly joke sort of related to this…

There are 3 types of people.
Those that make things happen.
Those that watch things happen.
Those that say, what the fuck just happened.

—-


Pelle: What I'm interested in is having a dialogue with those who also have reached a
point where they feel compassion for both genders, and have moved beyond the need to
play the blame game.


What do you want to talk about?


peace & love

e

Re: Integral Gender Issues

There are 3 types of people.
Those that make things happen.
Those that watch things happen.
Those that say, what the fuck just happened.

LOL

Colin, I saw your post. You know -time. I also thought Ewan had some interesting discussion points.  (Shout out to Ewan!) (I'm currently cleaning in preparation for the cleaning lady - if that makes sense. In a house with five kids it should. :-)

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Dear All

Could I have definition of reification and/or reify please? I keep reading it and I haven't the foggiest what it means. I looked in my little dictionary but its not there.

Sheepishly
Juliee

Re: Integral Gender Issues

This might be too much information. But all you need to do is go to a search engine and type in “definition” and whatever word you're looknig for, and you'll get many links.

Liz

Re: Integral Gender Issues

That's easier than keep digging out my kids' dictionaries :-)))

Juliee

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Juliee, here's one:

re·i·fy      /ˈriəˌfaɪ, ˈreɪ-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ree-uh-fahy, rey-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation -verb (used with object), -fied, -fy·ing.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Juliee,

I had to look it up too - no need to sheepify yourself! This is what i found:

1. To think of (something abstract) as a material thing; to materialize.

Derivative: reification

The turning of something abstract into an object; materialization.

Especially in Marxist terminology: depersonalization.

Frans

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Okay, continuing from some of my conversation with Colin, but relevant to all of our discussion all over the place here on all the gender realted threads - I just wan to get this out there, perhaps maybe in one nice, neat place - and then I will come ack with more comments and continued discussion, blah, blah, etc. etc. and so on and so forth ;-)

Ken has, and I agree, gender identity as a specific self-related line of development.

Here are the stages he gives in the chart from Integral Psychology (pg 212 Chart 7)

Gender Identity -as a self-related line.

1. Morphological-genetic givens [sensorimotor, etc.]
   
2. Undifferentiated [magenta, todders, etc.]
   
3. Differentiated basic gender identity [magenta, red] [4, 5]
   
4. Gender conventionality [conop, amber] [6,7]
   
5. Gender consistency (norms) [late amber, orange] [12-14 begins to vary greatly]
   
6. Gender androgyny (trans-differentiated) [vision logic]
7. Archetypal gender union (tantra) [subtle]
8. Beyond gender [causal]

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Riiight! Thanks Liz, Colin and Frans. Now I get it.

Juliee

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Tim,

I’m not as familiar with the terminology as most, so just to clarify: this would be a seperate line of development in the UL - that we communally are working on in the LL?

Pretty cool - no doubt!

Seems that there most be lots of sub-stages, especially at 6,7 and 8.

Frans

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Oh yeah, thanks Frans. Yes, this is an individual UL reality, that we each deal with as a part of our beings, and then yes, not only are we brining it beautifully in the LL now, but obviously is life this implicates things across all four quadrants.

Sub-stages, yes. It's interesting, he has this listed as “Wilber” - implying that this specific line or issue really has not received very much treatment by anyone else. I have mentioned what I know of the earlier stages from working with children, so those things are there and known to some extent in child psychology

i.e. we're really talking an undifferentiated gender consciousness until about 4, 5 -even though all of the “morphological-genetic givens” (and behavior) are there -and this is what I was alluding to above by the fascination with watching this in my own children. Conscious or not, undifferentiated or not, they naturally tend to gravitate in “boy” and “girl” directions; which I think is what Colin was highlighting above -and no I didn't check that link yet. The behavior is there very early on (and once again, as I've seen most parents attest on televsion! wehn tlaking about cross-genders. In fact, 20/20 or Dateline or someone did a really good piece on this recently. More and more parents, despite social difficulties, are letting their children be who they are. ) Back on my previous note - then even there, there are variations.

Personal family example. Two oldest daughters. One of them, the second oldest, has always been so female, I mean, at 2 year old she would go to the dresser and pick out matching clothes to dress herself - just, to dress herself in matching clothes, -a feat Dad still can't quite get right! Her sister, on the other had, while still absolutely a girl, has always shown, like her mother, a certain gravitation in “boy” directions as well - so not quite as “girly girl” as her sister. I hope I m not using offensive terms here. I'm just struggling for the right ways to describe these things. ;-)

Oh, but then my son? BOY! (And now at 3 and a half, he is only just beginning to differentiate himself from his sisters, gender wise. Yes, I m helping him.)

Peace, Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

e wrote:

“Pelle: What I'm interested in is having a dialogue with those who also have reached a
point where they feel compassion for both genders, and have moved beyond the need to
play the blame game.

What do you want to talk about?”



Reading this made me laugh… cause I sometimes (ok, not that seldom) spend a lot of time holding the space and looking for a healthy meta-structure, thereby forgetting to add actual content.

At the moment what I want to talk about is what we're doing in the Integral Men thread, and I love this thread as well - but for now I'm content to simply read it without contributing anything specific.


peace
Pelle

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Tim said: “So thus, I see it as a necessary compromise, something to explore, that is only fair.”

Yes, I totally get what you're saying.

What is it about Amber and children? I know of at least one Amber church where the members are encouraged to have as many children as possible–is that because the more Christians the better, as in we don't want there to be more of them than there are of us? I imagine that's what it's all about.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

What is it about Amber and children? I know of at least one Amber church where the members are encouraged to have as many children as possible–is that because the more Christians the better, as in we don't want there to be more of them than there are of us? I imagine that's what it's all about.

You know, I don't know. I can't imagine that it is really at heart something as simple as that -although, you do and can find that attitude. (I tend to think that is more akin to the red/amber -ex. I've heard such statements from, say, white supremacy.)

Historically, I'm sure the advent of farming and so on brought it on in the aspect of greater prosperity.

But I have to think it is just, in the healthiest sense, and perhaps deepest, about the advent of the 2nd person perspective. My family, my children, my spouse, these things give me my very purpose and identify in life; my very meaning, my reason for being alive, my value. It does seem rather difficult to go back and reconstruct for us, especially since for so many, and in all of western society, amber is over with by about age 12-14. But I do think something like that must be the heart of it, in the healthiest sense, and certainly in that healthy sense, we can see it's tremendous value. That structure -whether subsumed or the highest available, gave us our lives and our world right now as we know it.

(Quick note: obviously it's important to realize that human familial structure does not begin here, although amber would like us to believe this. The affective roots are magenta, build through red -which I see as possessiveness, maybe (mine! but also strong protection0 and then onto the devotional self-sacrificing ideas of amber -again, at it's most healthy.)

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi everyone,

First of all, apologies for this off-the-wall post from a guy who hasn't had time to follow any of the various “Integral gender” threads, but I thought this Salon.com article on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was interesting in its timing if nothing else:

Hillary is from Mars, Obama is from Venus
In the Democratic presidential pack, the leading man is a woman and the leading woman is a man.

Enjoy!

~G

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Okay, “clearing house” issue. This is what in the beginning made me want to start this thread and saw the need gender related threads.

Continuing some of things I mentioned above to Colin, as I said, when I first went to the Women's thread, I was absolutely, totally interested until it struck me that it was just women and all about women, for women, to one another, etc.

This feeling came over that not only did I not belong, but that I didn't want to belong. It was for women! And I'm just not one.

Now, how to tease this open in all it's aspects, this has been some of what I have been trying to do.

But as I was walking outside with the baby that same day, I want to know - is this how the women have often felt about Integral?

Liz, for example, you have been very vocal about this. Is it this same feeling, although this time in reverse, or of the opposite gender? By default, you're an “outsider?” You once said  your first impression was that “Integral was all men just doing their agentic thing.”

In other words, did I at that moment discover in 1st person your same feeling -except thins time, gender-wise, in reverse?

If so, and I believe it is,  I get it. And it definitey should change.

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Tim, I see you addressed Liz … but I am butting in here :)

In other words, did I at that moment discover in 1st person your same feeling -except thins time, gender-wise, in reverse?

For me the answer is yes.  There is so much in the Western world in which I live and grew up that holds an unspoken and sometimes spoken understanding of things being a 'man's world'.    Most women have adapted and I think where the anger and rage comes in for me (which by the way is not pointed at men and is a very internal simmering feeling that blows out when stirred) is when it is assumed we are a part of something we instinctively know we are not.  Some of us have put ourselves IN…… but that does not me we are IN it just means we have decided to plant ourselves and continually speak up until we ARE in.

e keeps trying to coaxed us into moving beyond our gender…. I say until my gender is truely universally equal how is it even remotely possible for us to move beyond?  It is my goal to keep it in balance… but equal??? not so much

Re: Integral Gender Issues

For me the answer is yes.  There is so much in the Western world in which I live and grew up that holds an unspoken and sometimes spoken understanding of things being a 'man's world'.    Most women have adapted and I think where the anger and rage comes in for me (which by the way is not pointed at men and is a very internal simmering feeling that blows out when stirred) is when it is assumed we are a part of something we instinctively know we are not.  Some of us have put ourselves IN…… but that does not me we are IN it just means we have decided to plant ourselves and continually speak up until we ARE in.

Yes, Gina. I totally get it.

One example from my own life is when I worked for a few years for the YWCA. A wonderful organization, both at that one locally and internationally. Green to teal, who know what else might be in there - and the current mission statement, so liberal “To end racism in all forms.” This was a time in my life when just about all of my best friends -and certainly co-workers -were women. Not all, but it was the YWCA and so  - well, here's the point. At times, it would become apparent … I'm a man. And that's just about it. Maybe better said, I was not a woman. And so, if say something which might be called a “circle of women” emerged - it's not just that I'm not on some level invited, but why would I want to be invited!? The only way to get in on that would be to be reborn as a women! No matter how many bridges can be crossed -and we know there are many -how much agency and communion can be felt, discovered, balanced and integrated - there's always eventually going to be a boundary. And -that's fine!

(As an example, I noticed and felt this on the Women's thread when y'all started talking about “knowing glances” or “looks” or something like that. Um … I don't know what that is! And why would I?)

Again, as I said below - it's the green stage that comes out and wants all of those boundaries to be broken down. And whether or not I can totally “see” it from your perspective, I can feel it.  Maybe more.

And if that is there it is definitely on all of our plates to attempt to fix it.

So, cheers!

Doing my best. Doing our best.

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Tim said: “Historically, I'm sure the advent of farming and so on brought it on in the aspect of greater prosperity.

But I have to think it is just, in the healthiest sense, and perhaps deepest, about the advent of the 2nd person perspective.”

That makes sense, Tim. Knowing the Christians a little bit I also suspected some scripture behind it, and sure enough: 

Genesis 1:28: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Psalm 127” 3,4,5: “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the Fruit of the Womb is His reward. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them …”

This last one may tie into the farming influence that you mentioned. So we have the Quiverfull movement, Quiverfull.com. Here's a Newsweek article about it in which someone says, “The Bible says that God is the only opener and closer of the womb.” There are also other passages in the Bible that speak glowingly of babies, including Jesus as a baby, as you can see and hear about here (this last link is an especially important document).

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Great stuff David!

And you can really read in those scripture passages - “subdue the earth” etc. -the transition from perhaps being at the mercy of nature to suddenly feeling humanity can overpower it. Maybe I'm not wording that right - but, if we apply it to our modern context, imagine living outside all you life,  -being a homeless person, maybe -and finally getting a house, etc.

Also, this is interesting and very important too: the infant mortality rate at the time of Christ  was 1 in 12. Meaning, 11 our of every 12 births the baby died. So you can imagine how joyful people were to have any children.

Psalm 127” 3,4,5: “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the Fruit of the Womb is His reward. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them …” Indeed!

So what's interesting is how this dynamic plays out and gets interpreted today - or maybe, has been carried forward through amber tradition through to today, where that reality, especially in the west, is all but forgotten and unknown.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Jane: And, basically, (just like a woman!) I want more Love! More love, here there and everywhere…. I want to be fearless, I want to see perfectly.


Then cultivate equanimity. This is said to be the highest emotion.
From there, you can color your awareness with any emotion you
want.


love


e


PS Love is when you are not.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

E—“cultivate equanimity”….. definition: evenness of mind; that calm temper or firmness of mind which is not easily elated or depressed….

What curious advice! I wonder why and how you came up with it for me?
Jane

Re: Integral Gender Issues

A clearing house post:

Jane, I loved your response to Mr. Teacup's question.  Beautiful and inspiring.  Thank you!

At college (in the transpersonal and integral programs), and even sometimes on these forums, I've heard what appears to be a general disdain from women for theory and for academic-style writing, and I personally think that is unfortunate; but I agree with Mary and Jane that Integral should not be confined to academic or theoretical pursuits and modes of discourse.  That would definitely be lopsided and un-Integral.

(At JFKU the other day, I was talking with a leading professor there – a female – that Integral actually suffers, in terms of academic respectability, because its presentation is too popularized.  I think it should be, and certainly can be, taken further in many directions at once – toward greater academic rigor, and toward more embodied poetry and story.)

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Gina,

I’m gonna follow your lead and butt in :)

Moving beyond gender is an UL movement; of course the cultural and societal aspects (LL and LR) have a huge impact - as you rightly put forth. I don’t believe you should make the UL development totally contingent on development in other quadrants though, there is no reason the UL can’t lead - as it does in most issues anyway.

This is what Tim posted from KW:

Gender Identity -as a self-related line.

Morphological-genetic givens [sensorimotor, etc.]
Undifferentiated [magenta, todders, etc.]
Differentiated basic gender identity [magenta, red] [4, 5]
Gender conventionality [conop, amber] [6,7]
Gender consistency (norms) [late amber, orange] [12-14 begins to vary greatly]
Gender androgyny (trans-differentiated) [vision logic]
Archetypal gender union (tantra) [subtle]
Beyond gender [causal]

Frans

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Ok Frans,  I'll play

Let's assume you and I are both at
Gender androgyny (trans-differentiated) [vision logic]  going into
Archetypal gender union (tantra) [subtle]

in the UL

We walk into a sports bar.  We are relating to the LL from our UL and all levels of adjustments get created.  You might have issues if you have not been a 'sporto' I might have issues if I was raped by the captain of my high school football team…… it all goes into the swirling mush right?

Maybe a better example of this is Rick's Navy story… I was thinking about responding earlier and was too late … things had moved on…. Those women on the boat……. they adjusted their female to male in order to fit in.  They were no longer fully female and could only balance themselves by finding ways to be female but in decidedly more male ways.

Does that make sense?  It becomes a Choice. 

My point being even if our UL is transgender….. we face gender  everyday …… all day long….. and it affects our choices.

In this 'man's world' the affect is decidely different for you and I (or anyone for that matter) but specifically us as gender opposites

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Alright Buttinski's!

Gina, I totally agree with what you are saying. In fact, it is continually ringing in my head one of the things you said in your opening women's post. (From memory ;-) We need to discover who we are. Who are we?

I think that that charting of Wilber's in incomplete. Beyond “androgyny (trans-differentiated)” (which obviously begins at green) is another one which takes awhile (again, like some of those others which have somewhat “broad” spans) but will eventually come forth: gender reintegration.

I think we both lose something of ourselves at green -which really shouldn't be such a surprise. It's like there's a denial of everything that went before, ultimately, a denial of this fundamental aspect of self. (It is also true that “androgyny” could potentially be interpreted in a number of ways.)

We should also remember that the subtle and causal are no longer to be placed “at the top” but there all along as states. This is what I meant above when I said this has implications for the wisdom traditions. You go all the way to causal -no gender - but you come back or still always “down here” (or “out here” in the exterior frontal ego) you're still at whatever gender identity stage you were at. Perhaps tempered a bit now, but perhaps not, or probably not, because that growth or evolution has still not yet occured.

And what I also mean by “gender reintegration” can or should be likened to integral vs. “super integral.” Nothing is left behind. (Or should I say, nothing important is still left behind. Ah, you get the point.)

Okay, later - Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Gina,

I’m not arguing anything you say - it’s always a choice. If those women sailors had been at higher levels - wouldn’t their choice have been different? I’m thinking at level 6 and 7 they probably would have left the navy (angry at 6, with more equanimity at 7), at 8 - who knows?

Of course, gender and all kinds of other circumstances influence our choice - but the more we develop our UL, the less of an impact the outside world has on our choices. It may well be that our exterior is affected by those choices, but our interior less and less so. Does that make sense - I’m feeling like I’m missing something in the translation..?

Thanks for playing - Frans

Re: Integral Gender Issues

This morning, thinking about this thread and the other related ones, I recalled something I heard on the radio a few years ago.  I believe it was on National Public Radio, but I'm not sure; I'll have to search for it.  The program described the experiences of two individuals who had agreed to undergo an experimental procedure in which testosterone levels were either drastically reduced (almost zeroed out) or pumped very high.  The first person, a male who agreed to have his testosterone temporarily removed, reports losing almost all agency, and finding even the simplest things to be profoundly beautiful and worthy of his absorbed, adoring attention.  He says he spontaneously felt love and a sense of fusion with everything, and had virtually no desire to do or accomplish anything.  The other individual was a woman who agreed to receive huge doses of testosterone.  She reported almost the opposite: she became very agentic feeling, and horny as hell.  She said she could hardly keep her eyes off of other women, loved the look of big trucks and machines, and got turned on even by mechanical pumping sounds (dishwashers, copy machines, etc).  She thought about sex all the time.  Both reported feeling like completely different people, and were unnerved by that.

I'm not sure what to make of this.  It sure points to powerful effects of the UR on our UL experience, if we can rely on these reports.  I am not at all surprised at the correlation, of course; but I recall being surprised at the degree of change in the felt sense of identity initiated largely by chemical manipulation of the body.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Thanks Balder,

for…” finding even the simplest of things to be profoundly beautiful…  [feeling] love and a sense of fusion with everything…”

The spirituality of my twenties, unmasked!

What I mistook for UL accomplishment may have been no more than an UR deficiency.

Beginners Mind, still my only hope.

I had a big truck once. Didn't do a thing for me, beyond serve the utility of what agency I did exert. All it did was haul a lot of stone and wood. Even then, grunting in the sun with brute companions, I was emanmored of the beauty of the stone, the feel of the wood.

Seriously though, I think there's good reason why Hasids place the main male initiation at age 35. The extremes of hormonal production or underproduction may have a greater chance of reaching a stable balance by then.

Increasing longevity, my other hope.

jiki

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Tim  (As an example, I noticed and felt this on the Women's thread when y'all started talking about “knowing glances” or “looks” or something like that. Um … I don't know what that is! And why would I?)

That's our equivient of the 'secret handshake' 
wink wink nudge nudge know what I mean?

g

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Snicker, snicker. Yes, I know. And, what, it's kind of like being if a foreign country when you're not in on that handshake. You know something is being said … but you do not know what.

At some point on here I have a story to share. It's about everyone -in this case, men -thinking you're in on that handshake - by default, because you are a man -and the truth of the matter is, you're not. In this case it has to do with levels, not gender. (Or levels and gender)

Just a quick question.

Are we attempting to be priviy to levels in all of our discussions?  Here I will direct the question at you Gina, and the women. (Yes, I'll get over to that thread again, but I haven't for a few days.)

To me, this seems to have been one of the major faults of the green feminist movement. (And I am just about to bring some to the men's thread.) What David posted about the Quiverfull is an example:
 
 From Wiki -

“The movement was sparked most fully after the 1985 publication of Mary Pride’s book The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality.

In her book, Pride chronicled her journey away from what she stated were feminist and anti-natal ideas of happiness, within which she had lived as an activist before her conversion to conservative evangelical Christianity in 1977, toward her discovery of happiness surrounding what she said was the Biblically mandated role of wives and mothers as bearers of children and workers in the home under the authority of a husband. Pride wrote that such a lifestyle was generally Biblically required of all married Christian women but that most Christian women had been unknowingly duped by feminism, importantly in their acceptance of birth control.[18][16]

As the basis for her arguments, Pride selected numerous Bible verses to lay out what she felt was the Biblical role of women. These included verses she saw as containing her ideas of childbearing and non-usage of birth control, which she argued were opposed to what she called “the feminist agenda” by which she had formerly lived. Pride's explanations became a spearheading basis of Quiverfull.”

In other words, the amber woman. Not so agreeable to non-amber feminist ideals.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Christ, everyone's got something to say about these issues huh…
Here's a recent article ya'll might like.

Study: Women Are in Charge at Home

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Mary:

“While I think that leadership is primarily agentic, I think (as others have already said) that more of a balance is needed: a communally-informed agency. ”

What jumped in my mind imediately was the ant colony - a turqoise/violet ant colony -style of society…

Cool! Frans

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Gina,

This quote came in this morning from Zaadz - it seemed applicable to our earlier playtime:

“Choice implies consciousness - a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present….Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life.”

Eckhart Tolle.

In other words, choice that comes from a conditioned mind isn’t really choice at all…

F

Re: Integral Gender Issues

This is too uncanny. I was just thinking of quoting that very passage by Eckhart Tolle on David's “The Choosing Faculty” thread. It is from The Power Of Now, beginning at page 188, and I haven't heard anyone say it better than lucid little Eckhart does.

Oracle, you've got it goin' on!

M

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Frans wrote: In other words, choice that comes from a conditioned mind isn't really choice at all…

YES! I watch this in my worldspace all the time. I am at the point when I am occasionally (read: rarely) able to move beyond my karma into a space in which I have access to true choice. Habit energy packs quite the inertia wallop. Overcoming habit energy is the most difficult challenge to humans; it often is assisted by grace, which is also choiceless. I have tremendous compassion for those I see around me who think they are choosing a particular action, my self included (after I realize that I've been in that conditioned space).

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Jane: And, basically, (just like a woman!) I want more Love! More love, here there and everywhere…. I want to be fearless, I want to see perfectly.

e: Then cultivate equanimity.

J: What curious advice! I wonder why and how you came up with it for me?

You said you wanted more Love and perfect clarity. You can't have those
without equanimity, unless you're relying on the luck of outward circumstance.
Equanimity is like the color white on a palette. With it, you can mix any
color (emotion) into it and apply situationaly. This is why it is said to
be the highest or purest emotion (color). Looking inward, equanimity leads
to clear seeing. That is, without equanimity there is no clear seeing. Make
sense? Most come to this via meditation. Do you meditate?

—-

Gina : e keeps trying to coaxed us into moving beyond our gender…. I say until my gender is truely universally equal how is it even remotely possible for us to move beyond?

*We* can't but *you* can!
For you Gina from another list.

“To receive Yeshe Tsogyal blessings can be interesting, much like she
was in her life. She had an uncompromising commitment to benefit
beings in the most genuine way that fit the situation, no matter what
the context of the situation. At one point when she was advanced on the
path she was traveling in Tibet, which could be a hard experience.
She was set upon by a small band of brigands who proceeded to rape
her. While they were raping her, she saw the karmic causes and
connections involved and saw the conditions were right for it, so she
brought them to realization while they raped her. They became her
students. Most are not ready to relate to life in such an
uncompromising way of benefiting beings no matter what, so her energy
could have brought a lot of obstacles up to be worked out. Even
reading about her can be a way to receive her blessings. When I read
this story, I had this strong sense that she was my role model for
helping beings through this difficult time and wished for her to help
me do it better.”

love

e

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hey all!

Above I posted this developmental charting of the Gender Identity line from Integral Psychology -

Gender Identity -as a self-related line.

1. Morphological-genetic givens [sensorimotor, etc.]
2. Undifferentiated [magenta, todders, etc.]
3. Differentiated basic gender identity [magenta, red] [4, 5]
4. Gender conventionality [conop, amber] [6,7]
5. Gender consistency (norms) [late amber, orange] [12-14 begins to vary greatly]
6. Gender androgyny (trans-differentiated) [vision logic]
7. Archetypal gender union (tantra) [subtle]
8. Beyond gender [causal]

And then later, talking to Gina and Frans I said this -

I think that that charting of Wilber's in incomplete. Beyond “androgyny (trans-differentiated)” (which obviously begins at green) is another one which takes awhile (again, like some of those others which have somewhat “broad” spans) but will eventually come forth: gender reintegration.

I think we both lose something of ourselves at green -which really shouldn't be such a surprise. It's like there's a denial of everything that went before, ultimately, a denial of this fundamental aspect of self. (It is also true that “androgyny” could potentially be interpreted in a number of ways.)

We should also remember that the subtle and causal are no longer to be placed “at the top” but there all along as states.

I don’t want to confuse lines here because the psychosexual line and the gender identity line are two different things –as Colin for example very well points out above, I think (actually that’s a whole other discussion in itself, huh) – but it also obvious the two are very much related, perhaps in most cases, fundamentally or often work hand in hand.

I copied this as a brief excerpt transcript from Liz and Ken’s ISC discussion (which also includes a community member named Keith) because it really points out, basically, what I was saying.

Speaking of David Deida  -

 ________________________________

 … he first got his stage conception –and I know David quite well, he’s a long time, one of my best friends and I just love the guy, (Keith: yeah) um – but the way he got his-the simplest stage conception was, basically, everybody that was coming to him was green. (Keith: yeah) So he just said, okay, and he divided sexual development into three stages. One of them was pre-green, (Keith: umm hmm) then green, and then post-green. And so pre-green was, you know, all the stereotypical, kind of red, you know, “me Tarzan, you Jane” and all the sort of, you know, classic stereotypical John Wayne version of, you know, the man is a man and the woman is a woman and that’s that. And then green, of course, is just this tepid, egalitarian, washed-out –there’s no polarization between the sexes and so there’s no sexual tension either, there’s no excitement; it’s just sort of, just an endless meeting –is sort of what sexuality is. (Liz laughs.) And then, it’s just like, (responding to Liz’s laughter) yeah, oh boy. And then post-green was –you know, turquoise, or higher –and that’s where you were allowed to then reintroduce sexual differentiation – in order to create tension, but without marginalizing anybody or, you know, making somebody the, you know, ranking in a bad way or judging in a bad way or marginalizing and so on. And that was just what green needed to hear. (Liz: umm hmm. Keith: Thank you, it’s great! Simple …) Yeah, it’s wonderful.

[Later] … you can do these kinds of things and that’s okay, that is transcend and include red. It’s not just red. And to be able to reintroduce any kinds of those sorts of impulses or instincts or drives that’s fine, as long as there’s a real understanding about it.

 ________________________________________

I think you can apply these same ideas to gender identity or the gender identity line.

Past androgyny, transdifferentiated (and remembering states are something else, and maybe androgyny can be interpreted in a number of ways), is the potential for gender reintegration where as I mean it you can apply these ideas, above addressed to the psychosexual line (or is it just sexual):

And then post-green was –you know, turquoise, or higher –and that’s where you were allowed to then reintroduce sexual differentiation – in order to create tension, but without marginalizing anybody or, you know, making somebody the, you know, ranking in a bad way or judging in a bad way or marginalizing and so on.

you can [be] these kinds of things and that’s okay, that is transcend and include red [and everything else below]. It’s not just red. And to be able to reintroduce any kinds of those sorts of impulses or instincts or drives that’s fine, as long as there’s a real [and full integration] about it.

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Thanks for that Tim,

So if the psychosexual line, Ken has put it, ..” in its broadest sense means the entire spectrum of Eros (gross to subtle to causal)”  might one key to locating the gender identity line, as distinct from the psychosexual, be the co-operation of Agape with Eros?

 Back in '85, when the monastery I was in was still paying it's mortgage, we rented the main fascility to a Hasidic group and a few of us stayed on site for the event. During one of the evening dances, with the traditional cloth partition dividing the space between where the men and the women danced, I remarked to somebody that, to me, “the air looks different” on either side of the room. Reflecting since on that energetic polarity ( whether or not a subjective or objective observation) it's been easy for me to trust differentiation as it appears at various stages and has helped me to qualify perspectives on androgeny.

 Ken, in ABHOE, attributes(in part) the demise of the early Idealists, who were founded through vision-logic (at which gender androgeny is found), to their lack of transpersonal, and contemplative practices. What I saw, as an energetic componant of one mysical tradition, as a practicioner in another (in a co-ed monastery without formal segregations) has me wondering if going beyond androgeny (for lack of the better term) requires actual community, and the Agapic opportunities therein, to approach reintegration. That it's never a solo act, and that involution ques evolution. That identity, each self related line, requires community.

-communin',

jiki

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi Jiki,

Yes. I agree with both of your points.

First: might one key to locating the gender identity line, as distinct from the psychosexual, be the co-operation of Agape with Eros?

That makes perfect sense to me. And spirit manifest as these differing forms which are really just variations on the same theme; or the same fundamental “seed” grows in differing directions in order to complexity and create more complex, higher and broader (and deeper) seeds and expressions of itself. What I mean by that is, obviously both men and women have both; in energy and in principal, agency/communion, and even on the densest level, a mother and a father, required for spirit to spring forth in either physically embodied polarity “leaning.” From there, it's obvious the “pairing” pattern works, and only brings about further evolution, complexification of Eros and Agape -pushing closer and closer to Spirit as it were, or just creating an increasingly complex (and beautiful) manifest Kosmos.

Your second point:

going beyond androgeny (for lack of the better term) requires actual community, and the Agapic opportunities therein, to approach reintegration. That it's never a solo act, and that involution ques evolution. That identity, each self related line, requires community.

And I really, really, really feel this is Spirit's genuinely turquoise turn.

It's no longer about slowly and gradually “peeling off” the layers -at this level when Spirit is reveled it recognizes that it has no choice, the only way forward is to involve -and by this I mean back into the cold, hard, dense world, right back to mundanity, even right back down to some of the lowest and most unpleasant levels - it embraces Agape and because it is also true that at this level Spirit realizes that it never has been a solo act. Ego, it's vehicle, has become transparent to itself, and the immense complexity which has created it is also seen in a way it never has been before. Mother, father, sister, brother, aunt millie, colleagues and co-workers, that bully down the block, that old girlfriend who dumped you just before the prom, that boyfriend who fell in love with your sister -it's all been just spirit, and the same song of spirit simply wanting to find itself, and it now wants just to continue it's journey of integration - of all of itself.

Or to put it more simply, yes I agree. The development is not going to occur without community and, I think we're here because we know this.

Personally, I had a very profound moment years ago in a hermitage. (Did I write this already on another thread? Maybe I never had  chance to post it. Anyway - ) Robert Augustus Masters in his IN interview with Stuart, says the same thing: for the longest time I was heading toward the Big E -as in Enlightenment. Seen kind of as an end point or the ultimate big enchilada.

It suddenly occurred to me how utterly pointless such an idea for me was. It's not that there is no value in states training and realization and all of that -of course I do not mean to say that. It was that I realized that that -at least for me- just wouldn't be that big of a deal. The bigger deal would be to “go back out into the world” and embrace communion, which actually means samsara. It was like there was an aloof stupidity to anything other than embracing spirit as manifest in all forms as were previously thought (and taught) to be less than worthy -like family, “house holding,” relationships, children, “day-to-day” work, 9-5 … everything you are supposed to get rid of in solitary. I totally agree. In order for this evolution to occur, it can not be a solo act.

I left of post regarding this very early on in my involvement in this community. (Incidentally, even all of this fray, such as last week with Robb and all that … that to me is just spirit, embracing agape, community, and all of that stuff that sucks. :-) And I also want to say that the very word “involvement” has been on my mind lately in this exact regard.

I could easily not answer your post. I could easily never post on this forum again. I could easily never speak to anyone here ever again, and do so for the sake of Eros of my own Spirit. And i could certainly not get involved in discussion that are less that fun and fine and dandy and that would all be service to the Eros of my own Spirit.   … . but do ya see the ego in that? “My own” Spirit? Who'm I fooling!? At some point spirit has to, yeah, go on back and get all fucked up. (Double meaning. How crude am I.) By not getting involved -where my point is that the very word means spirit's involution into something -why … I m nothing but a big dick ascending into the sky.

Oh, how crude.

Involution baby, that's where it's at!

Oh, um here's that link.  Just for fun.

Peace brotha',
Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

What Tim said.

Highlight: ”The bigger deal would be to “go back out into the world” and embrace communion, which actually means samsara. It was like there was an aloof stupidity to anything other than embracing spirit as manifest in all forms as were previously thought (and taught) to be less than worthy…”

Yes, yes, yes, yes - thank God I'm not alone here harping on the “ordinary and imperfect is where it's really at” theme.

A short Eckhart Tolle video for fortification, ta da :   Quite Ordinary


M

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Thank you, Mascha, The Mother.


I'm sorry, I can't resist -


Hey baby, embrace this!

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Gitanjali wrote on the Integral Women's thread -

Where I am now is that I have been graced with the presence of an integral man. Our connection is helping me to see the pain of men;

LOL - Gita I had a brief knee-jerk reaction to your wording of that sentence.

Anyhow, speaking of Indian backgrounds and the plight of women, coincidentally, I mentioned a book on that link above from way back when. This is it and I recommend and share it with any of the women who have not read it. (I didn't know how to post links last year.)

(men too, of course.)

This book was actually responsible for eventually bringing me to look into the work of KW and brought me here. It was a fluke that I heard about it, but as the at-home-(turquoise)-dad, I knew I neede to read it.
   


Dipa Ma -which means Mother of Light -the Life and Teachings of a Modern Master. Indian Mother turned spiritual master (Theravaden)

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Tim,

that THING? Why, that's Gertrud, the demonic reptilian. The skeleton in 6.5 bilion closets.


embrace it?   

                                               


Yes, skeleton wrangling is scheduled every Wednesday night and Sunday morning
(unless you're Christians and there's a conflict of interest).


Hi Gitanjali, be there or be square! We fearlessly march into




uhm… hell, making pit stops in the suburbs thereof. But then it's so nice to be able to just say, What the hell? instead of No, No, No, like Nancy Reagan. I think we can all agree on that much.


Minnie Mouse

 

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Arthur, Arthur, Arthur - thank you, thank you, thank you! That is, for posting this essay by RAM, RAM, RAM! My god, my god, my god, it just another case, case, case, of somebody else writing and expressing exactly how I feel, feel, feel and have thought, thought, thoguth and how I am attempting to live my life, life life.

Robert expresses in this essay so many of the ideas behind just what I have said above and on that other link I posted and so on. So, I thought I'd post it.

Thanks!

Tim

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Article posted by Rick:

Wives were more demanding—asking for changes in the relationship or in their partner—and were more likely to get their way than the husbands. This held regardless of who had chosen the issue.

The women were not just talking more than their husbands.

“It wasn't just that the women were bringing up issues that weren't being responded to, but that the men were actually going along with what they said,” Vogel explained. “[Women] were communicating more powerful messages, and men were responding to those messages by agreeing or giving in.”

One reason for in-charge wives could be that they carry the weight of making sure the family farm is running smoothly.

“Women are responsible for overseeing the relationship, making sure the relationship runs, that everything gets done, and that everybody's happy,” Murphy said.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Pelle, ….

Dear Pelle …

You're not married, son. Are ya?

I don't think you know what kind of can of worms you are potentially opening up here …

Not everything is open for discussion using AQAL theory …

Shhhhhhh. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

We don't  … talk about these things … . it's just not  … good … .

Secret hint: this is why noooooooooooooooooooobody else has answered you.

Let's just walk away and pretend we did not see this. 'kay? :-)


:-[

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Mascha,

I do! I do?

Kindred Spirits and such - O

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Tim:
Or to put it more simply, yes I agree. The development is not going to occur without community and, I think we're here because we know this.


I love your entire post above Tim, but this quote really did it for me.
This is the deeper truth of what we're all doing here.

thanks,
Pelle

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Gina : e keeps trying to coaxed us into moving beyond our gender…. I say until my gender is truely universally equal how is it even remotely possible for us to move beyond?


Can't you see that *all* sentient beings are already equal in suffering?


love,


e

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi e,

Can't you see that *all* sentient beings are already equal in suffering?

Yes I can.  I can understand and be compassionate to all sentient beings.  Yet, because I am still somehow separated from my understanding of my whole self I am suffering this way.

Where I am, right now, today….  is in a place of healing my own gender identity, my personal pathology of my gender associations.   This then becomes a projection through my lens as it is defined by my pathology. 

I can honestly say, I cannot feel all sentient beings are equal.  I do not know this because I am not yet equal within my own understanding of myself.

with respect,

Gina

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Gina, that was beautiful, and I think I can relate to you sentiment in some ways as well.
Perhaps people like e and I who are more practiced in Buddhism, and framiliar with those more direct pointing at the Whole, and not wanting to let people be comfortable with where they are at “right now,” should take a cue from Integral and have more respect for that.
As a Zen practicioner I've been trained that to be up to shit to your knees may be better than to your chin, but your still in shit and there's no rest. Zen masters actually get meaner to you as you get closer to direct understanding of the Way, because often it's like loosing those last 5 or 10 lbs. that are the hardest.
So a good balance might be to have full understanding of where your at, at this present moment, but to know that there still is another more inclusive mind or way of being to be had.
After all in a relative sense, there is very little to point at to say that all people are actually equal in hundreds of different categories, yet in an absolute sense there is no difference between us.
I love your honesty though, and think that it is integral to the process.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Tim I loved your passion in your post above and your message.  My own journey leads me back into the fray of life.  Seeing its richness that I enver saw before.  Experimenting tentatively with opening where a harsh situation makes me want to contract.  Its great to see you posting a lot on these threads. Its great to have that blessing.

Love Gitanjali

Ps: something I said made you LOL…I tell you though that those words were deliberately chosen ;)

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hey Rick, thanks.

After all in a relative sense, there is very little to point at to say that all people are actually equal in hundreds of different categories, yet in an absolute sense there is no difference between us.

I don't have a buddhist structure to rely on (other than the books I have read) yet I do understand your point here.  I try to stay in balance as much as possible in the me/all of it all.  You and I can connect here both with our differences and in the truth there is no difference. 

Just cleaning the catagories that keep the differences from the absolute.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

There's a new article about a psychological study done which focused on the therapeutic effects of girl talk.
Their findings point to and kind of confirm my earlier points about female communication styles. It seems that while discussing one's problems and issues without much of a limit, helps to reduce stress short term, like a quick fix, it exasperates the negative psychological effects over time. That is the issues and problems become more real and more of a focus in life, and they tend to have a greater degree of realness and power over young girls; so they actually will feel worse in the long run, causing them to talk more, and we have a cycle that isn't so healthy. That is, it isn't good to rehash something in the past over and over in great detail, just to do it.
This study was only done on adolescent girls still in public school, and the only mention made to adult women, is that most young girls learn these coping strategies from their mothers.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Rick - where can I find this article please?I t sounds as if it touches on something I have sensed but never been able to put my finger on.
Thanks, James

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hey Gina,

 

Gina : e keeps trying to coaxed us into moving beyond our gender…. I say until my gender is truely universally equal how is it even remotely possible for us to move beyond?

Re: Integral Gender Issues

e's right here, but again I think that Gina's post has merit in pointing at our present condition or state. This is where I am NOW.

It seems simple enough, but it often takes many years to really understand what your saying e.
Even the really simple and conceptual Buddhist tools that we use to help someone see the direct nature of Reality and Self, require some back ground textual and cultural study.
Even then, it reminds me of the most common pose of the Buddha of Compassion statues that I saw in Japan. One hand is open and palm up, inviting all, having no discrimination and fully aware of the Absolute with pure compassion, and the other hand in facing out palm forward, symbolizing that not all relative thought, speech and action is equal and some must be rejected. It is in fully embracing and realizing these two truths that we see with true wisdom.

So perhaps it would be more accurate, parsimonious and the middle ground in this debate to say that the thoughts, speech and actions of to some degree should be rejected as being less inclusive of the Whole, and therefore not equal in that sense.
These thoughts, speaches and actions wouldn't exist without these people is another way of saying it, and yet to see clearly is to also see that these people are not inherent anymore than their thoughts are.
I don't think that either one of you are saying anything that is very radical or not available via direct experience.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi Mascha!

I missed your post earlier…or rather i saw it in between preparing briefs for someone apparently V.V.I.P.  and then forgot due to overtaxed10%ofbrain syndrome.  Today however I have come down with a sickness and am in bed” at home which gives me time to feed my soul…here….

I will join you and THIS band of weary intrepid travellers, honest, sensitive, fucking perceptive gnarly beautiful people that you are. “Freaky but I like it”…as the song goes!

Hand in friendship
Gitanjali

Re: Integral Gender Issues

So I went out hunting this morning in virtual space to find a gift for you, Gitanjali. All flowers are my favorites, but roses, well… there's a whole 'nother dimension about them, so they mean many different things to me. Then I thought, maybe the same is true for you, and maybe that's why you chose your red rose avatar. Since I was a child, I've had memories of being a man in England, a very delicate, somewhat feminine man, but also a rogue and a heartbreaker. He still comes through sometimes. It's interesting to notice what triggers the emergence of this old phantom persona. But persona means mask, and he's more than that; he bleeds through with real energy, and he's the one who is offering this pale pink rose to you - (and I am too :o)

                        
                                 



M

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Aiieeeyaaahhh!!!

Tis such a pink becomes the evening
When long day's weary is primed for leaving
Though it may be dark as a panther's toes
There's always a glow from a pale pink rose

Oh, yeah.  Beautiful roses.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

And that is a byoootiful rose.  Thank you.  I was just saying to someone a day or two ago that I had searched high and low for a red rose that was spoke to me- a less perfect  onethan the avatar I now have.  This rose that you have sent has a lived in look  and a mystery and I like that!  Now when I come back from Sydney Im inspired again to search for a red rose that speaks volumes like this one.  And the one that you have given me goes in my collection of a flowers with memories…

I enjoy discussions of “past lives” that people feel washing through them.  Im not so concerned about the proof and the ontology. Its the evocativesness and mystery that appeals.  Thank you to the rogue with the twinkle in his eyes.

Gitanjali

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hey, check out the Rose Garden  during this brief intermission in the gender-related Kabuki Dance we've got goin' on. It sprang up when I became preoccupied with finding just the right red rose for Gitanjali. But I'm adding more. …Maybe create a whole new thread, plaster the entire pod with roses. .  . nay, the whole of zaadz!  Ah, got carried away there… Mods!! Straitjacket and some opium, please.

Thank you, that's better.

Perfectly calm & quiet

mmmmmmm


P.S. Pick any of the roses you like, they're free for everyone.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

To all the men joining the private Pod:

While I understand the desire for privacy, it saddens me to see you go.  I will no longer see or be a part of the world you are creating as 'just men' and it is a window I rarely get a chance to look through. 

I know you will not stop posting in the we space here… just know that your choice to go private now feels somehow exclusionary and I will miss reading those things that affect and shape your worlds.

with love,
gina

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Gina: To all the men joining the private Pod

Uh, what private pod?  Seriously.  I haven't been following all of the other “gender” discussions (and have only been following this one with about one eye), so it looks like I'm out of the loop.

Anyway, I agree with the ladies on this one, I think.  I'm not sure what the point of a men-only pod would be from an integral perspective.  Are there things we men don't want to say in front of the ladies? I can't think of anything, personally.  And I mean, it also seems strange to me after how much Julian got slammed a while back just for organizing a symposium with only male bloggers.

But maybe I need to know more about what led to the creation of this new guy pod and what the pod's purpose is…

Cheers,
~G

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Grey:
“And I mean, it also seems strange to me after how much Julian got slammed a while back just for organizing a symposium with only male bloggers.”

Actually Julian got “slammed” for reasons far deeper than that; there was already a long history when the symposium was announced. I know a lot of people don’t have the full picture and therefore think of me as the bad guy, but I’m happy to take that heat considering the outcome.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

peace
Pelle

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Pelle: Actually Julian got “slammed” for reasons far deeper than that; there was already a long history when the symposium was announced.

Yeah, I realize the “big picture” goes beyond just the guy thing, but I seem to remember quite a lot of discussion specifically about male dominance at the time the symposium was being organized. That's what I was referring to, not to anything you said to/about Julian specifically.

Cheers,
~G

Re: Integral Gender Issues

I feel sad the men are getting into a private pod as well, but that's just selfishness on my part. It is wonderful to read what they've written, but it's time for the discussion to evolve. I am feeling an upwelling of love for the men who want to go deeper and have taken the steps to do so. From my perspective, you guys are the answer to my prayers for men to grow more and be more realized. Seriously, we spend a lifetime wishing we could come across just one man like all of you are. Bless the new pod and happy trails.

Liz

Re: Integral Gender Issues

For my part, Gina and Liz, the desire to move to a private pod is not to be out of sight of the women here, but to be less public in general – so certain issues can be explored without hanging everything out in public view.  Although it may be difficult to maintain a number of parallel threads, I still think the conversation on the “Integral Men” thread here should continue, even as we create a space to explore some issues and questions that are more appropriately addressed in a more private setting. 

I also hope, as these gender-specific inquiries continue, we do so with an eye (and a heart) towards meeting each other, across genders, more authentically, passionately, and fully.  Not just in general, but also in threads dedicated to exploring our relationships together.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Balder: the desire to move to a private pod is not to be out of sight of the women here, but to be less public in general.

That I can understand, but why make it guys only? What's the focus of this new pod? And can you give me a link to it so that I can check it out?  (I can't find any reference to it in this discussion.)

Cheers,
~G

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hi Bruce

As with Gina and Liz i felt saddened by the private pod and hoped , as you suggest, that there will still be debate on the integral men thread. As Liz says its like peeping in through a window I've never had before.

But I also felt 'Yes' well done boys, go for it. :-D

Juliee

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Holden : e's right here, but again I think that Gina's post has merit in pointing at our present condition or state. This is where I am NOW.

It seems simple enough, but it often takes many years to really understand what your saying e.
Even the really simple and conceptual Buddhist …..
So perhaps it would be more accurate, parsimonious and the middle ground in this debate to say that the thoughts, speech and actions of to some degree should be rejected as being less inclusive of the Whole, and therefore not equal in that sense.


I offered the 'equal in suffering' comments because it seemed Gina was stuck
in her unequal identity. This is quite common, yes? As we can say all of our
issues are existential in nature i.e. identity related. But few want nor can question
the fundamental conceit of “I Am” directly. So all sorts of practices have to be
performed to calm egoic grasping down to be able to come to this fundamental
issue. So, forget about Buddhism. Just to see that all of us suffer, from the
smallest to the largest, the dumbest to the smartest, the lowliest to the highest,
the prettiest to the ugliest. We are all equal in suffering. This *can* if seen
and felt clearly enough clear away alot of the issues surrounding any perceived
differences in “being” that lead to feelings of inequality or inadequacy.



———-



LOL, remember this little ditty Gina?


*********** NOTICE PLEASE READ HEADER BEFORE POSTING**********

In this we space we are creating, an element of we is seemingly getting silenced.  This thread is for women posters Only.  If you are a man and have a question, feel free to start your own thread in response, this thread is for all of us women to have an opportunity to speak to each other as integral women without male influence.  We have tried to share the we space in an open thread and it did not work.  Please respect the intention of this thread.

*****************************************************************************************


So first you create your little coffee clutch by throwing the men out and relegating them
to looking in from the kitchen window and now you are dismayed because they go and form a men's only country club? You are a hoot Gina!!


p&l

e

Re: Integral Gender Issues

You are a hoot Gina!!

Thanks

Re: Integral Gender Issues

It does seem just a little un-integral doesn’t it? I agree with Bruce that the open-to-everyone format can hold us back from really opening up, but isn’t there a way to include those women from this pod that want to participate on an invite-only basis? I know - it wouldn’t be “men only”…

Frans

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hey hey, an integrated being easily includes exclusiveness. Anyone who wants to have an exclusive conversation is free to do so anyhow. We all do via PMs and in real life. I see no problem at all. But I do understand what Gina said and share her feelings of wanting to participate - even just as a fly on the wall. No conflict between any of these different points of view.

Blessed be the men and the fruit of their new womb.

M

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Mascha: an integrated being easily includes exclusiveness.

Yes, but not just for exclusiveness' sake. I mean, integral doesn't mean include absolutely everything without discretion, so I think exclusiveness should have a specific purpose, which I'm beginning to see an all-male pod might have. But I'd be wary about making the division strictly along biological lines, if you know what I mean. Maybe it would be more “integral” to make the pod about integral “masculine”, rather than for integral men.

Or is that just being to PC?

P&L,
~G

Re: Integral Gender Issues

e wrote:

So first you create your little coffee clutch by throwing the men out and relegating them
to looking in from the kitchen window and now you are dismayed because they go and form a men's only country club? You are a hoot Gina!!

Hmm… gotta say these are some revealing metaphors! Gina's women's thread is dismissively described as a “little coffee clutch” and the men's private pod will be a “country club.”

I'm all for a men's private pod – for anybody's private pod, for that matter. (And I know that there are plenty of things I would say about integral gender issues and relationships in a private pod that I cannot say on these public threads). I've also loved watching how the men's thread has flowered over these past couple of weeks!

At any rate, e:  what I'm wanting to say is: creating a thread in which only women can post cannot be equated with “throwing the men out” if men are also able to have a thread in which only men post. Plus we have these gender-related threads in which both men and women can respond. And to a certain extent there has been cross-conversation in these various threads anyway – almost like a multi-thread thread, nothing ultimately exclusionary. Mascha made an excellent point earlier about one of the things that has resulted from these now multi-thread discussions: people going out of their way to make sure they always acknowledge all sides of the issues and do nothing to appear one-sided – which is not the case in most of our (non-gender-issue) threads here.

In effect: women participate in a publically viewable women's-only thread – in part, a response to mutually-recognized feelings of being dismissed, belittled, ignored, and underrepresented in the world of Integral. As I see it, that thread was (and is) a space where women could focus on these issues – express frustrations, share stories, etc. – listen to each other, and be heard in a way that we may not feel heard in many of these other threads. It is the creation of something, not an excision, a taking-away. And yet in these various threads – not all or even most of the time, of course – (bending over backwards) I'll hear this little undercurrent of, “well, the women whined and kicked the men out.” Folks who felt excluded created a space to talk about that and then were told that they had become excluders!

And of course I'm now hesitating in clicking the “send post” button now. I'm afraid of eliciting responses about how I'm making too big of a deal of this – and in fact, I actually am worried that I am doing just that, because these threads have been wonderful in so many other ways…

Here goes, deep breath,

Mary

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Beautifully articulated Mary.  I agree with what you've said 100%.

Ewan

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Gina and Liz, I really appreciate what you've said.  Don't think you'll see any less of me here though, I promise you!  If anything, it will enable me to go deeper into my integral identity, and show up here even more openly!

Bruce, I agree that a big part of it is to have a private space where we can really say stuff, but I must say, the idea of a mens only space feels really important to me - maybe thats just where I'm at, I don't know.  But Frans I don't think its unintegral.  Perhaps if we'd totally transcended our gender and masc/fem based identity then ok, but I'm about 1000 miles off that one, and I relish the opportunity to address that area of myself without the cultural contractions that women can sometimes create in me. 

For me, the goal is not to create segregation, or prvate space, its to allow us to become even more authentic as men, and show up here in even more glory and in more integral embrace with the women.

Grey, the discussion has been going on at the bottom of the integral men thread.  The link is www.pods.zaadz.com/integralmen


Ewan

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Well, I noticed that too, Mary, and decided to let it sit a bit before responding. It was dismissive and a bit sexist of e to phrase it that way, though he had a valid point.

Here's my point: it's coffee klatch, not clutch. A clutch is a group of eggs or for shifting gears on a car.

That bothered me more than the dismissiveness. There's a part of my brain that thinks, “if people don't pay any attention to what words they're using, how am I supposed to trust what they say?” And you know, I'm starting to think that's a much more valid point than I used to. I used to think I was being a silly old prescriptivist, but now I think it says a lot about a person if they can't be bothered to use words wisely. You could even say it's a matter of right speech, for those of you who are buddhists amongst us. Integral right speech would include using gender-neutral language, where appropriate, and making sure your language isn't demeaning or belittling to an entire race, gender, class, et cetera.

It says something when someone doesn't bother to proofread. It says that what they're saying isn't important enough to bother, and neither is the intended audience.

Now, we can only go so far with this. Tim is typing-challenged and Holden can't spell to save his life (poor dears!) I don't expect everyone to fuss over making every post perfect, but when you stop to check your spelling, usage and grammar, you're implicitly saying that you have thought carefully about what you're saying and that you care about your audience. It's also a great opportunity to cool off if you're really triggered.

I make mistakes pretty frequently, as hard as I try not to, so please don't take this as some sort of freakish OCD manifesto. I'm just pointing it out.

Liz

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Dear Ones,

Mary, you said:  ”I'm all for a men's private pod - for anybody's private pod, for that matter. (And I know that there are plenty of things I would say about integral gender issues and relationships in a private pod that I cannot say on these public threads).”

Amen to this.  And its not mean, bitchy, categorical, disparaging, untrue “guy talk” that is being contemplated here - no, a more ephemeral, were-not-quite-sure-what-will-happen kind of thing.  I have been in men's groups for years and you would be surprised how little of the talk centers around women or our relationships with them.  Frankly, its considered bad form to “complain” about your “relationship” or be disrespectful gender-wise.  If it isn't already obvious, men collectively are confused as to what the “masculine” role really is, and men, collectively are subject, willingly or not, to the performance imperative.  Privacy and confidentiality will allow us to air this and other issues out in a way that will not be confounded by restraint or innuendo. 

Gina, you said:  ”While I understand the desire for privacy, it saddens me to see you go.  I will no longer see or be a part of the world you are creating as 'just men' and it is a window I rarely get a chance to look through.”

Gina, I don't think that it so much a going “away” as a going “to.”   I hope to see this turn around in time into a collective male sense of each other's sense of what it is to be a man as well as what it is to be a man in relationship with women.  There is no ambition to develop a secret society where we can indulge in “bachelor bullshit.”  This is not that kind of group of men.  I for one, do not feel the need to belong to some stand-alone fraternity, and look forward to the clearance that this privacy may provide us, look forward to returning to the open gender discussion with a clear sense of what I think of my brother's unguarded sharings and what they think of mine.

Yer pal,
Michael

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Liz, goddamnit, I've been using the spell checker just for you! That's it no mo spel chekr fo yu!

I think e's point is getting lost in the relative nature of identity politics, and I don't think that's what he's pointing at. Every now and again someone will stand-up or say something as a matter of higher principle, and that voice usually gets drowned out as just a self-serving voice.

I think the point here is that this is the inevitable outcome of a dualistic mind. To put ourselves and see ourselves in categorical boxes interconnected in stable taxonomies.
This is the illusion of a delusioned mind, to see one self as “having a voice,” that, “should be heard,” etc… The same is the fear of public intimacy that the men feel, and I feel probably strongest of all.
In order to get anywhere we have to understand at least conceptually, that these categorical boxes and self-identifications are not real in any inherent sense.
I'm sure that some people feel that my posts often get too aggressive, and I also feel constrained by the group to “watch what I say.” Personally, sometimes I think that threads are too tepid, and watered down, but I have to conform to the situation, the situation doesn't have to conform to me. To some of the women, who feel that some threads are too strong and should conform to them; that is an egocentric drive and that is what e is pointing at.
I would like the debate to be more direct with weak reasoning destroyed, but again it would be an egocentric drive for me to demand that others conform to my style of debate.

The drive to make your situation bend to your will, is ego at work, and strengthening ego isn't why we're here.

So when you read a thread and have feelings of aversion and feel that the thread should be a way that it is not, you should immediately focus your attention on that feeling and seek its source. When you feel that the thread should conform to you and you not to it, then you should recognize that feeling for what it is, the product of a dualistic and conditioned mind.

Some of us need to speak up to be heard and others need to tone it down to allow enough space for all voices. Both drives to make the threads one or the other, are the same drive. It is the same thing, like a mirror opposite. The true opposite that we must seek is to see the two mirror opposites spin around each other, and to remain neutral like the mirror itself; like a “clutch” in neutral around a spinning gearbox.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

See, this is why I like you, Rick. Posts like that.

I get the feeling you're a hell of a lot of fun in person.

Liz

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Good dancer too honey… ;^)

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Rick,

I liked what liz had to say and I really liked the way you came back - direct, true-for-you, humorous and concise.  Not criticizing e. or anything, but Liz's point about precision and reflection in our writings is a good one.  It is damn hard to make it just right, but the effort always shows and even if the content is challenging, the effort to hold our own ground and express without projecting or trespassing will buy us the lattitude to move, to integrate as it is the writer's intention that leads, and not their method.  Responder/reactors who flame at a well-intentioned post are likely just looking for attention anyway.  Aiieeeyah! what a delicate business!!

yer pal,
Michael

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Rick said: “I think the point here is that this is the inevitable outcome of a dualistic mind. To put ourselves and see ourselves in categorical boxes interconnected in stable taxonomies.
This is the illusion of a delusioned mind, to see one self as “having a voice,” that, “should be heard,” etc… In order to get anywhere we have to understand at least conceptually, that these categorical boxes and self-identifications are not real in any inherent sense.”

Rick, remember what Hokai told you:

“Holden, thanks for your comment. “In the end, whatever it is, it is merely relative and only partial. All relative understanding or concepts have the same over all quality and therefore a Zen hall isn't a place to learn the details of relative truth.” That's exacty the generalization we don't need, and that got some Zen people (including teachers) in trouble. First of all, there's false relative knowledge and correct relative knowledge. Most of Buddhist training is about these two, and based in the correct relative (also in Zen), with an awareness - yes - that it's relative knowledge. But being of same over all quality? I don't think so. Relative knowledge is only illusion when it is considered to be absolute. And absolute, of course, cannot be partial, because it has no parts. So, you see, only relative knowledge can hope to become less partial, more integral.”
 
and
 

“Nagarjuna wrote in his Mulamadhyamaka, “Doctrines taught by the Buddhas rely completely on the two truths.” To better explain the connection between these two, masters Asanga and Vasubandhu have elaborated the doctrine of three natures (tri-svabhava). None of these great masters has ever given a hint that relative truth is secondary or less important to the Dharma. To claim so is to unleash total confusion, since the ultimate DOES NOT discriminate.”
  

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Michael, I also agree with Liz and yourself. I was taught in school that an essay or writing is like a contract between one's self and the reader. It is up to the writer to make it concise, and rationally ordered for the reader and its the readers job to read it and try to understand what is being written. There are some posts that are written in this forum that are unordered and really hard to follow; like poetry instead of prose.
So, that is a good point.

David, I've made that same point in many of my recent posts. Most recently in my attempt to build a bridge between Gina and e on a thread about the equality and inequality of suffering and people.
The thing that I was trying to get across to Hokai is that we are surrounded, often, by nothing but relative knowledge. So is it the job of a teacher to give a student one more chain to put around their necks?  e and most teachers are simply pointing at the absolute side of the house, which is often completely ignored. If you have a hundred people teaching and expressing only relative truth, then it is not unbalanced for one or two people to express Absolute truth to try to balance things out.

I was recently repremanded in a PM, because of my “cold, objective, masculine, 3-P,” take on things in a particular thread. I replied that I didn't see anyone else filling that role, so I did. There was already enough of the other POV's being written, and one more from me wasn't going to help anyone.

That is why I don't think it is the job for a Zen hall to indoctrinate people with the popular relative truth of the day. If they did so a hundred years ago, they would be teaching eugenics, and many other things that have been replaced by what is relatively true today. What they would teach today, would be replaced tomorrow.
 It is their jobs to point at the kind of mind that can better See Reality. I think that they should use any means at their disposal, including all relative truth (after all, what else are they going to use). I just don't think that teaching relative truth for it's own sake is warranted or even a good idea. Like I told him, I learned about both biological and cultural evolution from PhD's that were experts in those subjects. I don't think Hokai or any other Zen teacher is going to do a better job teaching those things.
I believe that a well-rounded education is integral on the Way, but there is already a division of labor that works quite well. I wouldn't want my teacher teaching me about evolution, unless he's actually an expert in it himself.  I don't think Hokai is, from what I've read of him.
That in no way devalues his true understanding of the Absolute though.

Is it the job of a parent to teach a child what to do in thousands of individual situations, or to prepare them to be certain kinds of people with qualities like: honesty, integrety, fairness, compassion, etc… If they are right seeing and compassionate people, then they will do the right thing regardless of the individual situations that they come across, no?
This is also the job of a Buddhist teacher.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Mary, I am sorry my pale attempt at irony with first tier metaphors did not work for you.



OCD Liz, dis iz fur ewe.
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=221



Rick, real gem of a post! Reposting the salient points here…

“I think the point here is that this is the inevitable outcome of a dualistic mind. To put ourselves and see ourselves in categorical boxes interconnected in stable taxonomies.
This is the illusion of a delusioned mind…”

“In order to get anywhere we have to understand at least conceptually, that these categorical boxes and self-identifications are not real in any inherent sense. ”

“The drive to make your situation bend to your will, is ego at work, and strengthening ego isn't why we're here. ”

“The true opposite that we must seek is to see the two mirror opposites spin around each other, and to remain neutral like the mirror itself; like a “clutch” in neutral around a spinning gearbox. ”

Or like the funnel cake Aunt Liz brought to the coffee clutch that sits in the center of the table and no one touches.


Rick am I speaking in Zen riddles? I think I am going to start our own thread so we can express ourselves undisturbed and flourish. Put some kind of header on it like this….

***************************
This is e and Rick's thread.
If you are not e or Rick,
stay the fuck out!!! We don't
give a shit if you read it
but dont you dare comment
here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
******************************

love

e

Re: Integral Gender Issues

gee e,

Two seemingly human outbursts in one day??  Oh, the humanity!

Re: Integral Gender Issues

I'm still laughing e. Maybe you should and we can just keep reposting blank posts, over and over.

(inside Zen joke)

Re: Integral Gender Issues

LMAO, e!

Liz

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Mary, I am sorry my pale attempt at irony with first tier metaphors did not work for you.

Tis true, e, that irony can be more difficult to pull off in threaded cyberconversations. And since you were actually addressing Gina, there's the question of context as well; that is: the potential that this was an echo of in-joke carried over from previous discussions on other threads …

Clutching for comprehension,  ;-)

Mary

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Rick said: “The thing that I was trying to get across to Hokai is that we are surrounded, often, by nothing but relative knowledge. So is it the job of a teacher to give a student one more chain to put around their necks?  e and most teachers are simply pointing at the absolute side of the house, which is often completely ignored. If you have a hundred people teaching and expressing only relative truth, then it is not unbalanced for one or two people to express Absolute truth to try to balance things out.”
 
This brings up some really interesting questions: Does teaching on the relative side of the street harm a person's ability to realize the absolute? Or could teaching on the relative side of the street actually help a person realize the absolute? Which is more important, realizing the absolute or realizing the highest in-time stage (orange, green, teal, etc.)? If a person realizes the absolute how much significance will that “enlightenment” have if the person has a low stage development? Could someone realizing the absolute actually be a negative event for the world in some cases? Do parents, schools, society teach higher stage development? If the Zen halls and ashrams don't teach higher stage development, who will? Since a realization of the absolute gives a person more power, isn't it important that they have as high a stage realization as possible? Etc.

This, of course, is outside the bounds of Integral Gender Issues. Does anyone want to discuss this? I've spoken to one person who would like to. Shall we start a new thread on this subject?

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Well this has been a lively day on the gender thread. I still am not sure I've even caught up with you people.

Not even sure why I'm posting.

It's late. Going to bed.


 … heartbroken, … becasue I am a bad typist.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Rick,

I was recently repremanded in a PM, because of my “cold, objective, masculine, 3-P,” take on things in a particular thread. I replied that I didn't see anyone else filling that role, so I did. There was already enough of the other POV's being written, and one more from me wasn't going to help anyone.

I'm not sure repremanded is the right word Rick, and I certainly never used the word cold.  I'm sorry if you were offended, that wasn't my intent.

The point I was trying to make is that the 'role' you are inhabiting in this group is not in itself integral.  I totally appreciate your attempt to 'rebalance' the mode of discource as you see it, but simply playing the 'rational, abstract role' is not what I would consider being integral in community.  An integral community is not a place where different people's perspectives are joined together to make a whole - thats an amalgamation.  Integral community is an aspiration toward each person taking all those perspectives themselves - to be integrated themselves.

By mining the masculine abstract view your not being integral, your robbing both yourself and the community of your interiors - its unbalanced.  What I also said in the PM is that while your 3-p views are often totally facinating, and have informed me a great deal, sometimes they are inapropriate - and you're not skilled at knowing the difference. 

What do you see this group as being?  Do you see it as a discssion forum where rational coherance and logical argument is the ultimate goal?  I sense theres a disparity between your own impression of the forum's purpose, and the larger groups purpose.


Ewan

Re: Integral Gender Issues

OK, this is where I've seen trouble brew in the past. One person manifests behavior that some others question. When several people say the same thing, or some version thereof, it has occasionally been seen as “jumping on the bandwagon” and creating a dynamic of “us versus them”. Does the person feel attacked or does he/she use the information for self inquiry? Or does the information get countered or ignored?

Rick, given that you identify as zen buddhist (as I do), you'll likely use this info for self inquiry,correct? I echo what David has been exploring in regards to relative and absolute truths. I also echo what Ewan says about agency, positioning and integral. Zen is explicitly NOT about rendering all relative truth equal. It also does not call relative truth a “chain around the neck”. Those thoughts suggest confusion regarding the dharma.

In Gassho,
Colin

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Mary:  Clutching for comprehension,  ;-)

:-) Hey Mary, you can always ask for clarification.

—-

Liz & Rick  >  :-)

—

Gina : Two seemingly human outbursts in one day??  Oh, the humanity!

Well Gina, I got this really phat ass and I don't like people touching it.
So I need lots of room on the dance floor to express MYSELF.

“The true opposite that we must seek is to see the two mirror opposites spin around each other, and to remain neutral like the mirror itself; like a “clutch” in neutral around a spinning gearbox. ”

Do you see now?

Speaking of phat asses. Colin, what happened to your cute poem you put up yesterday that is gone today? You trying to clique?

“I think the point here is that this is the inevitable outcome of a dualistic mind. To put ourselves and see ourselves in categorical boxes interconnected in stable taxonomies. This is the illusion of a delusioned mind…”


love

e

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Hey, e,

I deleted the poem after about 5 minutes because I didn't think people would see the irony. It is one of only three posts that I've ever deleted in this pod.

I've got no problems with phat asses; mirrors are useful, though.

Gassho,
Colin

Re: Integral Gender Issues

This was Rick:  “The true opposite that we must seek is to see the two mirror opposites spin around each other, and to remain neutral like the mirror itself; like a “clutch” in neutral around a spinning gearbox. ”

e: Do you see now?

gina: Why is it so important to YOU for ME to see?

Gina : Two seemingly human outbursts in one day??  Oh, the humanity!

Well Gina, I got this really phat ass and I don't like people touching it.
So I need lots of room on the dance floor to express MYSELF.

Get down on it e.  poke poke poke that red ass

Re: Integral Gender Issues

David: “This, of course, is outside the bounds of Integral Gender Issues. Does anyone want to discuss this? I've spoken to one person who would like to. Shall we start a new thread on this subject?”

Well when you put it that way, then the issues isn't so simple is it?
Yeah, those are some great questions with no really simple answers, and I think it would be great to have a thread to hash it all out. Perhaps I was over simplifying a complex issue.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Ewan: “What do you see this group as being?  Do you see it as a discssion forum where rational coherance and logical argument is the ultimate goal?  I sense theres a disparity between your own impression of the forum's purpose, and the larger groups purpose.”

Perhaps. I see your point now.
I just think that most of the interiors and the majority of communicative nuance is stripped away via this mode of interaction. When we talk with, and interact with, people on a one-on-one setting, we are often dealing more with the illusions of our own minds than directly with the person that is actually before us. On an online forum like this that aspect of mind is multiplied exponentially.
So what I really question isn't necessarily the intended purpose of such a forum, but the reasonable likelihood  that such a purpose is possible in the first place.
I also don't see the necessity in me talking a great deal about how I feel about certain things. I'm very in touch with how I feel, after all, it's how I feel, but I don't think anyone is genuinely going to get to know me or anyone else on this forum. There are a few people here that have met in person, so there is an exception there.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Rick,

I just think that most of the interiors and the majority of communicative nuance is stripped away via this mode of interaction. When we talk with, and interact with, people on a one-on-one setting, we are often dealing more with the illusions of our own minds than directly with the person that is actually before us. On an online forum like this that aspect of mind is multiplied exponentially.

I couldn't agree more.  One afternoon, when feeling particularly irritated with this medium I wrote a piece that's now up on my blog - I F*cking Hate Zaadz.  It describes my position on it better than I could write here I think.

I am constantly frustrated by having to communicate with people on this pod (some of whom I would genuinely call friends) in such a detatched way…but its better than nothing.  And the advantage of it is that there is quite an elite gathering of some very integral and beautiful souls here, which you would struggle to get in a local salon.

Part of my own process has been surrendering to the community here - giving myself to it, as much as is humanly possible in an on-line environment.  To articulate interior feelings and emotions through black and white text is just as much of a skill as constructing a superbly logical and cohesive argument. 

I also don't see the necessity in me talking a great deal about how I feel about certain things. I'm very in touch with how I feel, after all, it's how I feel, but I don't think anyone is genuinely going to get to know me or anyone else on this forum.

Again, I think you'd benefit from seperating your own perspective from that of the wider group, how do you think people like I, or Pelle, or Michael, or Bruce, or Colin feel about each other?  Do you think we share your view on that?  What do you see when you *really* try and empathise; see it from anothers perspective?  Because theres an awful lot of people here who would beg to differ.  There have been some incredible friendships created here, between people who ahve never physically touched each other.  In fact I'm willing to bet that at some point, two people on this pod will become romantically involved before physically meeting. 

You may not currently see the necessity in conveying your interior, but I think a lot of other people here do; I do.  Stop being an awkward, selfish bastard and show us more Rick ;)  We demand it.

Ewan

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Colin: “Zen is explicitly NOT about rendering all relative truth equal. It also does not call relative truth a “chain around the neck”. Those thoughts suggest confusion regarding the dharma.”

It depends on whether your talking about the relative or absolute. In a relative sense, relative truths are not equal. In an ultimate sense, all relative truth is equally empty of any self.
Nagarjuna said that those who do not truly understand these two truths, do not understand the message of the Buddha.
Everyone is getting hung up on the first truth and ignoring the second, harder to grasp, Reality of all things, thoughts, feelings and being. It is because this is the truth that is absent from the ordinary mind, and not the first, that masters should probably only use relative truth when pointing at the second truth.
KW has choosen to focus on the second one being superimposed upon the first in a kind of Boomeritis Buddhism, and we have to understand that he is talking to his audience, and we have to consider who his audience is. In fact that first truth being superimposed upon the second, is probably a lot more common, even integral circles past green.
Knowledge isn't neutral. When a teacher teaches a relative truth without this caveat, they are putting another chain around a student's neck. Because, that relative truth taught, will be just one more thing that the student has to let go of to understand the Way. It will literally impede enlightenment. You have to get past the rational mind, which is the mind of relative truth, in order to understand Truth in the absolute sense.

When a teacher tells a student something relative, they will often blindly believe them, and incorporate that truth into their concept of absolute Truth. We cannot and must not ignore the human dynamic involved in all of this.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Rick:
“Because, that relative truth taught, will be just one more thing that the student has to let go of to understand the Way.”

I’m not so sure.
It’s not my experience that it’s harder to break into new states (subtle, causal) just because I keep on learning more relative truths. And it’s not really that I’m learning more relative truths either, I’m learning better and more inclusive truths, hence replacing less inclusive and less accurate truths.

The whole integral model rests on the fact the vertical and horizontal development are two different things, and this insight is not always built into the old traditions that focus on horizontal development (or if they focus on vertical development they’re not very… developed).

I’m sure I’ve hurt some buddhist feelings here, but this is an integral forum and it needs to be said.

Pelle

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Excuse me, but what does this fascinating discussion have to do with Integral Gender Issues?  I must have missed that link.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

You're right, Michael. And I hesitated posting my comment above because it's not related to the topic of the thread.

Perhaps someone will redirect this conversation to a new thread with a title more appropriate? (Don't have the time right now to copy/paste/redirect myself).

Re: Integral Gender Issues

I think Michael's right. The question of teaching both sides of the street would be better discussed on a separate thread. I hope people are interested, because I think it's a pretty fascinating and important subject. Here is the link. I will move over the comments that have been made so far.

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Pelle,

“I’m sure I’ve hurt some buddhist feelings here,…”

As far as I understand Buddhism (and that’s not a whole lot, so correct me if I’m wrong!) there are no feelings to be hurt…

Frans

Re: Integral Gender Issues

Ewan: “You may not currently see the necessity in conveying your interior, but I think a lot of other people here do; I do.  Stop being an awkward, selfish bastard and show us more Rick ;)  We demand it.”

I'm not awkward.