Integral Men

Gina, with her Integral Women thread, has started some rich, powerful currents around gender issues flowing in this pod again.  Several of us have been talking about doing something similar for men, so I'm opening this space for that purpose.  I am just creating this space and do not have any fixed ideas about how this thread should develop. 

As one possibility:  I've been thinking about workshops on gender relationships that I'm familiar with that might offer some interesting guidelines for exploring these issues.   In one of the workshops I'm familiar with, people work with three questions:

~ What positive qualities or characteristics does the other gender bring to relationships?

~ What would you most like to know about the other gender?

~ What do you want the other gender to know about you?

The way this is done is the men and women split into different groups and answer these questions separately in these groups.  This may take some time.  Then they get back together again and discuss their answers.  Often the answers generate a lot of heat, but if groups persevere, a lot of light too.

My idea is that, with this thread and Gina's, we already have the two groups.  So, whoever is interested in each group can explore these questions with other members of the same gender, and then later we can meet together to talk, across genders, about what comes up.  Tim has just created a thread that might serve as the space for this.

Best wishes,

Bruce

Re: Integral Men

In talking with Frans, he suggested another set of questions that could be answered by men and women together, exploring the internal masculine and feminine, perhaps also on Tim's thread.  Here is Frans' letter (from his Integral Feminine thread):

“So what we will need is participants to form the groups. For the first set of questions:

~ What positive qualities or characteristics does the other gender bring to relationships?

~ What would you most like to know about the other gender?

~ What do you want the other gender to know about you?

we would divide between women and men.

For the second set of questions:

~ What positive qualities or characteristics do both the masculine and the feminine bring to you as whole being?

~ How can the other gender help you in integrating those qualities that are most subdued in you?

~ How can you help the other gender integrate those qualities that oare most subdued in them?

I would see us use the same participants as for the first set of questions, but without any division being necessary.”

Re: Integral Men

Not yet sure if this is the best direction to go with this thread (it's certainly not the only one), I'll start by responding to the first question and listing some of the positive qualities I, as a man, have appreciated in the women with whom I have been closest:

Love, tenderness, devotion to family, a healing touch, ability to listen, supportiveness, practicality, attention to detail, embodied presence, engagement, fortitude, long vision, inspiration, encouragement (to grow, to succeed, to thrive, to open), a no-nonsense drive and commitment to do what needs to be done in the moment (which may show up through expressions of cleansing anger), heart.

Re: Integral Men

I think your questions are great Balder, but I think they must come at a later stage. First we need to talk about our own pain as well, how we have been socialized into performing objects that are disconnected from our hearts and souls.

We would be fooling ourselves if we think it's just women who feel  righteous anger welling up when they get a space of their own. We men are treated just as badly by society and by women, as women are treated by society and men.

I will try to post some key points from Warren Farrell later to get the ball rolling. But like I said, I think your questions are great Balder as soon as we have gone through this first stage of bonding, venting emotions and seeing how cultural norms enslave men.


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Greetings, my Integral brothers

How weird, I already feel different posting to a thread that is men only - more solid, more masculine.

Bruce, thanks so much for starting this off, your presence gives it such a great stability and openess -perfect.

I was chatting to a friend of mine about relationships at the weekend - he was asking about my relationship to my partner.  At first we were discussing the dynamics of a cross-tier relationship (1st and 2nd), but then we got onto emotional stuff.  And I described some difficulty recently where my girlfriends lack of emotional awareness/development was starting to really impact on out relationship, and how I was able to help her connect with her emotional reactions, and get more in touch with them.  He thought this was totally hillarious - the fact that I - the man - had to help the woman with her emotional retardedness…haha!

Growing up as part of a very healthy mens group, I'm more intouch with emotional stuff than most women I meet.  The healthy green space that a good mens group creates - the safe and affectionate space to share, without judgement, any and all of your deepest emotional shit and gifts is quite wonderful.  I feel totally blessed to ahve been given that education.

I'm well up for it boys, lets hug and share shit…though I may have to draw the line at nakedness and antlers… ;)


Ewan

Re: Integral Men

Here are some key points from “The Myth of Male Power” by Warren Farrell:

- Men are expected to fight and die for their country, women are not. Even democracies only have the draft for men, not for women. Such a blatant inequality before the law would never remain if it was women who were expected to die for their country.
- There is a huge funding gap between breast cancer and prostate cancer. The myth says that male health gets more funding, but female health gets much more - including breast cancer.
- The only reason that more medical research has been done on men is that it was never considered an option to submit women to dangerous experiments
- Boys do much worse in school than girls, but there seems to be no uproar about this
- Male-bashing humor is OK, female-bashing humor is not
- Feminists claim that women do two jobs and men do one, whereas in reality all research shows that men work longer hours even when you combine household work with work outside the home
- There is overwhelming academic evidence that women perpetrate just as much domestic violence as men, but women get hurt more because men are stronger. Women are ten times more likely than men to report domestic violence.
- It is good to support the part of the feminist movement which empowers women to support themselves, but to withdraw from the part that blames and plays victim
- Men only get love and support when we perform, otherwise we get nothing and will be considered a nobody
- Feminism suggested that God might be a “She” but never suggested that the devil might also be a “She” (this is kind of a low blow, I know, but it is still telling of how unbalanced feminism has always been, contrary to the claims of wanting equality for men as well).
- Men don't get women's fears of harassment that stem from the passive role, but women don't get men's fears of sexual rejection that stem from the initiating role. Nowadays women can sue men for sexual harassment, whereas men know that if they initiate badly they can go to jail for doing so!
- Every time a man rapes it is reported clearly that it was a man, but the fact that men are saviors that give their lives as firefighters, police officers, etc is not specifically stated as being men who gave their lives for women and children
- Men are ten times more likely than women to commit suicied after a divorce
- We are outraged that women have to sell their body to earn money, but we are not outraged that men have to sell their body to the army to support their family and to even be chosen by a woman in the first place
- 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
- Men are 24hr bodyguards for their women, since men are expected to protect women
- In 1920 women in the US lived one year longer than men, today women live seven years longer. We acknowledge that blacks dying six years earlier than whites reflects the powerlessness of blacks in American society, yet we rarely see the early death of men as a reflection of men's powerlessness.
- Men are twice as likely as women to be victims of violent crimes, even when rape is included.
- When adjusted for education, experience and hours worked per week, women earn the same or often more than men
- Among the wealthiest 1.6 percent in  the US, women's net worth is more than men's.
- Almost every woman traditionally had a primary role in the female-dominated family structure, whereas only a small percentage of men had a primary role in the male-dominated public structure
- Men get much much harsher sentences in courts than women, even if the crimes are exactly the same.
- Men are socialized not to ask for help, which is the reason that women report depression and mental health problems much more often. Men's stress instead turns in ulcers, heart disease and alcoholism - which is one explanation for men dying seven years earlier than women.
- 85% of the homeless are men

The emerging picture is that men are the disposable sex, who are loved only as long as they perform and risk their own life and health for their family and their country.

Here is a link to Warren Farrell's page on Integral Naked.


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Cool - a men’s only thread. I have the same reservations as I had for the women’s only thread…

Bruce, all -

how about we take Pelle’s lead here and start this off as a sharing. I personally think we should keep the workshop questions on the “Integral Feminine” thread to avoid too much confusion and dilution. It could be a good idea to rename that thread “Integral Feminine and Masculine” - Pelle, can you do that as a Mod?

Frans

Re: Integral Men

Well, technically I can do it but I don't feel I should. It's not my thread and we mods try not overmoderate. Additionally, Tim has started a thread named Integral Gender Issues that can also be used for that purpose. What I've done for now is linked to this thread from the Integral Feminine thread and the Wounded Boys thread.

I'm hoping that the conversations will focus on the Integral Men/Women threads for now, and at a later stage we can move on to the Integral Gender thread and have men and women share what came up.

Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Hi brothers and sisters all

I've just spent the last three and a half hours reading the Integral Women thread from start to now, then the Integral Feminine thread, then Integral Gender Issues …. and last but not least this Integral Men thread. I've been feeling a quickening as I've been catching up on these threads – a quickening and stirring of the blood, also of heart, excitement, interest, need – this is a frontier that I am called .. demanded .. to bring myself to, to give to.

And right now I need to take a break and sit for a bit. But afore I go I want to say COUNT ME IN CHAPS!! to Bruce (and Frans) …. and,  that I endorse what Pelle's saying in his (first) post on this thread (I just went back to the thread to check on what he did say and discovered fresh posts from Ewan and Pelle – will have to catch up on them later).

One possibility is that a separate thread is started for the “men's group” questions, rather than waiting til “… we have gone through this first stage of bonding, venting emotions and seeing how cultural norms enslave men ” …. in other words the two could run contemporaneously. What do you guys think?

With much love to all,

Lol

Re: Integral Men

Cross-posted from the Integral Gender thread:


Ewan said 22 minutes ago:

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?

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 Men

Yo Pelle

Fucking A - yes, much clearer, I totally agree, well said bud.

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.

Beautifully said.


Ewan

Re: Integral Men

Thanks Ewan.


This is how I tend to think of the evolution of gender issues:


Green

Feminism - explores how cultural norms have severely restricted women. This movement has been present for quite some time, and is very strong in some countries (eg Sweden)
Masculinism - explores how cultural norms have severly restricted men. This movement is barely present anywhere, and most men and women are not even aware that it is needed.


Teal

Men and women use Deida's (or similar) writings to bust out of green and reaccess their primary energies (usually but not always masculine for men and usually but not always feminine for women)


Turquoise

Men and women finally realize that they also need the opposite energy to be able to go deep within their primary energy. Both sexes can take a more mature and less blame-based approach to feminism, while simultaneously realizing that masculinism has been severely neglected and needs a lot of attention.


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Hi Pelle

Interesting, how did you come to the distiction between teal and turquiose?  Could it also be that the turquiose dynamic you mention is actually what needs to happen at Teal, but people have to bust out of green first? 

Ewan

Re: Integral Men

Sure, we could call it early and mature integral as well, the labels aren't that important but there is a definite tendency to reject green upon entering teal and then slowly but surely one can integrate all the healthy green aspects.

Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Hi Pele,

The reason why I started the Integral Feminine thread is to try and get men and women together express a healthy femininity, which doesn’t exist without a healthy masculinity as well - that’s why the new name seems a good one to me. It’s irrelevant in the long run - all issues will be addressed anyway, with no fewer than 4 threads dedicated to the issue.

You posted a long list full of statistics proving that men are really the worse-off gender. Statistically you can prove anything of course, but especially the last line goes to the heart of the matter:

“The emerging picture is that men are the disposable sex, who are loved only as long as they perform and risk their own life and health for their family and their country.”

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

Integral would mean to go beyond the past hurt and make a better society, one in which men can relate to women and women can relate to men because we can both access either aspect. Blaming is always self-defeating because it gets you stuck in the past - and I for one would like to live now…

Frans

Re: Integral Men

Not entirely, Frans. Whatever is going to happen will be build on top of what's already there, so it's good to have a look at it. But without all the blaming, indeed. There's a difference between looking at the past and being stuck in it.

We all have difficulties in dealing with the opposite sex, and some of these difficulties come from our own individual shadow, some from our society's shadow, and some from the shadow of the other sex. It's all true. They all need to be looked at.

Some problems may even originate from living in a society with a first-tier center of gravity. Even some of their healthy modes may not work for us any longer.

Peter

Re: Integral Men

Hi guys. I don't have anything to say yet–so many posts to read! Haven't gotten into this one yet–but I thought I'd furnish the soundtrack. :) Listen to this as you post.

Re: Integral Men

I welcome Pelle's suggestion to hold off on the questions and spend time just connecting here first.  If we do the questions, I would like to do them here first, in the spirit of the workshop from which I drew them – since in the workshop, each gender discusses them separately before coming together.  But it may be that the sharing in this thread, and on the Integral Women thread, goes so far beyond what might be raised by these simple questions, that we won't even need them when (and if) both groups come together to talk on a single thread.  We'll see… 

I'm looking forward to this discussion and I'm warmed by the faces that have gathered around this fire.  I wish we actually could have this sort of meeting in a live setting, with a sweat lodge maybe, a river for swimming, a night full of stars as our amphitheater.  It's been years since I've done anything like that, and I miss it.

I do not want to get stuck in blaming here, but I also do not want to “forbid” any emotion that may want to arise in this space.  Even blame can show its face, if that's what we feel in the moment – if that is truly coloring our perceptions at that time.  Letting it stand forth to be named.

Robert Bly talks often about men's unacknowledged grief and shame as foundational in our dysfunction.  I wrote a poem about 20 years ago that reflected my own wrestling with these issues – the longing to come to terms with these things, to have “blood bear my blood,” to know the cleansing light of the sun.  Because this is old, and was written in response to a different set of concerns than I face now, I have tended to look at it as commentary on an “old self.”  But looking at it this morning, I can see that this work really is not done.  Shadow is still there, and grief, and shame.  So, I'll share it here, in front of this sacred fire:

Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza,
  shake your feet of my dust.
I feel the world's dead
  crouched in my step.
I trudge at the hewn
  edge of your stone
Like all pilgrims,
  leaving.

I bear my grief    unoffered
in my circled arms,
On the cut    stone    tongue
of my repentance,
In the great    shame
roaring in my face.

The holy sun
  burned you of your blood.
It burns the altar
  wells of Itza,
White as the high
  stone of the king's
Ragged step
  to heaven.

You leap like priests    on the plain
for the Mayan sky,
For the wash    of rain    rushing
from the white sun,
In the forgiveness    burned
down on your stone.

I came to the bones
of your city by darkness.
I bore my grief red
beast to your stone.
I came to bid
blood bear my blood,
But you stood    white as kings,
Rebuking.

You are the white    undoing of things,
The feathers    of a death    I have not worn,
The holystoning    of a sun   

I have not known.

Re: Integral Men

Peter,

Yes, that’s what I meant to say; of course we take our learning from the past, but there seems to be a lot of blame and comparing of who is worse off - and that is not helping any.

It makes me think of new parents, who start to fight because they both feel they are more tired than the other, and aren’t getting the proper “respect” for that…. Why not just acknowledge that they’re both tired, and yes, life is demanding so let’s help each other deal with things as best we can…and really, we can use this metaphor all over, can’t we? Growing up seems like a hard thing to do…

Frans

Re: Integral Men

Frans,

I now see that you started the Integral Feminine thread. Didn't see that before, sorry. I'm still very much against changing its name though, since people get confused and can't find the thread after the name's been changed.


Let me also clarify why I posted stuff  from “The Myth of Male Power”. The point is definitely not to play the blame game. Instead its about seeing how constricted the male gender role has been and still is in many ways. This is a blindspot in society! Feminists have time and again shown how women are constricted and treated badly due to their gender role, making many women (and a lot of men too) believe that men have gotten the better deal. This is simply not true! Both gender roles are horribly oppressive, and in the past this was actually very much necessary to survive. To move past these ingrained cultural norms we need to take a very close look at the gender roles, not once, but ten times or more. Women have so far done a much better job at speaking up about their side of discrimination, whereas men have done virtually nothing at all. So it is my belief that we can never meet women as equals until we do our own job of deconstructing our gender role, and also teach women the pain and discrimination men come across on a daily basis.

Just have a look at the Integral Women thread. If we wrote some of the stuff that's going on there, we would be crucified and called misogynists. But women can get away with saying that, since the common perception is that only women have been discriminated against (let me just say that there is also a lot of high quality material in that thread).

We men need to find our balls and say: “Yes, I understand feminism and I'm trying very hard to understand the plight of women from a second person perspective, but I demand that you as women do exactly the same and try very hard to understand the plight of men”.
Only then can we move behind the blame game that feminism has played for so long, and with true compassion talk about Integral Gender issues. As far as I'm concerned, Integral Feminism is an oxymoron, because neither feminism nor masculinism is Integral.


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Pelle,

Yes, indeed: “Both gender roles are horribly oppressive…” that’s the key phrase and that’s what we have to work from - that’s the baseline.

Feminism has been playing the blame game, but men have too, and both have been loving the victim position - just look here. Now is the time to leave that behind and move beyond, you couldn’t be more right, and the only way to do that is to do that right now - we don’t need more time to look at stuff that was done to men - we all know better.

I agree on the name of the thread - it’s a misnomer but you’re probably right when you say it’s difficult to change halfway in the game.

Frans

Re: Integral Men

Frans:
Feminism has been playing the blame game, but men have too, and both have been loving the victim position - just look here.

No, actually men have not played the blame game nearly as much, at least not in orange/green societies such as Sweden - and I seriously doubt that they have in other societies either.

Men have not looked at their own gender roles in an honest way, and men doing this is an unavoidable step to be able to transform feminism into Integral Gender Studies.
Please let us not make some kind of spiritual, emotional or intellectual bypass in this thread, and pretend that we men do not need to look at the constrictedness of the male sex role. It is only through doing this that we can liberate ourselves and be free men with a mission, not puppets of an outdated gender role.

If we integral men don't step up to the task, who will?


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

I've really loved and agree with all the various viewpoints that have been expressed here. None of them are really contrary to what's going on in the world, but just realistic parts of a grander social and psychological puzzle.
I really like what Pelle has been saying so I'll start my comments with that:

”Women have so far done a much better job at speaking up about their side of discrimination, whereas men have done virtually nothing at all. So it is my belief that we can never meet women as equals until we do our own job of deconstructing our gender role, and also teach women the pain and discrimination men come across on a daily basis.”

I have to be honest, I had a negative knee-jerk emotional reaction to Bruce starting this thread. It seemed to me a kind of one-ups-man-ship in the sense that, they have one, so we should have one too. I'm glad that we haven't replicated the integral women thread, and I see that this was a good idea.
I think the main problem with this issue is that, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I feel a very deeply conditioned aversion towards whining. I know it isn't really whining, but it kind of feels like that. There's this automatic feeling I get when I read some of the women's posts that makes me feel like there's a cry baby, whining to them, and I feel uncomfortable replicating that. A whining in the sense that there's an expectation of their environment to bend to there wants and needs, while I feel that it is us that should bend. So let us say that it one of our strengths as strong men. The definition of delusion is the need for one's reality to be what one wants, instead of being what reality dictates one be at any given moment.
As I've gotten married and started my adult life, I slowly feel that my volition of my life is slipping away and being replaced by what other people want and need, mainly my wife and family. I think it is a good teacher to remain calm and comfortable and in the moment regardless of what life brings.

I know that these are issues that we need to deal with as a society, but how do we even talk about something that automatically places us in a “one down” position of weakness? I can just hear my dad in the back of my head yelling at me to, “Shut up, stop whining, put one foot in front of the other, and move on.”
How do we over come the automatic positioning as a pussy, by saying and doing things that make us… well… pussies?

I just don't know. The different experiences in my life have made it really hard to feel sorry for myself.  I don't know if it is necessary either as Frans has said. What's wrong with strong, gentle silence in a man? 

So Pelle is right in saying that we haven't yet followed the path of feminism, but should we and can we? This is a much different situation, so I think that we have to adapt to this set of conditions and not just replicate a male-femininst movement if you will. I'm just not comfortable with that, and I know most men aren't either.
So the question is not should we, but how.

”As far as I'm concerned, Integral Feminism is an oxymoron, because neither feminism nor masculinism is Integral.”

Exactly! I've been trying to express that since all this gender talk started. Where do the lines of these conceptual “masculine” and “feminine” begin and end? Isn't this just a deeper and more subtle delusion wrapped up in New Age spirituality?
The strongest and most masculine male role models in my life have been equally strong and gentle, with deep waters of emotion and caring, but with control over their behavior.
And strong women, like my mother, also don't get lost in their personal needs and desires. She worked a full-time job, raised two kids and went to school full-time when I was growing up. That's a strong woman, but she has complete access to her feminine energy as well.
I don't see a duality here.

Re: Integral Men

I'm not sure if these comments belong here or on the “wounded boy” thread, but I'll place them here for now.  I agree that, particularly in recent years, we have been confronted in green-influenced cultures with negative and, really, weak and disempowering images of males.  Although it doesn't seem to be as prevalent now as it was a few years ago, I remember noticing as a young man that the men in most commercials and popular sitcoms seemed clueless, bumbling, pitiable, and weak.  They were incompetent, incapable of doing anything without the help of their wives.  When I first started noticing this trend, my reaction was, “Well, we had this coming.  It's our turn now.”  But after a couple years, I wearied of it. 

Experiencing that, as I experienced racism and discrimination for two years in Korea, I could better understand the pernicious and damaging influence of similarly distorted images of women and minorities that have also been fed to our culture.  Even when you have a fairly strong sense of your own value, as I did by the time I began to notice these anti-male trends in the media, these images still manage to slip in underneath one's conscious beliefs and defenses and work their influence nevertheless, perhaps in subtle ways (say, influencing you to disparage or apologize for your clueless masculinity when you enter into conversations with women).

A lot of powerful insight into social and cultural dynamics has been generated by the feminist movement, so I do think it has great value – not all of which has been realized or digested by society at large.  But the swinging of the pendulum in the direction of a collective, popular disparagment of masculinity, and even a pathologizing of masculine traits in Green-influenced schools, is an example of the endemic misuse of Green insight:  a critical excavation of disempowering sociocultural norms is turned, on the popular level, not into a tool for collective insight, but into another weapon … another way to marginalize and pathologize and oppress.  It is fragmentary, not Integral.

When I have listened to and participated in male/female or masculine/feminine discussions on this pod in the past, I have sometimes felt a resistance to the ways the lines were being drawn – as if the characteristics we were identifying as male or female were universal, even timelessly given (part of the very fabric of the Kosmos).  In critically examining, deconstructing, and reconfiguring or coming to terms with the roles which we have come to inhabit, I think we have to be willing to challenge some of the basic myths of our culture about what masculinity and femininity “truly” are.  To realize that, to some extent, these things are “grooves” that have been laid down over time.  Not timeless truths, but dynamic patterns that have gathered a certain momentum. 

Some postmodern and feminist theorists have suggested that gender roles are purely constructed, and they have set about trying to rearrange the patterns.  I think where they are going wrong is not in arguing that gender roles and traits are constructed, but in not recognizing the fully AQAL nature of the grooves that are in place.  Some are, indeed, biologically determined and thus much more deeply entrenched.  Not eternal truths, but deeply engrained habits … which will not easily be challenged or “fixed” by social engineering.

How deep can change go?  I don't know.  I am resistant, at this point, to making easy connections between certain cultural conventions and biologically determined impulses and tendencies.  There is some flexibility, some plasticity.  For myself, I see the integral challenge before me to be coming more fully to inhabit a perspective that both honors and strives to understand what has unfolded in time up to this point, but which does not assume that anything is merely “given” and beyond question or transformation or creative revitalization and transfiguration.

As a parent, raising a boy in this culture, watching how my relationship develops with him (how I struggle to live up to my ideals for myself and my desires to help him develop a self-esteem that I lacked as a child), I know this isn't easy.  I know we carry a great deal of weight.  I know that most adults walk around with long, shadow-filled bags behind them, and that our culture has formed around the dance we must engage in not to notice these burdens, or the ways they influence our behavior.  I know I have more work to do in this area.  I did not have men in my life, growing up, who were up to this task.  But we must create this.  We must bring this forth.

Re: Integral Men

Here are the lyrics of the song “Men” by Martin Mull and Steve Martin:

(Group of men singing in the background)
Men, men, men, men
Men, men, men, men…

It's great to be on a ship with men
and sail across the sea, oh,
We don't know where we'll land or when,
but it's great to be with men.

'Cause men can sweat and men can stink
and no one seems to care, oh,
We'll throw the dishes in the sink
and clog the drain with hair, oh!
(And clog the drain with hair, oh!)

Men, men, men,
We're a ship all filled with men,
So batten down the ladies' room,
there's no one here but men!

Men, men, men, men
Men, men, men, men…

There's men above and men below
and men down in the galley,
There's Butch and Spike and Buzz and Biff
and one guy we call Sally!
(And one guy we call Sally!)

Men, men, men,
We're a ship all filled with men,
You'll never have to lift the seat,
there's no one here but men!

Men, men, men, men
Men, men, men, men…

We're men and friends until the end
and none of us are sissies,
At night we sleep in separate beds
and blow each other kissies!
(And blow each other kissies!)

Men, men, men,
we're a ship all filled with men,
So throw your rubbers overboard,
there's no one here but men!

Amen (pronounced “Ahhhhh, men!”)

Re: Integral Men

Um…thanks, The Urge. 

A little too much “men” for my taste!

Re: Integral Men

This is so tough. Tough to face, tough to hold in focus, tough to get into perspective.  I find myself being swayed by the various calls – not to get into the blaming game, not to whinge or whine …. and also to allow any true feeling to express itself if it's really there.

So I find myself mutely nodding acknowledgement of all three …. then sitting up and saying yes! to Pelle's call that we men speak out about how we too have been oppressed by and within our gender role as a result of family and cultural conditioning, and yes! to his call that we deconstreuct our gender role …. except this is what I find tough to face, tough to hold in focus, tough to get into perspective.

One (lesser) reason it's tough to face is because I've experienced women raging at men for daring to think that we've had it bad in a way that even remotely compares to what women have had to endure for millenia, and I draw back at the thought of such a hornet's nest being stirred up in this pod. And like, fuck, what have I got to complain about, what big deal injustices have I suffered, in what ways have I been suppressed, trodden on, put down, marginalised, belittled, patronised, humoured, ridiculed as women routinely have been, still are. And if I can come out with some minor examples, or if I try to feel into expressing how I'd come to consider myself a second-class man in a man's world, I'd be reminded that even a second-class man is still privileged, still has easy access by birthright to all sorts of things that women just don't.

So the first thing that comes to me here and now is that it's not about comparing who's had it worst. I honestly do believe that while most men may have heard and experienced a woman's rage, they have barely heard but the distant murmuring of the roaring of rage, grief and pain that's in the hearts of women …. and we do need to hear this and feel this as much as we can allow ourselves to …. and open up more to let more in, to feel more …. and let it impact us, move us …. and pass on through us.

And …. as Pelle says, we men “… need to find our balls and say: “Yes, I understand feminism and I'm trying very hard to understand the plight of women from a second person perspective, but I demand that you as women do exactly the same and try very hard to understand the plight of men””

I gave a lesser reason why I find this tough to face. The main reason, I find, is not so easy to articulate because it's not so easy to identify and define in the first place …. and that's, I think, because we're conditioned not to see how we're conditioned. But I want to find a way to see through and beyond this conditioned vision I inhabit, and am looking for help and guidance from men and women both in this, those that can offer it that is.

I have long felt that as a kid, as a teenager, as a young adult and as a pre-middlessence man I was, mostly unconsciously, rebelling against what I was being called to step up to and into, the inheritance and mantle I'd received by birthright, being born male in a man's world. I didn't want this, but was barely aware that I didn't want it, and had nothing to offer in it's place. So I effectively became a second-class male, a second-class man …. and lost access to a lot of my agency in the process. I can see this intellectually, but that's not enough, I want to explore and unpack this with the help of other men, good true and beautiful .

I don't want to add any more on this just now …. but do want to finish by sharing myself kind of indirectly and a bit nekkid, by offering a picture of me as seen through the eyes of the person I was last in a relationship with – we were together for almost six years, and separated just over eighteen months ago. The context for this is that the men's group I was in (we disbanded nearly a year ago) came up with the idea of each man asking their partner or ex-partner, a question concerning a certain something we felt we needed to hear from them. The idea was that when each man had a reply we would in turn read these out to the whole group, as an exercise in getting to hear different women's voices concerning men.

The question we came up with was (yes, I know, a tad naive and pretensious :)): “In relationship to you / the feminine, what are the most important truths for me to know about myself and for others to know about me, as a man? Please tell me this for my own healing and for the healing of all men.”

My partner's reply was (and I'd told her someone else might be reading it out):

“To whoever reads this out:  You can skip the first bit if you want and pick it up after the asterisks.  Your call.

Any other women betray a touch of being freaked out by this question?  Having an ‘is it me??’ moment…..move on…..ahem

Oh God.  I just don’t know how to respond.  How would I know the most important truths if you lot don’t?  Whose most important truths?  If they’re MINE about you, how does that automatically or necessarily stand for The Feminine?  Maybe it’s just some mad bitch banging on about her stupid crap….Ha! Smile, you’re on candid damn-ya..

Right.  Before I say anything more, I’m keen to know, if they’re really the most important truths about you, why you & others aren’t already acquainted with them.  Makes it sound like this in an exercise in skeleton wrangling, or that women somehow know all the essential stuff that men have no idea about.  Hang on!….

Still stalling.  OK then.  Good news or bad news first?

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

You don’t do what you say you’re going to.  No, of course I don’t mean always - just often enough to sow doubt.  You forget what you have promised - not always, just consistently enough for corrosion to creep in.  You don’t pay close enough attention.  You’re so often elsewhere, somehow - uninvolved, unbothered or unwilling to respond.  I don’t, and perhaps most women don’t, like feeling not thought about, not cherished - and though I’m pretty sure that’s not your intention, that’s how it comes over.  We don’t like the feeling that it’s an effort or a drag or somehow unnatural just to love & care about us.  And finally, you don’t take enough action or initiative.  You don’t take on the world.  I suppose that’s all hero shit and who cares.  But we do.  I do.  I want to take on the world  but I don’t want to do it for two - unless my man is doing it for two right there with me. 

Re: Integral Men

Thank you so much Rick, Bruce and Lol for laying down the grooves this thread needed to settle into some sort of rhythm.

It's late here so I won't write very much, but I do want to comment on something Lol wrote:

The main reason, I find, is not so easy to articulate because it's not so easy to identify and define in the first place …. and that's, I think, because we're conditioned not to see how we're conditioned.

I truly believe this is a core truth for men. We have been conditioned not to see how we're conditioned. We still believe that we are the powerful sex, even though we are a choiceless sex  in many ways.

It's painful to start teasing this apart, because we mistakenly think that our masculinity is tied to our gender role, but in reality it is not. There is a huge difference between amber and integral.


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Pelle,

“Frans:
Feminism has been playing the blame game, but men have too, and both have been loving the victim position - just look here.

No, actually men have not played the blame game nearly as much…”

Did you miss the “just look here”? ending of my sentence? - even just look at yourself: you get very defensive whenever I make the suggestion we should leave the complaining and bitching behind…Women may have done this in the form of movements, men do it more on an individual basis - we don’t need groups to feel strong enough for that apparently.

You say:

“Men have not looked at their own gender roles in an honest way, and men doing this is an unavoidable step to be able to transform feminism into Integral Gender Studies.
Please let us not make some kind of spiritual, emotional or intellectual bypass in this thread, and pretend that we men do not need to look at the constrictedness of the male sex role. It is only through doing this that we can liberate ourselves and be free men with a mission, not puppets of an outdated gender role.”

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. In the end this will most definitely be a very spiritual excercise.

“If we integral men don’t step up to the task, who will?”

Indeed - so let’s!

Frans

Re: Integral Men

This is strange, I've never read so many posts in a row that I've agreed with, point for point.
So let's take what lol, Pelle, Bruce and Frans have said and put them together into what I am feeling and was trying to say in my post.

How do we even start a real duologue about this, when we've been so conditioned to not even talk about it. I mean, I feel really uncomfortable even discussing this issue. I think that this is something that women have over on us. They are free and uninhibited to discuss whatever comes to them, but we aren't. I know all this is bullshit delusion and past social, cultural and evolutionary conditioning, but it's still kind of there.
If we've been so conditioned to not even feel comfortable enough to even discuss these things honestly, then how do we get anywhere? Self pity just doesn't suite a solution.

I remember talking to my Zen teacher once about how I sometimes get depressed sometimes for no real reason, and have for almost as long as I can remember. I was on the verge of tears when I was talking to him about this, and he didn't want to hear any detail, or discuss my feelings or anything. He kind of stopped me mid-sentence and reminded me that there is always a cause, always a condition of everything, even our emotions.
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. As he said this, I began to feel a joy spring up from despair, and I actually felt a lot better. I took his advice and the problem has almost completely dissolved, and when I still sometimes feel a deep feeling of depression, it is just another emotion, a very amazing emotion that helps to keep me grounded and not take my concepts seriously.

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.

Re: Integral Men

Hi, Lol,

It's fairly late and I'm feeling wiped out after a long day, but I wanted, first, to say thank you for stepping out here so nekkidly and movingly; and second, to respond briefly to one of your remarks that really rang home for me.

You wrote:  I have long felt that as a kid, as a teenager, as a young adult and as a pre-middlessence man I was, mostly unconsciously, rebelling against what I was being called to step up to and into, the inheritance and mantle I'd received by birthright, being born male in a man's world. I didn't want this, but was barely aware that I didn't want it, and had nothing to offer in it's place. So I effectively became a second-class male, a second-class man …. and lost access to a lot of my agency in the process. I can see this intellectually, but that's not enough, I want to explore and unpack this with the help of other men, good true and beautiful.

This was exactly my experience, but I wasn't clearly in touch with it, and had not found a way to articulate it, until I began doing Diamond Approach work and I kept finding myself facing certain patterns in myself.  I found that, in deep inquiry, when I came face to face with core memories, patterns, and scripts, I often would have a sense of losing ground, literally – things became diffuse, focus was lost, direction disappeared.  I would dissociate, in a word, and move into a formless sort of fog.  In exploring this pattern, watching how and when it arose, I have come to see that it often would arise in response to feelings around moving forward actively into the world, which I found to be in direct conflict with images of “worldly men” in my life who had profoundly disappointed me – men, angry and dangerous men who had failed as models, and who stood, primitively and simply, as emblems of what I did NOT want to become.  But in cutting myself off from them, and from the dangerous currents they represented, I did two things:  I cut myself off from a connection to source energy, and I also effectively said “no” to paths that would lead me to don that “mantle of my birthright.”  I did not want to be what it seemed society had laid out for me, what I imagined it “meant” to be a man in the world, and not having any other models or guides, I became marginal by default.

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Integral Men

Yes Sir,

It's late, I'm tired, and I too remember navigating/drifting clear of mainstream.

jiki

Re: Integral Men

Wow … I'm just catching up on all this … this is powerful stuff brotha's.

Re: Integral Men

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 Men

Bruce:
I found that, in deep inquiry, when I came face to face with core memories, patterns, and scripts, I often would have a sense of losing ground, literally – things became diffuse, focus was lost, direction disappeared.  I would dissociate, in a word, and move into a formless sort of fog.  In exploring this pattern, watching how and when it arose, I have come to see that it often would arise in response to feelings around moving forward actively into the world, which I found to be in direct conflict with images of “worldly men” in my life who had profoundly disappointed me – men, angry and dangerous men who had failed as models, and who stood, primitively and simply, as emblems of what I did NOT want to become.  But in cutting myself off from them, and from the dangerous currents they represented, I did two things:  I cut myself off from a connection to source energy, and I also effectively said “no” to paths that would lead me to don that “mantle of my birthright.”  I did not want to be what it seemed society had laid out for me, what I imagined it “meant” to be a man in the world, and not having any other models or guides, I became marginal by default.


I think this is a pattern shared my many of us Bruce, and thank you for bringing it up with such a personal example.
When we reject the amber role of men, we often throw out at least one baby with the bathwater. Like you say, we lose touch with agency, drive and direction in our lives.

I've actually found that by getting to a place where I feel compassion for the angry, emotionally repressed amber man - and seeing how he got to be how he was - it has been easier for me to start reintegrating some of the core energies that we desperately need even at higher stages. I've very much had to do this on my own. since the default attitude in green/feminist Sweden is that the amber/orange man is inherently evil and the cause of everything from wars to cancer (I'm not blaming here, simply reporting the state of my country).


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

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.

You say: “‘I’ve very much had to do this on my own. since the default attitude in green/feminist Sweden is that the amber/orange man is inherently evil and the cause of everything from wars to cancer (I’m not blaming here, simply reporting the state of my country).”

That’s somewhat typical of Holland too, so I know what you mean. I had to uproot myself and leave the country before I got to do any serious self work (not that I believe Holland really had anything to do with it per se)

Frans

Re: Integral Men

He Rick,

Glad to hear we’re making some sense!

You say: “f we’ve been so conditioned to not even feel comfortable enough to even discuss these things honestly, then how do we get anywhere? Self pity just doesn’t suite a solution.”

Would it be possible to apply the Zen teachings you mentioned helped you in dealing with that deep feeling of sadness (my words - what I had to work through, but I think it’s at least a relative of your feelings of depression) to this situation too? The feelings of discomfort have a much deeper root too and may be very similar…

The way I word it is to try and feel the emotion, the pain, the discomfort whithout attaching them to the story that we think is connected to these feelings. Once we can look at just the feeling, it all of a sudden loses it’s power. At least that’s what works for me.

Frans

Re: Integral Men

“Would it be possible to apply the Zen teachings you mentioned helped you in dealing with that deep feeling of sadness (my words - what I had to work through, but I think it’s at least a relative of your feelings of depression) to this situation too? The feelings of discomfort have a much deeper root too and may be very similar…”

Yes, exactly! That was my point exactly. There is nothing inherent in our psychic or social situations, any more than anything else.
There's a lifetime of conditioning there you know, so in a way I think the depression is integrally linked to these other feelings. I know that I've had a hard time feeling compassion for people that I considered weak, because deep down I knew that I had been through what they had or worse and I sucked it up, no one felt sorry for me and I moved one; “so why can't they,” I thought.
I remember laying in bed when I was in 6th grade, I think, and I had to get up to go to school. I remember thinking to myself what the point of it all was, and if there was a reason to even get out of bed. My dad came in and told me to get out of bed and get dressed for school. When I told him what I was thinking he got really upset and said something like, “So what! You get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other and you work it out. Life doesn't stop for you. Deal with it.”
So I did. And I've always been able to suppress any kind of pain. There were many other turning points in my life before and after that taught me not to feel sorry for myself, and to be hard. I was even able to hide a drug addiction from my family and others for about 3 years, and I quit all on my own, with the help of boot camp.
So I can see that it's all tied together, and I that this is something that is holding me back from a more direct and authentic seeing on a more full time basis.
So how do I access all this pain and not reify it, and feel “poor me?”
Perhaps, I can just see the emotions and thoughts for the smoke that they are when they arise. It's just something I've been avoiding.

Bruce,
I know what you mean about the male role models that fell short. I remember when I was about 17, and… let's just say I joined the import/export business on the border in Texas. My boss was this New Yorker, we'll call him Vito, cause that's what we called him (nickname). Anyway, he was from Eastern Europe originally, and had been in the business his whole life, was tough as nails, a snake that you couldn't trust, and smart.
As the years went by and I got closer to him and got to know him better, I began to see him as he really was, a broken little boy really. I felt sorry for him, but also knew he deserved most of his personal hell. Once I saw him after getting really drunk, after a bad meeting in Atlanta, and he broke down and started to cry like a baby. He started to speak in different languages, and just cry.
I saw that his toughness was an illusion, and that even he couldn't escape all the bad shit he'd done in his life. In the end, it catches up to us all.

Re: Integral Men

Pelle : I've actually found that by getting to a place where I feel compassion for the angry, emotionally repressed amber man - and seeing how he got to be how he was - it has been easier for me to start reintegrating some of the core energies that we desperately need even at higher stages.


Bingo! My father was a alcoholic who beat my 2 siblings and I. They got it worse than I did growing up because I was the youngest and my mother finally put her foot down. I love/hated my father until I was about 16. The beatings had stopped many years prior but I kind of wanted him to try as I thought I could whip his ass by that time. Then one of my Aunts told me that all her siblings were beat in their childhood with a cat of 9 tails. Each would get beat on their birthday and receive a whip for each year old they were. Their parents (my grandparents) said that even though they did not see them do anything wrong, they knew they did and this was their punishment. At that very moment the anger I had for my father evaporated. I saw him as a young boy in a grown mans body. He had not emotionaly grown from a beaten little child and was acting out the only way he knew how. It did not make what happened to me & my siblings right but it gave me the key to understand him and have compassion for him. We had a great relationship from then on until he died a few years ago. It never got super close, he just did not know how, but I love him dearly.


love


e

Re: Integral Men

Wow, some awesome sharing e.

And I also wanted to say, yes, yes, yes - exploration back in to preceding generations is so important in all of this.

I've noticed these things come up as a father. I truly feel that no matter how far we might have come individually, when we become parents we are forced back into the ways that we were raised and the values and so on that our parents embodied. And it is almost as if we “start” right there no matter what -in what I would consider and call the familial line. (Something which, when living independently, leaves off from the moment when we started living independently). Now I don't remember my point. :-/

Oh yes, the past generations ARE so many parts of us. This how as holons we have a LL, even as individuals. And in finding that compassion and understanding for those past contexts, individuals and situation, I truly beleive we are Kosmically moving these grooves forward, now and into the future.

Okay, Peace, Tim

Re: Integral Men

Rick, Pelle, Frans, everyone, thank you for what you're bringing here.

I want to say something about how I read the issues Pelle and Frans have been debating (particularly around blame).  I really liked what Pelle said in his last letter.  I do not think we need to get into a discussion of “who has suffered more” or “who is the primary cause of our suffering,” in terms of trying to lay blame somewhere, but neither do I think we should forget about where we've come from and just focus on “solutions” and the future.  For me, it is helpful to look at and open up the personal, familial, cultural, and historical dynamics of our present condition – those things that have caused us to suffer or rebel or feel alienated or withdraw or get depressed and angry, but also those things that have inspired us to look past the models our society offers (patriarchal/Amber, Orange, feminist, etc.) and to consider, and strive to embody, new ways of being.  Although we probably have all done our own work in this area, I do not want to just assume we're all at the same place, or that we don't need to discuss the dysfunctional stuff that we all agree needs to be left behind, for a number of reasons – one, we may not all be at the same place (I regard Lol as my elder brother in this area, for instance); two, the way forward lies through really understanding our conditioning, not trying to push it behind us; and three, even as we strive to embody new ways of being, we are doing so in a context which will likely be resisting us, on various levels, and among both men and women.

Rick, I hear you about feeling uncomfortable about discussing these things.  It feels like I'm exposing myself here, opening myself up to evaluation and dismissal, devaluation, etc.  In some circles, I might even let this stop me from speaking in this way.  But not here.

About the advice you received for dealing with depression:  I agree that that is a powerful, typically masculine way of dealing with it.  I have also taken this approach, and often it has really had an amazing impact – releasing and sometimes powerfully transforming emotion, demonstrating clearly and directly how mechanical and really ephemeral many of the “verbal loops” are that keep energy circulating in a particular way.

However, I think there are feminine ways of approaching emotion that are important also – ways which don't focus on getting rid of negative or troubling emotion by cutting the roots, but which draw close to it, move into it, and allow for more of a transformation from within which somehow feels more embodied, closer to the bone and blood.  In my experience, the Diamond Approach is really powerful in this regard – because it seems to skillfully balance masculine and feminine approaches, through encouraging both an incisive inquiry and an ability to move into and feelingly inhabit what is, at any moment, arising.  Feminine “story” and masculine “space” are not-two.

Pelle, I also want to briefly respond to your comment about allowing ourselves to return to and have compassion for the Amber or Orange males that have disappointed us.  For the past ten years or so, a very steady part of my ILP has actually been consciously listening to individuals in these spaces – on the radio, primarily, but also on certain forums on the internet.  It was an exercise, first, in just listening to the reactions these individuals brought up in me, as I connected them to various figures in my life.  But later it became an exercise of moving past the reactions and actually into their value- and meaning-space, so that I could better understand them.  I found compassion naturally arising – a compassion which did not obscure, for me, the partiality of their views or the harm they still might be causing, but which nevertheless has helped me to return, in myself and my own work, to those parts of me that I cut off and to honor them again, appreciating the strengths they also bear; and to return and relate to some of my relatives with more compassion, at least in my mind if it's not possible in real life (some of these Amber relatives have died or disappeared),

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: Integral Men

Rick,

We had the same father! I had the good fortune of cracking my skull when I was 13 which allowed me to forget pretty much everything that went before, but they sound like two peas in a pod. Mine did change significantly - more about that later. Like you, i was very much alone in all that happened to me and had to initiate the work on my own. Thank God for 2 people that came into my life then - I wouldn’t have made it here without them.

When you’re working with your pain, is there any way that you can isolate what you feel from the story that - for you - is connected to the feeling; trying to realize that the pain is universal, a pain that a great many others tap into as well - through their own stories? If you can do that, try to emphasize it, make it as big as you can - and look at it - see what happens. I believe this is an approach hat Almaas also uses in his Diamond Approach - Bruce is the expert on that.

e,

That must have been a powerful experience, being able to detach from the story and see your father for what he really was - and it happened while he was still alive, so you could still have a relationship with him that you felt good about - wow!

In our house it never came to physical abuse, but i remember tons of mental abuse. Things changed when my dad had a massive heart attack and had to stop working. His entire sense of self evaporated and he became an empty shell for a few years - I’m not sure how long. Then, he began doing volunteer work for the elderly, helping them fill out the hundreds of government forms that are there to “assist” the elderly, but you have to be a rocket scientist to figure them all out…Last year he took a buddy course and he is now assisting people in their last months of life, helping them cope with dying. My dad, the most miserable person I remember - i still have a hard time relating to him, but it’s getting better ( we only see each other once a year now that I live in Canada).

Bruce:

” ..think there are feminine ways of approaching emotion that are important also – ways which don’t focus on getting rid of negative or troubling emotion by cutting the roots, but which draw close to it, move into it, and allow for more of a transformation from within which somehow feels more embodied, closer to the bone and blood. In my experience, the Diamond Approach is really powerful in this regard – because it seems to skillfully balance masculine and feminine approaches, through encouraging both an incisive inquiry and an ability to move into and feelingly inhabit what is, at any moment, arising. Feminine “story” and masculine “space” are not-two.”

I sometimes feel that feminine approaches are the more powerful ones, but that is for me, probably depends on our hardwiring (if there really is such a thing). The point is to have access to both and use both freely together.

This thread is getting better and better - Frans

Re: Integral Men

Hello, men. I posted a relevant reflection in the integral gender thread and a subsequent insight. I'd love to here thoughts in response either here or there. So far, I am speaking mainly in the integral gender thread: it fits me best.

Re: Integral Men

Hey Colin, I just wanted to say, so it's been said, you are more than welcome on this thread. (In fact, I expect you on this thread!)

Heart,
Tim

Re: Integral Men

Tim: You are a very loving and inclusive man.

In fact, this is true for so many of the men in this pod. Thank you all.

Re: Integral Men

Colin, I also want you on this thread.
(I know I said it before but I intend to nag you until you show up :P)

Re: Integral Men

Frans: yes, it would be great to meet face2face. We would go so much deeper so much faster…

Rick: you tell some amazing stories, and it seems you've tried several “hardcore male destinations” (drugs, the army, “import/export”). You pose a very interesting question as well, namely how do we achieve emotional healing as men without breaking down completely and losing touch with our agency? Intuitively I feel that men cannot process and release in exactly the same way as women do, for example by talking, crying, talking and feeling completely weak and relaxed. My feeling is that we need to intersperse episodes of emotional release and support from partner/friend/therapist, with periods of time alone to rebuild ourselves.

e: Your story touches me, and also resonates in some ways with my own background.

Bruce: that sounds like a powerful ILP, trying to engage amber/orange men without rejecting them and instead even learning important partial truths. Personally I thought I could never feel compassion for my father, but after “grokking” and feeling compassion for the amber/orange man - and also becoming conscious of the familial line that Tim speaks of - I  can now see that my father was simply preprogrammed to become who he was, and he would have needed to be at least green to start breaking free of his destructive patterns (he still pisses me off though, but such is life…).


loving this thread,
Pelle

Re: Integral Men

You know what - I still have a lot to eventually say on this thread - but I wanted to say this now.

I want to tell you something,

I never, ever felt more like a man, then the moment when I encompassed and integrated into my being, my father.

I'm not even going to try at this point to dissect what that means …

But there was a moment, many years ago (1996) when I realized that he embodied to me something about the ideal man. This is very interesting, and again, I am not going to try and dissect it.

But something tells me this is a very important thing … Despite all of the differences -somehow, I finally made his agency, my agency.

And yes, only furher discovered who I was.

(It was right after an intense solitary meditation retreat too.)

(And that was a good retreat. It eventually brought me here.)

(Okay, good for me. Not sure about all of you … )

Peace, Tim

Re: Integral Men

What positive qualities or characteristics does the other gender bring to relationships?

In the context of the ideas that we bat around here, there's a kind of feedback that women give you that you can't normally get from another guy. Sometimes I'm not sure if I like my ideas because they are true, or if I'm just seeing what you might call logical beauty – a kind of abstract internal consistency or coherency. That's the kind of thing that you discuss with another guy, whether the argument has flaws or limitations or inconsistencies. But women don't really care so much about that, they mainly care about whether or not an idea leads to more love. So for me, the real test of an idea is whether I can convince a woman that it is true, because then hopefully it's less likely to have an unconscious masculine bias.

So that's probably the reason that I mainly have female friends – I think I've heard that from men here before too, maybe for different reasons though. Outside of this forum, I have only met one or two other men that I know who I felt had a level of development high enough that I felt comfortable accepting their critiques of my ideas. Thanks guys! :) Green men are impossible, and Orange men have weird status and materialistic obsessions that are kind of disturbing to me. It's always a competition with them! So I think it's worth keeping in mind that even though the masculine might dominate a bit in this forum, it's not like we have anywhere else to go. We can't just head down to the local sangha every night and strike up an integral conversation with someone. There's really not a lot of options if you are interested in spirituality and want to embody authentic masculinity. Women can go hang out with Green spiritual people and include them without too much trouble, but men have to constantly bite their tongue because of the desire to transcend Green. Not that necessarily justifies anything, just something to keep in mind.

What would you most like to know about the other gender?

I've often heard women say that Integral is too theoretical, abstract and intellectual. I don't mind that kind of thing, so if it's not that, what is it about integral theory that attracts you?

~MrTC

Re: Integral Men

Pelle: “Intuitively I feel that men cannot process and release in exactly the same way as women do, for example by talking, crying, talking and feeling completely weak and relaxed. My feeling is that we need to intersperse episodes of emotional release and support from partner/friend/therapist, with periods of time alone to rebuild ourselves.”

Yeah, I think so. Bruce is right also that a mix is needed. Perhaps a little talking and support and a little on our own work together.
I think fathers are just as burdened with making sure their sons can survive in the world as well. I find myself automatically being hard with my nephew, because the world's gonna eat him alive, I feel deep down. Of course he's just a kid and who knows what he'll become, but there's that fear. Its as though the most compassionate thing I can do for him is to make him a little harder. I know that's crazy, but this is the world we live in.  I know that's why my dad was the way he was with me.
The crazy thing is that his dad was a rather cold man. So he actually went out of his way to make sure he said he loved me and that he was proud of me, etc… But, he just couldn't over come so much of his life conditioning. So I think that all of my best and worst qualities I probably got from him.
Now of course, my goal is to deconstruct my automatic conditioning to flow with the moment more authentically. I think that is really what we need to do. I've started with yelling. I'm struggling with it, but I'm getting better and yelling much less.

Re: Integral Men

I think fathers are just as burdened with making sure their sons can survive in the world as well. I find myself automatically being hard with my nephew, because the world's gonna eat him alive, I feel deep down. Of course he's just a kid and who knows what he'll become, but there's that fear. Its as though the most compassionate thing I can do for him is to make him a little harder. I know that's crazy, but this is the world we live in.  I know that's why my dad was the way he was with me.

Rick, you just uprooted some “things” for me - or maybe in me.

My Dad, aside from issues of religion, was pretty much the anti-hard. This is actually one of the things I admire and appreciate about him. His own father was - I really don't know about hard - but in my Dad's own words he was “micro-managed” his entire life, even after marriage, his own kids etc. This included his mother too - he was an only child and they just never “let up” or allowed him to live his own life, make his own decisions. So the thing is, he vowed that he would never do that to his own children. And, he absolutely didn't. We were free to make our own choices, choose who we were and what we wanted to do, never any interference and always love and acceptance and support. Ultimately, sure, to this day religion remains the one disappointment … but he still tries never, ever to say anything about it. (We were Catholic - my brother at one point became a born again Baptist, this caused controversy, but never did he try to say to my brother “you can not do this” in any way. My sister becamea Buddhist, even less attempted interference.)

But so here is the thing. I think by the time I got to about 19, 20 -and it even applies now to some extent - I wish he would have been harder. I wish he would have set down some expectations of performance. Perhaps key and central here - I wish he would have better prepared me for what it was to be a man, or even just a boy, in this world. Because the truth of the matter, is that I did suffer for that. Especially as a kid. Somehow, I found achievement drives and ways to work with this performance expectation, and whatever other male expectations there are, on my own.

In fact, it's true, my theatre mentor became an auxiliary father figure in this regard. He set down expectations that were demanded to be lived up to. And he was “gay!” But the agentic figure I in many ways needed.

Now, here's the thing. When I started teaching myself, I noticed the pattern very early on - I was always WAY harder on the boys and men. If they did something wrong, I gave them no mercy.

Whereas, I also noticed very early on, if the girls or women did something wrong under my stead, there may have been “discipline” but I always ended up leaning toward “mercy” nd I love you and, okay, here's a second chance. I would go much further and to great lengths to help them achieve, etc. But the boys … no.

I always recognized this as an OBVIOUS sexual thing. I guess that wasn't always now that I look at it, but there was definitely an often visited pattern of - to put into words - “I can't be too hard on her or I will spoil my chances of her ever liking me!” Meaning, sexually. (I also noticed then why they say not to mix a teacher student relationship with a sexual one.) That was common, but it was not always the case. And one of the reasons I noticed this was that my mentor, who was gay, would do the same thing with the men. The women received merciless hell. The boys? It was so obvious. In one self I felt myself compensating and balancing the entire situation. Everyone got a little of both.

But aside from that aspect -which again -certainly wasn't always there -it was more basically true that I obviously treated genders differently.

Further, I am facing this same thing now with my son. I suddenly ask myself - Am I treating him differently?

It shouldn't be missed that there does seem to be an obvious dynamic in this because the genders are different. I have to do things to manage the behavior of my son that I absolutely never had to do with my daughters and this applies in reverse. I have to tell my older daughter how easily they can hurt his feelings -because that is what they do. They say things like “I don't like you” or the like and he starts crying because it leaves a very obvious wound, straight in the heart (and we know, I think, affective wounds take much longer to heal than physical ones). He on the other hand, it'a all physical and agentic. Picks up a toy and wields it in the air in a threatening manner. They scream, he enjoys this, and then if something is not done quickly enough -boom! -the toy flies across the room right at some poor females head.

I found myself, just the other day, having what appeared to be absolutely no choice under the sun, telling him that the real purpose and good use of his strength was to care for and protect his sisters, the girls.

It felt like it simply grew out of the reality at hand. It was the only way to begin to manage this polarity. Thus, it struck me as very profound. It seemed like there was something in this about the basic structure of the Kosmos and how it manifests in human beings. Was I telling him the very thing that emerged 100,000 years ago, in order to move us forward in evolution, and more together?

I have to say that it felt like I was. Again, it seemed like there was no choice.

It seemed like, this was the only way to not only manage, but channel, the male energy.

Remember, testosterone say one of two things: fuck it, or kill it. Directed into a caring and embracing performance -is this the better and only way? (And obviously, at these early, early stages.)

We are inclined not to remember, the way it can be observed now, what we were like, what our real behavior and energy was, in the environment, toward others, to females, when we were so young, and even a long time after.

In fact, it struck me so profoundly when in my mid-twenties (and having integrated a great deal, if not most of the feminine) my family played the old Super8 films … and in every single one of them, my brother and I were play fighting. Every single one. If you'd have asked me before hand I would have said, no, we were not very “boyish.” But, we were.

Tim

Re: Integral Men

Tim:
I have to tell my older daughter how easily they can hurt his feelings -because that is what they do. They say things like “I don't like you” or the like and he starts crying because it leaves a very obvious wound, straight in the heart (and we know, I think, affective wounds take much longer to heal than physical ones). He on the other hand, it'a all physical and agentic. Picks up a toy and wields it in the air in a threatening manner. They scream, he enjoys this, and then if something is not done quickly enough -boom! -the toy flies across the room right at some poor females head.


This is such a basic dynamic and thanks for bringing it up Tim. While women are scared of male physical strength and the havoc that can wreak, us men are scared of being emotionally hurt by women. Usually we avoid facing this latter truth (both men and women do this), by claiming that women are more emotional and hence more sensitive to emotional wounds. But that is a totally flawed logic. Women have better emotional skills and can therefore deal with feelings of being hurt etc so much better, while men are often clueless about how to process emotions - and instead end up trying to suppress emotions. Physiopsychological research also shows that it takes twice as long for men as for women to get their stress hormones back to a normal level after a spousal argument.


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Gentlemen,

I related my tale with my father to show a freedom that is obtainable by relinquishment. I wrote about bondage in the “Patiently…in silence…”I Am Not”…waits” thread. “I Am Not” (bound too) the dysfunctional relationships of my past. In understanding the other half of the parent/child relationship (as a child), I was freed from the compulsion  to have to recreate that relationship as parent in order to fix what was broke. Understanding and compassion for my father and myself completed that relationship. I found out my father had died from my mother. Even though they were estranged, she was hysterical saying she did not want him to die. It was a shock but I did not cry (never have). My first thought was to how he died, if he was alone and scared (he was not alone). I then thought of how lucky he died, that he died as he wanted to live and so there was no reason to feel sorry for him. So, we have learned a few ways in which we relate from our early childhoods. Many of us carry this forward dysfunctionaly into all areas of our life.

parent/child
parent/parent
sibling/sibling

How can we live being freed from the past embracing the present
as the present? Now I am not saying that folks here that are parents
are living out the problems of your past but keep a vigilent eye out
for it!!

love

e

PS Rick, you have to *completely* realize that negative reinforcement does not work!
Our path thru suffering is thru harmony, thru joy, thru love, thru peace.

Re: Integral Men

There’s some fascinating stuff coming up here.

Tim, you say you wished your father had been harder on you to prepare you for “real life” better - but if he had you wouldn’t be the Tim you are now. The lessons you learned because of what he did and didn’t do made you into a compassionate person, able to relate to many different situations from both a masculine and a feminine aspect - I think everyone else on this thread will agree with me that that is one of the things that makes you stand out.

I find the sexual driver, the testosterone factor (book title?) very interesting; no doubt that is a very powerful one; however it is also a dysfuntional one in that it takes over all reason at times. Maybe trying to guide that drive into more “noble” avenues like you’re doing with your son (protecting his sisters) is the way to go, as long as it doesn’t get stuck there; when his development allows you should be there to challenge him to understand that there is more to life than being a protector - that obviously goes without saying, I’m just typing what I think right now…

Mr. TC posted a very interesting piece on the “wounded boys” thread, about the purpose of eduction being the flowering of consciousness, more than us trying to shape our children into what we want them to be - seems very appropriate here. For that to fully happen our children need to become familiar with both the masculine and the feminine aspect. Sounds to me that your dad, Tim did a pretty good job, maybe erring on the side of the feminine a little.

Frans

Re: Integral Men

Hi Frans,

Tim, you say you wished your father had been harder on you to prepare you for “real life” better - but if he had you wouldn’t be the Tim you are now. The lessons you learned because of what he did and didn’t do made you into a compassionate person, able to relate to many different situations from both a masculine and a feminine aspect - I think everyone else on this thread will agree with me that that is one of the things that makes you stand out.

First, thank you for the kind words. (blush)

Yes, I totally agree with you. In the end, we are given whatever we are given and we just do whatever we do with it. There is certainly no such thing as a perfect parent - nor a “perfect” child. (i.e speaking as one.)

Anyhow, upon further reflection I really shouldn't have used that word “hard” because it's not really what I meant, and even if the word does match, I used it with too many different definitions. It's more accurate ultimately to say agency -wither that is agency given or received. And ultimately, again, upon further reflection, all those “wishing he had done this, this and this” is actually the agency of different levels. And it is true that I only ever began to think this when I came to the point where I could see/be the different levels -chiefly, I think here, values. (perhaps the most influential parental line?)

My father ultimately exemplified amber agency. And when I said above I never felt more like a man then when I integrated my father that at least in two parts means 1.) his ultimate example was so contrary to so many other examples of “men” in my life -childhood, adulthood -and in common culture -that I suddenly understood how utterly powerful it was. 2.) I think it's just -that's my dad! And when I say amber agency I don't meant fundamentalist, or “ruler of the house” - I just mean, against all odds, he stayed ultimately committed to his family, his children, his wife and the ones he loved. Two incidents exemplified this. One, his own parents -particularly his father -did at one point eventually drive him to the verge of suicide. The story goes (before I was born) he actually stood on the side of a bridge (don't know if it was over the railing or not) and the world would just have been better if he jumped off; or, he might as well be better if he just jumped off. And at that moment of supreme desperation he suddenly found the strength to say, no. I can't do this. Why? We needed him. The second example is when my mother went through several years of psychosis, ultimately schizophrenia. The thing is that these are not time of great fun, they are not time that exemplify “freedom” and “being yourself” and “doing what you want to do” and anything happy at all - these were times are immense, real, awful, horrible human suffering. And he took them both on  - like a man.  He did not ultimately cower, he did not ultimately run, he did not ultimately say “poor ME” -he turned back from the side of that bridge and stood by in the absolute worst of times to be of service to the one's he loved and that needed and loved him. I can think of a hundred guys I have known in my life who never would have or could have done the same (and in some cases, didn't).

What he did not give me, however, is healthy values from orange and red. Those are mostly what I am talking about. There was no drive to achieve and “make something of your life,” progress -the same fiber glass window panels are on their side porch that he put there in 1973 - no achievement standards to live up to (academic, get into the Ivy League -these are just examples of what that might mean), sports -and I and all of my brothers we not so prepared to deal with the amount of red in the boy and man world. Strangely though, I thought my parents were democrats until only not too many years ago because one way or another our family seemed to be very green -as in gentle, inclusive, so on -and I think this came about because of simply the time periods, the cultural atmosphere, and that great freedom we were offered (outside of religion). But no, again, I said (didn't I?) I appreciated this, it wasn't really green (although my father does have orange cognition) it was just -another example of his agency -this vow never to be like his father was with him. And he did this so well, it was/is actually a shock to understand the reality of how his father was. (he died before I was born, BTW).

I find the sexual driver, the testosterone factor (book title?) very interesting; no doubt that is a very powerful one; however it is also a dysfuntional one in that it takes over all reason at times. Maybe trying to guide that drive into more “noble” avenues like you’re doing with your son (protecting his sisters) is the way to go, as long as it doesn’t get stuck there; when his development allows you should be there to challenge him to understand that there is more to life than being a protector - that obviously goes without saying, I’m just typing what I think right now…

I think you kind of work both with the level and then the next one above it. In many ways, I think parents have been doing this all along. (Or am I wrong about that. Eah, I think it's been a little of both.) So, right now, I'm attempting to lay some seeds of amber, while working with red.

Re: Integral Men

Pelle said: “Women have better emotional skills and can therefore deal with feelings of being hurt etc so much better, while men are often clueless about how to process emotions - and instead end up trying to suppress emotions.”

Yes, I think you're right about this. Women can talk out their emotions and have been doing it all their lives. Boys don't or aren't encouraged to do that and never develop those skills and habits. Have you discussed modalities in this thread? I've read as much as I could, but not all of it.

Re: Integral Men

Mike,

you say: “Outside of this forum, I have only met one or two other men that I know who I felt had a level of development high enough that I felt comfortable accepting their critiques of my ideas. ”

Same here, and I’m thinking for most of us that’s true. I wonder if that is caused mostly because I am at a higher level of development than most men out there, or if it is because I am more open to and sympathetic of the feminine approach. I want it to be the first, of course, but I think it’s the second.

I really got turned off from the masculine by example of the male role models I had - all trying to be sooo macho and good at their jobs, but so clearly (for me anyway, my sisters didn’t feel the same way as strongly as i do) miserable in everything else they did.

If we as a forum can balance ourselves a bit more because of the discussion we’re having we’ll be making a difference in our environments - leading to more love and to more logical and abstract beauty..tangible love and abstract love, feminine and masculine.

Frans

Re: Integral Men

In the wounding of boys thread, I talked about the dismissive attachment style that we normally think of as being typically male. From wikipedia:

People with a dismissive style of avoidant attachment tend to agree with these statements: “I am comfortable without close emotional relationships. It is very important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient, and I prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me.” People with this attachment style desire a high level of independence. The desire for independence often appears as an attempt to avoid attachment altogether. They view themselves as self-sufficient and invulnerable to feelings associated with being closely attached to others.

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

Re: Integral Men

I understand how you might want to prepare boys for the big, bad world out there, and teach them how to dissociate so that they can feel more comfortable in society. But by that logic, we should all stop trying to be integral because it makes it harder for us to get along in society. My opinion is that dissociation in men contributes to depression and anxiety disorders, and on balance, it's better to be healthy than to fit in perfectly.

I think there are ways to transcend pain without dissociating from it.

Who or what is this addressed to? Could you clarify?

Re: Integral Men

I'm enjoying the sharing about fathers that's been taking place here – relating your stories with my own life, and looking also at my role now as a father.

I mentioned that I had a number of men in my childhood who provided a bad example of male aggression and disconnectedness.  My father wasn't one of them.  He is a very gentle man, and I am grateful to him for many things.  My parents divorced when I was around 12 years old, though, so I lost a close, daily connection with him at a crucial, formative period in my life.  But while I lived with him, while I wouldn't say he was in touch with his feminine side – he was not very good at expressing his emotions, and got (touchingly, frustratingly) awkward when he was called to do so – he was nevertheless very kind to us kids, and had an idealistic approach to father-son relationships.  He wanted to give me all the things that he had experienced growing up in rural Missouri, or that he wished he'd been able to do (since his father died while he was still a child) – going on camping trips together, going fishing in lakes or oceans, participating in Indian Guides and Cub Scouts, taking me to his “garage workshop” to build me cool things (wooden rayguns, hovercraft, and cars), getting into “model rocketing” with me and then taking me out on weekends to launch our creations into the sky, taking me on helicopter rides, talking to me about the wonders of science and the universe (he loved astronomy), drawing me pictures of robots and heroes, making up long, creative stories for me at bedtime, etc.  Lots of wonderful gifts and experiences that I'm thankful for, and which I also want to offer to my son*.

His gentle, caring, encouraging approach to parenting inspires me (as does my mother's; she was very similar).  But of course parents also have their failings which mark us as well.  My father didn't know how to process or express powerful emotions well, as I said, and he ended up bottling a lot of anger – which would explode mostly when he was alone, working in the garage or out in the yard.  Something would go wrong and we'd hear shouting, slamming, cursing.  He wouldn't come in till he'd calmed down, which could be hours.  And he had a hard time expressing his opinion to people or saying no.  He acquiesced to others' wills too easily, as I came to feel he'd acquiesced also to his career – settling in to something he didn't feel called to do, not being able to really live out his dreams (and sometimes not even being able to contact or articulate them).

I absorbed these things and also had a hard time expressing or processing strong feelings; I also learned to bottle up my anger; I also (still) struggle with accessing and living out my dreams.  It negatively impacted me, losing a regular father figure when I was moving into a period which called for the guidance and example that only a father can give.  I believe I gained from this, too, though, because for several years I was the only male in the house and I naturally began to learn, and to “take on,” more feminine approaches and sentiments from my mother and sisters.  I do not regret this.  But I see, also, that something was missing in those formative years – a positive example of being a man in the world, a positive way to access will and power that did not veer off into the aggression, rigidity, and anger of other important males in my life (which my father, in his own repressed condition, would not have been able to clearly demonstrate, even if he were still there).  I've had to work these things out on my own.  And it's still a work in progress.

As I expect is the case with most of us, I did not know any male, growing up, that could be considered Integral.  Not even healthily Green (not until I was an adult).  The task I have, as a man and father now, is to try to honor and integrate the gifts of the Red, Amber, and Orange men of my childhood (and even the abusive, alcoholic males in my life also had gifts – valuable advice, generous gestures, positive traits – that they gave me) with the gifts of my more distant exemplars (writers, philosophical heroes, religious figures, compassionate healers), male and female; and of course, to simply continue this process of self-inquiry and integration on my own, in the rich soil of ancestral bodymind under the timeless sun of Spirit.

Best wishes,

Balder

* (My list of my father's gifts is mostly a list of concrete things he did, because this was how he expressed himself.  He loved to tell stories, and to do “bonding” sorts of activities, and to encourage me to ask questions and to wonder, but he seldom entered into conversations which involved deep emotions or even self-inquiry.  It just wasn't possible.)

Re: Integral Men

Thanks so much for sharing that Bruce.


I think it can be powerful for us as men to go deeply into our bodies. The “going into the body” itself is primarily a feminine practice, but what we find as men is very different from what women find; we find our own masculinity! Life is full of paradoxes, and it is fitting that this should be another one of them. I also believe we can find all the repressed rage of having dysfunctional fathers and smothering mothers, and direct that anger outwards instead of repressing it inwards. Liberating that anger also liberates our drive, agency, sexuality, etc - so in that sense our anger holds some of our greatest gifts.
My guess is that many integral men do not need anger management, we need to tune into and harness the power of our anger.


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Pelle: “My guess is that many integral men do not need anger management.”

This brings up something I've wanted to discuss for awhile. Ken talks about “little barbarians” being released at a certain stage, little disassociated parts of ourselves. Do you remember when he hit Treya in Grace and Grit? He was obviously integral and very compassionate and loving and yet, in a certain moment, he lost control. I doubt that he had that problem generally or earlier in his life, but maybe he did. I just wonder if at a certain stage it could get more difficult, as deep, primal, or repressed anger gets released. In my experience, I had to deal with more anger in my 30s than in my 20s as repressed anger–partly because of a very controlling father I'll throw in to keep with the theme–was released, so I wonder if actually it could get more difficult for some men as they progress through certain stages rather than less. I wonder if there could also be something like “soul anger,” anger that can't be explained by childhood stuff. There could also be anger from UR disturbances.

“We need to tune into and harness the power of our anger.”

A. H. Almaas talks about transforming anger here.   He says that “anger can turn into strength by merely staying with the energetic aspect of the emotional state without acting out.”

Re: Integral Men

David,

You wrote:  “A. H. Almaas talks about transforming anger here.   He says that 'anger can turn into strength by merely staying with the energetic aspect of the emotional state without acting out.'”

I was talking about this thread in my Diamond Approach session today and we discussed that teaching exactly – how staying with anger in earlier sessions (almost two years ago) had allowed me to touch Red Essence (strength) in a deeper way.  Today I believe I'm discovering Red Essence at much subtler levels, and sometimes I am still surprised when I realize that a particular (usually subtle, centered, clear) experience is also an expression of the Red latifa.  Essential strength has a very different energetic quality from egocentric strength.

Connecting this to some earlier comments by Pelle, Rick, and others:

When I was a young man, in my twenties, coming out of depression and a period of burning rage in high school, I wrestled for a time with unexpected eruptions of anger.  I had forced myself to suppress many strong emotions during several crises, and then all that energy leaked out whenever it found a crack – often when I was frustrated about something, or when I was physically hurt, or sometimes when someone unexpectedly confronted me.  Anger would leap out in a flash, create a storm, and then it would subside back into the bottle.  I think the suppression I engaged in in high school was helpful, even if ultimately unskillful.  It helped me navigate some very rough waters and not take myself out or someone else out.  But when I set foot on a spiritual path, this bottled anger (the eruptions which would catch me off guard) really emerged for me again as an issue.  For a number of years, I approached it with mindfulness – with Krishnamurti inquiry, vipassana, and even later with certain tantric practices.  It took several years, but I began to reorient towards my anger – not to stuff it in in the same way, and to be more mindful of its arising when it did emerge (so I could be with it, instead of suppressing or unconsciously expressing it).

I believe these practices all helped, and have made life easier, but now the Diamond Approach is allowing me to go deeper.  As I said above, I think this is because of the way it skillfully balances masculine and feminine ways of working with this material.  I believe vipassana and other forms of meditation have prepared me for the work that the Diamond Approach is now calling for.  I am not saying that Diamond Approach is deeper than these other approaches (it is hard for me to imagine more powerful meditation methods than those I've worked with in Dzogchen), but it appears to be quite useful for me at this stage of my work (where I'm returning more to shadow, after working on developing mindfulness and understanding and experiencing emptiness).

I'm not quite at a “stopping point” here, but my son is having a minor crisis downstairs.  Gotta run!

Warm wishes,

Bruce 

Re: Integral Men

Tim: “Remember, testosterone say one of two things: fuck it, or kill it. Directed into a caring and embracing performance -is this the better and only way? (And obviously, at these early, early stages.)”

Yeah, I hear what your saying, and there are some interesting fossil finds of early hominids that bare some of this out, but the testosterone bit is going too far. I know that KW said this, but he was apparently unaware on the latest research on the biochemical reactions that testosterone has upon the nervous system. How it affects behavior, is that it decreases the refractory period and increases re-uptake between the amygdyla, which is an area in the hypothalamus that is responsible for fear, anger, nervousness, and aggression, and the rest of the hypothalamus and brain. This doesn't increase aggression or anger, it just allows men to sustain these feelings longer than a woman. So a woman can get just as angery and be just as aggressive as a man, they just can't be it as long without requiring rest. The same for muscular strength. Even if a woman has the same muscle mass by weight as a man, the man will still be stronger because of this effect by testosterone, but this time on muscle tissue.
Allowing the possibility for something doesn't guarantee it, and this is where socialization and cultural conditioning comes in. There have been so many studies about this, but my favorite is one involving hyena's raised in captivity in California. In the wild, male hyenas have almost double the amount of testosterone in their blood as females and they run things. In captivity, the females were raised to be more aggressive and they doubled their testosterone levels and controlled the male animals.
The human species is one of the most phenotypically plastic animals on earth, so there's a great deal of variability within the very small amount of genetic variation in our species.

Re: Integral Men

Pelle: “Physiopsychological research also shows that it takes twice as long for men as for women to get their stress hormones back to a normal level after a spousal argument.”

This is very interesting. Why is it then that a woman hand hold a grudge for years about something, and have that anger just get set off randomly by external stimuli. After an argument with my wife, I'm past it and over it almost as soon as it's done. Sometimes I even start to laugh when I realize the ridiculousness of some of our arguments, while we're arguing, but she can stay mad for much longer. She's not nearly as bad as most of the women I've dated in my life though, as she gets over most things pretty quick.
So what's going on with that then?

Re: Integral Men

All of these studies, the testosterone, this one, etc. I can't help but wonder about levels and general stages of development. Don't we learn increasingly complex ways to “handle” these types of things? Indeed, don't we even in a general sense speak of maturity and immaturity? Her reaction was immature, etc.

So male or female, it's probably true that a red individual is going to stay mad for much longer than an amber or orange one, or something to that effect. Right? The same with the testosterone.

If I give my toddlers a cup of very strong coffee … I don't know, the physiological effects may be the same (adjusted for weight, etc.) but are the results going to be?

Interesting, Again, must look at all four quads. etc.

Re: Integral Men

Exactly, there are so many variables involved, so the old understandings of hormonal causation are well… old.
As far as your kids go, their metabolisms are much faster than an adults, so the same chemicals that affect you one way, affect them differently. You can give them a cup of coffee and get back to us. Remember that ridalin is an adult stimulant that calms children down.

See if you can find an excellent artile titled, “Devil Testosterone,” somewhere. It was originally in an academic journal, but it might be online somewhere. It was written by an endochronologist that wanted to clear up a lot of misconceptions about the hormone.

Re: Integral Men

Rick, the very research you quote is supportive of what I said about men staying angry/stressed for a longer period of time after and argument. You said about testosterone:

How it affects behavior, is that it decreases the refractory period and increases re-uptake between the amygdyla, which is an area in the hypothalamus that is responsible for fear, anger, nervousness, and aggression, and the rest of the hypothalamus and brain. This doesn't increase aggression or anger, it just allows men to sustain these feelings longer than a woman.

This kind of proves what I said above :)


I totally agree about the plasticity of the human phenotype, that is one paradigm that will need to shift within biology.


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Allowing the possibility for something doesn't guarantee it, and this is where socialization and cultural conditioning comes in. There have been so many studies about this, but my favorite is one involving hyena's raised in captivity in California. In the wild, male hyenas have almost double the amount of testosterone in their blood as females and they run things. In captivity, the females were raised to be more aggressive and they doubled their testosterone levels and controlled the male animals.
The human species is one of the most phenotypically plastic animals on earth, so there's a great deal of variability within the very small amount of genetic variation in our species.

I missed this post above last night.

Yes, this is awesome. It absolutely demonstrates the collective quads, culture and environment on the individual, and in these cases, even the physiology.

It's one of those things. As I mentioned a few things about my Dad and my environment above -what would have been different if there had been more 'testosterone' in my family? - or better, to take away the nature/nurture dynamic - I was adoped from birth into a differnt household entirely, where, strength, dominance and competition were the daily norm?

Also, back to my son, to me, i think it's clear he needs more male interaction (four sisters) to balance some things out … in fact, … I  .. feel that  … too … ohmygod! there are just too many damn girls in this house!!!!!

No wonder my amygdyla is always gone half-crazy!!!




:-[



Tim

Re: Integral Men

In the spirit of nekkidness, I want to say I'm feeling kinda nekkid on this thread.  I've been trying to push into more personal territory, and most of the discussion is staying on the level of theory.  Now I wish I had an edit function.

Re: Integral Men

Now, now, what are you talking about Bruce? This is just pure self consciousness -and indeed, I know and understand what you are feeling. Both at the initial idea of this thread and then a few times throughout there is something of this wave of embarassment about the whole matter that comes over. That's what you're feeling.

Why? I think most of the main reasons have all been laid out so far on this thread. men can't express themselves or aren't allowed to, we've been beaten down into clumbsy, stupid oafs just for virtue of the fact that we are men, postmodernism has brutalized us and, gosh darn it, there ya go - you start wishing you had an edit function! No, no, I didn't say that. Erm hrrm, hey, how 'bout them Bears! (Although maybe the latest empirical study on something is our Bears team here.)

:-)

Honestly though, I feel as if I've not yet begun to address this discussion in the way I've been wanting to. I have responses on the burner going all the way back to your first one or two posts. Thus far the factor has been time.

But please don't feel you're the only one who's laid some personal naked things on the line here! - I cried last night posting about my father. And other have posted very personal things too.

Actually, you know what, going all the way back to your second or third post -regarding cultural images -

have you seen Mel Gibson's Apocalypto?

Tim

Re: Integral Men

Yes, you're right, Tim.  It is.  After I wrote my post, but before I hit submit, I realized that that was what it was.  I sat there with it for a second, debating whether to delete that comment while I still had the time.  Then, thinking that if I put it out there, as an expression of my feeling of exposure and vulnerability, it might at least work as a spur to another level of expression here, I decided to go ahead and hit submit.

What I didn't see, clearly, though, was that I was living out the dynamic we've been discussing.  I was thinking I was allowing for a more feminine expression with that admission of feeling naked, but you're right.  I was acting out my script:  “We're not supposed to talk like this, or hang out here exposed.  I wish I could erase this.”

I do recognize that I'm not the only person who has shared personal material, but I still feel that we've largely been playing it safe so far.  And I'm asking for us to push a little farther.

(I'm also curious why the Integral Women thread has gone relatively quiet so soon.)

Love,

B.

P.S.  I did see Apocalypto, just recently.  Why do you ask?

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Warning - this post on Apocalypto contains spoilers!

Okay, here we go - not quite enough time to say everything that I want to.

I think he offers -both intentionally and “symptomatically”-something very powerful about where we are finding ourselves here today, in this discussion, but in his apparent sensitivities to all of these discussions at this point in our collevtive history. In a number of ways this movie is a jolt out of postmodernity and Boomeritis, for men and women, but I do think especially for men. At least that is how I saw it. (and the central character is a man, as well as the director.)

In brief, this character, this young man, has been taken away from his home and everything he knows. Indeed he has been taken for his own human sacrifice. Barely escaping that, they decide to let him go but not really because now they'll just have fun wounding and killing him as they mockingly allow him to run.

Wounded, beaten, chased, tormented he is running and running and running scared for most of the entire time, indeed, for most of the story and for most of the movie.

At the last minute, just when he has maybe started to regain his identity and strength, he trips himself up and is simply swallowed up into the mud, into the earth, into the quicksand. This would be the worst death of all. Due to his own clumsiness, fear and complete loss of agency, swallowed up into the earth, silently never to be heard from again.

And somehow, somehow, he manages, still not dead yet, to pull himself back out …

and then he rediscovers his agency.

He is on his own home turf, he once again recognizes his own identity, his blood, his heritage, the future of his off-spring or those that will follow him, his very place, perhaps, in time, space, the world and evolution. “I am Jaguar Paw. I am a hunter and this is my forest. My father hunted this forest before me and so will my son after I am gone …”

And then,  - bad guys beware.

He becomes for the first time the agentic hero that it has been his birthright from the beginning to be.

And more than that, what does he do it for? Himself? No, his wife, his family, his just at that moment being born baby -who have as well been stuck down into the earth, not swallowed, but about completely and finally drown.

There is so much metaphor in this movie and I think it speaks to all of us as evolution and consciousness struggle to move forward at this time in history.

At the very least, I'm a man - and I like this type of action movie. Did you? But this is no ordinary type of agentic action movie. There is just so much more there while it is the revisiting not only of an archetypal image, and the magical and distant past, he utterly reinterprets what those mean and have meant for us today. (And, he is much closer to the actual reality.)  

Indeed, at the end, he is walking with his child strapped to his chest. (I see plenty of metaphor -and real-time reality -for women in this movie as well, but that's not immediately relevant to this moment of discussion. The diseased outcast girl who prophecies the future, the unbearably strong oldest daughter who tells her mother the children are hers now and she will take care of them. Even the archetypal “mother-in-law” and her relationship with her somewhat bumbling son-in-law, at the moment of death it is “I love you” and “I need you” and he knows this too, even while, because she is too old she is seen as of no more use to anyone.)

Your first post -or which ever the one was where you mentioned cultural images -indeed, even your and my (and perhaps all of our) embarrassment, just drove it home to me further.

The archetypal wise father in this movie, both before and on the very moment before his death (by slaughter) says

You must never be afraid my son.

It is this father's wisdom that must here embrace.

We as men need to pull ourselves up out of the mud. I think it is clear that we have been taken away from our home and our familiar surroundings, everything that we have known, and all of this not for good reason, but both metaphorically and in reality, to the alter of human sacrifice.

Somehow, with the right amount of courage,  gentleness and care ( not just for ourselves, but for both and all genders) -we have got to rediscover our identity, and reclaim what is left of our heritage. And when the story is over, all that we can do is head off into the forest, and try to make a new beginning.


So, that's kind of sort of  more or less what I wanted to say.

What did you or anyone else think?

And for whatever it’s worth, I cry whenever I think about this central aspect that meant something to me about this story and this movie.

Re: Integral Men

Thank you for that, Tim.  I agree – that was a powerful, and pivotal, scene in the movie, when he emerges from the mud, as if reborn, and discovers at once his identity and his agency.  I'll say more tomorrow.

Tonight, I just wanted to tell you that something interesting happened after I wrote my last post to you.  I went this evening to my Diamond Approach book study, and found only two other men had showed up.  The group usually has about 10 people, all women except for us three men, and none of the women showed up.  So we had a “men's group” meeting instead – doing group process work rather than discussing the book.  And I certainly got the depth and vulnerability I had just been asking for on this thread.  Everyone was able to go pretty deep, pretty quickly…each in our own ways, but each entering strikingly similar territory, dealing with similar wounds.  It was very moving.  After the meeting, I felt shaken and washed…like a tree that has been rained through.  I still do.

Warm wishes,

B.

Re: Integral Men

I didn't read your whole post Tim, does it contain spoilers? If so then please put that at the beginning of the post!


Bruce, about the personal sharing… I've very much appreciated your sharing, and I've tried to share some of my own stuff (not rarely I will write personal stuff in a more impersonal way, probably because this forum is so public, damn we really need a members only board that isn't visible to others). I'll keep on sharing as things come up, at the same time I do miss the presence of Lol, Ewan and Melv (the Brits) as well as a stronger presence from Colin.


Yesterday and today I've been participating in parts of a tango marathon, as well as taught a workshop there. And what actually came up for me was this huge compassion for women. They are constantly looking for approval and attention from men. Some women get more than they need, and those are the ones in danger of becoming obnoxious. But so many women struggle to fulfill their role of being beautiful and pleasing, and even though they try their best it doesn't always work and that's deeply shaming to them (to be honest it doesn't work all the time for any woman, so everyone is shamed every now and then).
Normally I would only hang out with the “cool crowd” in an event such as this one, but for a change I just hung out with whoever seemed nice (I'm feeling more grounded lately and don't give much of a fuck about what others think of me). I ended up talking to a couple of very nice women who I never would have given the time of day if it was “business as usual”.
I've always felt that women have this tremendous power to reject men, and I still believe they do, but now I could clearly see for the first time how women indirectly feel rejected by men.

I know this is the Integral Men thread, but I feel that authentic (as opposed to green nice boy) male compassion for the female struggle belongs here too, just as the women have acknowledged some of the struggles of men in their thread.


peace
Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Wow, great discussion of Apocalypto, Tim and Bruce. I haven't seen the movie; now it's in my Netflix queue. I'll have to get over my slight bias against Mel. It'll do me good. 8)

Earlier, Bruce wrote: I was talking about this thread in my Diamond Approach session today and we discussed that teaching exactly - how staying with anger in earlier sessions (almost two years ago) had allowed me to touch Red Essence (strength) in a deeper way.  Today I believe I'm discovering Red Essence at much subtler levels, and sometimes I am still surprised when I realize that a particular (usually subtle, centered, clear) experience is also an expression of the Red latifa.  Essential strength has a very different energetic quality from egocentric strength.

Hmm. This really rang an internal bell for me. Red Essence. As a recently emergent man, and a stigmatized Other, I need some healing work in this area. I've touched anger through therapy several times over the years, yet I've never gone deeply into exploring Red essential strength. And I need to. I think my current lack of a strong agency (felt internally, mostly) is indicative of this need. I could elaborate, I'm just short on time right now. Yard work is calling!

On a tangent: I'm reading (1 of 3 books) Joe Perez's Soulfully Gay right now. In it, he discusses experiences of engaging in healing work in mens groups. I am seeing the power of this. There's a group in Portland called Menspirit that explicitly invites transmen, so I'm starting to see some synchronicity in that multiple threads in my life are leading me towards this type of face to face work. I appreciate this virtual space as well.

Re: Integral Men

Colin, what's your slight bias against Mel?

I certaily don't intend to praise him on all fronts as a person -in fact don't know much about him, really, and have hardly seen everything he's ever done. Like, I'm sure, many here I was not fond of his ultimate treatment of Christ in The Passion, but even at that he really reamins an extraordinary film-maker IMHO.

Example -and this is speaking as a dramatic artist/producer, etc. -he has turned out two foreign language films now as an American. The use of arameic in Passion and the use of native . . something or other . . in this one. This is an extraordinary feat as a director and for the actors and I think of cinematic work in general. If I am not mistaken, these are both languages that nobody even speaks anymore. That's a long way and a lot of work to go for the sake of an hour and half movie. Yeah?

I could praise other things (and could demonstrate how even his dramatic abilities went back to amber, so sub-standard orange -in Passion), he obviously works way outside the pack now - but I'm already going way the ass off topic. :-) :-(

Anyway, just curious.

Peace, Tim

Re: Integral Men

Apparently the yard work is less appealing than all the activity in this pod! Soon, grasshopper, soon…

Thanks for sharing your recent experiences in the tango world, Pelle. Good stuff.

Pelle wrote: I've always felt that women have this tremendous power to reject men, and I still believe they do, but now I could clearly see for the first time how women indirectly feel rejected by men.

Speaking in generalizations:
So much is brought forth in my mind from this comment. In my experience of witnessing women in the world, it is a definite majority of women that feel very little power over men while simultaneously feeling rejected by them. It is only the “top tier” in terms of beauty that get lavished with attention, and, again, from what I've heard, this lavishing of attention often comes off as obnoxious to those top tier beauties, especially since the attention often comes from nearly every male they encounter (even if it's “just” ogling).

Most women are simply ignored by most men: “I better not look at her because she might think I'm attracted.” Now this can be true in reverse as well (women ignoring unattractive men); however, given women's more communion-oriented nature, they are more likely to talk to a wide range of men because they aren't as likely to engage in communication for the sole purpose of sexual partnering. OTOH, I've seen even the most unattractive men reject slightly unattractive women.

I think it's closer to truth to acknowledge that most people are rejected by most of the members of the sex that they're attracted to. Rejected via a simple lack of  recognition (which could mean just basic eye contact.). This could be seen as “indirect”; however, on the subtle level, it is quite direct and harmful. Try imaging the 1-p of a person who no one will look at directly (even though there is subtle-level interaction occuring), and you will feel a deeper awareness of alone.

That was just one perspective I have of the situation, and time is getting away from me. Gotta run!

Re: Integral Men

Colin:
I think it's closer to truth to acknowledge that most people are rejected by most of the members of the sex that they're attracted to.

I agree with this. The distinction I was trying to make is that men more often get actively rejected, in that men are much more expected to approach a woman in a party/bar etc. But women feel rejected if no man talks to them. The same dynamic is present in tango; men are expected to ask the women which means risking active rejection, whereas women feel ashamed if no man or very few men ask her to dance.

Pelle


(Tim, I put a spoiler warning in your post above, according to your instructions, and then deleted your post that put the spoiler warning too far down in the thread)

Re: Integral Men

Tim:

“Warning - my post on Apocalypto contains spoilers!”

I figured as much, which is why I didn’t read your posts - will likely rent the movie soon.

Frans

Re: Integral Men

Colin, Pelle,

“Rejected via a simple lack of recognition (which could mean just basic eye contact.)”

One of the most powerful acts of respect and kindness in my mind is to give your full attention to whomever you come in contact with, while you’re interacting. This can be as simple as looking a stranger in the eye and smiling while passing them on a street, actually showing in interest in and giving a real answer to the question “how are you” to the waiter/waitress who is helping you or the friend of a friend who gets introduced. I find it hardly ever gets interpreted as sexual, if you do so with an open mind.

The most interesting outcome of this practice (to me) is the fact that i realized very soon that everyone is beautiful, it doesn’t matter who - the old guy in the store, the “unattractive” woman, the strange cousin - everyone when you really look at them is beautiful.

Frans

Re: Integral Men

Bruce: “I do recognize that I'm not the only person who has shared personal material, but I still feel that we've largely been playing it safe so far.  And I'm asking for us to push a little farther.”

Why? Should push the level of personal shit another level just to see if we can do it, or to compete with the woman's thread? I personally don't need all the details. So what's wrong with the way this is going so far?

“(I'm also curious why the Integral Women thread has gone relatively quiet so soon.)”

Why? Don't you know a woman wants most what she can't have, and now that they've got free reign over a thread the thrill is gone. (cymble crash)

Re: Integral Men

Holden:  “Why? Should push the level of personal shit another level just to see if we can do it, or to compete with the woman's thread? I personally don't need all the details. So what's wrong with the way this is going so far?”

I do not regard my personal life as shit.  There's shit in there, for sure, and some of the patterns that keep repeating don't have life in them anymore.  But regarding personal material as “shit” and therefore not worth dealing with or talking about together is part of our problem as males, in my opinion.

However, if you can't see any reason to do it, Rick, besides showing off or competing, then no, I would not recommend doing it.

I think great stuff has been coming forward on this thread, and I also think there's room for all sorts of material here – abstract and theoretical as well as personal and anecdotal – so I am not saying we should stop sharing the more impersonal and theoretical stuff.  It has a place.  I was just calling my brothers here to go deeper together, which will include actually taking a more feminine approach in some areas – that is, if we're interested in what it means to be an “integral” male.

However, this just may not be the place for it.  It is a public place, so it's a fine line to walk. 

Best wishes,

Bruce

Re: Integral Men

It is a fine line to walk, but I for one want to keep walking it.
There are many ways to share personal stuff, and I feel it's easier to share emotions and thoughts  than describing my upbringing and such in detail. In a smaller, more private group I would do the latter more, but so far I feel there are limits to how much I will share in an open forum. For others it might be the other way around…

Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Colin:
I think it's closer to truth to acknowledge that most people are rejected by most of the members of the sex that they're attracted to.

Pelle: I agree with this. The distinction I was trying to make is that men more often get actively rejected, in that men are much more expected to approach a woman in a party/bar etc.

It kind of depends on what you look like. A good looking guy with a nice body, or a good job doesn't deal with much rejection. Women's sexual cues aren't really any more subtle than ours are, and if you've got some charm, and some balls to say what your thinking with confidence, then they almost always respond with equal flirting.
It wasn't until I was about 25 that I finally figured all this out.
You don't have to be nice to get a chick, you have to be real.

In Japan if a chick sleeps with you right away, she often thinks of you as a playboy or someone she has for fun for a while, but you'll never be put in a boyfriend category. Basically, the guy becomes a male slut. This started to happen to me, and you might be thinking that I'm a lucky guy or bragging, but it is actually rather shitty. It is shitty to be put in a category and pushed aside for doing nothing wrong. After a while, I get really tired of it and I really just wanted a relationship. So, when I met a chick that I liked I would make sure I wouldn't sleep with them on the first few dates, so I wouldn't be put in the “playboy,” box.
What pissed me off, is that I never did that to women here!
So in a different culture, I began to follow the same basic western chick dating rules, and I began to see why women act the way they do. When the roles were reversed, I began to act the same way!
So I really wonder how much of this shit has any inherent basis.

Re: Integral Men

My Brothers,

The personal sharing here has been very moving for me.  I intend to share with you later today, when I can devote the time and focus to it that it deserves.


Ewan

Re: Integral Men

Bruce: “I do not regard my personal life as shit.  There's shit in there, for sure, and some of the patterns that keep repeating don't have life in them anymore.  But regarding personal material as “shit” and therefore not worth dealing with or talking about together is part of our problem as males, in my opinion.”

That's valid and Pelle's response also has as much merit as anything else expressed in this thread. My only concern is that the line isn't really in sharing, but in the way, process and results of sharing. It is often difficult in sharing painful aspects of one's past and not have feelings of self pity or other feelings arise. So the line is to relate and the share not just for the sake of sharing in and of itself, but with some wisdom behind the sharing.
We need to, at the same time, acknowledge that we are the sum total of our pasts, and not the sum total of anything in any real sense.
It was expressed in another post that feelings like love are real, and that to deny this is to deny our humanity. But this I think is to confuse the relative and conventional with the absolute Reality of our existence.
So if I were to show you an old picture of yourself and ask you if it was you, any conventional linguistic answer would instantly run into paradox. It isn't you of course, because it looks nothing like you, it was something that you once were. But, if it isn't you, then who is it?
This is the ungraspable reality of our existence, and I think that it is often too easy to get lost in semantic musings about “us” and the “us” that experienced things in the past.
I personally had a very painful past. I really used to hate myself, and I put myself in impossibly dangerous situations with very dangerous people, because I didn't care about what happened to me. I think that deep down inside, I was trying to commit suicide, but I didn't want to do it the chickenshit way, but to go out in a blaze of fire. Everytime that I came out of a situation unharmed physically, I gained another psychic scar, and I have to deal with that.

Till this day sometimes an old memory will surface and I'll get a chill over my body and I'll feel like vomiting, and I just put it out of my head again. I don't think that repression is the way to go, but I don't think that reifying an “I” with a solid past is the way to go either. I think that to gain a more Realistic understanding of the nature of existence and the nature of my past experiences is a much more pragmatic way to go.

Re: Integral Men

Hi, Rick,

Thanks.  I think you've pointed to something important.  When I spoke about the “fine line,” I was referring to a line between being authentic and open here, and willing on some level to be self-disclosing and to dive deep, and on the other hand, respecting the fact that this is a public forum and we may not want to say certain things in this context that we might be willing to share in a more private setting.  But there are other “lines” as well – the line between exploring the experiences and the patterns which have helped to shape (and limit) our current self-world-sense, and reifying those patterns in a way that leads, not to insight or freedom, but to further self-contraction or self-inflation. 

In other words, can we explore our histories in a way which is authentic, and which allows us to explore “what is really here” for us, and yet also remain aware that, in an important sense, what we are exploring is also not-self – that we are dealing with memories and imprints and conditionings, to a large extent?  If we leave our personal “stuff” out of the picture, pushing these things aside when they intrude on us, then they may actually remain “self” for us, in Kegan's sense:  they will help determine the unconscious horizons of our experience and the patterns of our interactions.  If we bring them forward, together or privately, then they can begin to become “object” for us and they will be less likely to determine the scope and tenor of our subjective experience.

Just speaking about reification:  I actually have some reservations about reifying “masculine” and “feminine” or “male” and “female” too.  I've mentioned the Diamond Approach in several threads, and I don't mean to beat that drum too loudly; it's just one of the “windows” I'm looking through right now.  But in that approach, masculine and feminine are not considered to be essential characteristics in themselves.  Masculine and feminine both are patterns in and of essence (buddhanature), and on a relative (intermediate) level can be seen as different configurations of what Diamond Approach calls essential qualities, or what Buddhism might call the “buddha families.”  All human beings share these qualities of essence, in different measure and proportion; as all beings share the involutionary “modes” of eros and agape. 

This is not to say that masculine and feminine are useless or inaccurate discriminations to make when discussing our embodiment and our modes of expression; but we should recognize that they, too, are not-self.

Warm wishes,

Balder

Re: Integral Men

I think we’re all sharing to the level we’re comfortable with, and reacting to other’s sharing - maybe in a sometimes less than elegant and kneejerk manner; but I feel that it’s real, it comes from who we really are. Personally I think that’s fine - any reaction means something has changed for you, something in another’s sharing is acting as a catalyst and if that comes out as (perceived) criticism it just means other participants are given the opportunity to look at why they perceive it as such.

I also think that all the sharing here is enabling others to go deeper and share more personal experiences, past and present, which is great. Yes, it can be a fine line (if you want it to be) but I’m with Pelle - this is the way to go, brothers!

Frans

Re: Integral Men

Again, I'm in total agreement with both you Bruce and Frans here. This thread was a good idea, thanx Bruce. It seems that we really are of one mind with these issues, and the rest are just details to be hashed out.

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Would any of you be interested in continuing this discussion, or a similar one, in a private pod?  Someone emailed me with that suggestion, so I'm passing it on here.

Re: Integral Men

Yes.

yer pal.
“someone”

Re: Integral Men

Hi Bruce

Yes, great idea - lets do it. 

I find it a good practise to try and show up on this pod as authentically as I can, but there are limits when its public.  A private pod for us men to delve into ourselves and eachother sounds like just what I/we neeed.  Should really focus some energy too.


EWan

Re: Integral Men

I'm in too. Do you want to set the pod up Michael? Make sure you make it private and invite-only.
We should limit the number of members as well. 10?

Pelle

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It exists!

www.pods.zaadz.com/integralmen

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Hola Ewan

Are you the pod cultivator? – and if so would you PM me an invitation to join?

And if you set it up, Michael, would you do the same?

Big love,

Lol

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Yeah, Ewan, stop being such a tease and send us the invites already ;)

Pelle

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Yeah, along with “someone,” Lol, and Pelle, I'm willing to do it too – so, Ewan, if you set up that pod, my hand is raised.  :-D

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I tried to invite you all when I set it up, but the invite function is offline remember?  I thought you'd be able to just apply yourselves, but I guess not.

I've temporarilly made it public so you can join yourselves…then we'll slam the doors shut - keep out the riff raff. ;)


Ewan

Re: Integral Men

I'm in now.

If you make everyone who joins a mod, we can all help in throwing strangers out. It a good idea anyhow, that everyone in a group such as this one is a mod.


Pelle

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Yeah, I was thinking the same thing…you and Peter now have the power!!!

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I’m in too! Not so much for the privacy as for the fact that I get to be a Moderator - Yeehaa I’m someone………….You can call me Frans the Mod…….

Now we can get elitist too - limit it to 10?

Frabs the Mod

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Less of that cheek young man or you'll be demoted ;)

Limiting it sounds good…

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Thanks for creating that new pod, Ewan. I didn't contribute to this thread much, precisely because all I wanted to say was too personal for an open forum, either for myself or for people close to me.

Already feeling more manly because of the mod powers! :)

Peter

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“Less of that cheek young man or you’ll be demoted”

You sound like my dad - sigh…

f

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Yes, I'd like to be in it. Sorry, women!

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cool, I'll bring the virtual cigars, scotch and hookers.

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Jaysus!!!

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That's cool just let us know before you call him over Michael. You know, so we can stash the scotch and hookers… ;^P

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Well, damn, it's about time.  I've never had a cigar, a scotch, or a hooker.  I guess now is as good a time as any.

Honestly, what right have I aspiring to be integral if I haven't yet integrated those archetypal Red Male experiences?

Re: Integral Men

I invited four Jesuits to my bachelor party just before my first wedding. None of them showed up, but they might as well have been there in spirit. That first marriage was to a former student of Genpo's who, when we came across a bumper sticker which read, “Real Men Love Jesus”, she, without missing a beat said, “Real men are Jesus”.

j

Re: Integral Men

“Real men are Jesus”.

You mean - you didn’t measure up..?

Rick, bring on the cigars, the hookers and the scotch. I’ll bring some Belgian Trappist tripel beer - best beer in the world and spiritual, as it’s brewed by monks in the name of Jaysus!!!

Frans

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I might have come alot closer to measuring up if her standard were, ” Real men are Joseph”. 

j

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Hi J,

Amen to that!

f

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Balder:
Well, damn, it's about time.  I've never had a cigar, a scotch, or a hooker.  I guess now is as good a time as any.

Honestly, what right have I aspiring to be integral if I haven't yet integrated those archetypal Red Male experiences?


Then I suggest that you don't do more than two of the above simultaneously lest you blow a spiritual o-ring. And also because it is considered a faux pas to spill the scotch or burn yourself with the cigar. You can burn the hooker but only if she asks you to or she is not performing correctly. Even Red Males have a proper etiquette.

love

e

Re: Integral Men

The new integral men pod is now closed. If more people want to join, then simply start a new group! The point of these groups are that they should be small, so there is no reason why there can’t be more than one. Feel free to use this thread if you want to announce the creation of a second group.

Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Balder:
Well, damn, it's about time.  I've never had a cigar, a scotch, or a hooker.  I guess now is as good a time as any.

Honestly, what right have I aspiring to be integral if I haven't yet integrated those archetypal Red Male experiences?


Well then take it from a man that has fully explored most of the experiences to be had by a man in this world, these 2 in particular are not what they are cracked up to be.
Especially the hooker. I think that in order to really enjoy paying a woman, you have to have 2 things. First, you have to have a lot of money. And second, you have to be a really selfish lover.
You have to really not care about the feelings of the other person, and I don't think that the guys here could do that. The whole experience is void of all the things that make sex great: the kissing, foreplay, anticipation, the two-way human connection, all not there.
You know as much as ya'll call me out for being too masculine, I'm like a chick when it comes to those things.

Re: Integral Men

Rick:
You have to really not care about the feelings of the other person, and I don't think that the guys here could do that. The whole experience is void of all the things that make sex great: the kissing, foreplay, anticipation, the two-way human connection, all not there.
You know as much as ya'll call me out for being too masculine, I'm like a chick when it comes to those things.

Great sharing Rick. I don't think you're a chick, I simply think that you're deeply connected to your humanness when having sex. When we men open up to life and emotions we want these things too. Maybe not in the exact same way as women, but definitely not like stereotypical amber men.


pelle

Re: Integral Men

BTW I've never understood why I should have to pay for sex (as in getting a hooker). I feel that if anything, she should be paying me 

Re: Integral Men

exactly

Re: Integral Men

I was watching one of my favorite shows and thought that it was a perfect, artistic commentary for this thread. It is the FX show, Rescue Me,  with Denis Leary. The show is in it's 3rd season and is about the lives of a groups of firefighters in a New York firehouse post 911.
The basic gist is an in your face of the double-edge sword of what it is to be a man here. It is really a perfect metaphor, because these really tough guys job is to rescue people all day with little regard for their own welfare, yet we see that they themselves need rescuing, but they are alone and there's no one coming for them.
Every American man should watch this show.  Rent it if you haven't seen it.

Oh, and I just wanted to point out that we are kicking the shit out of the female thread. We started after they did, and we're like 25 posts up on them. Female sharing and dialouge my ass. ;^O.

Re: Integral Men

Rick:
The basic gist is an in your face of the double-edge sword of what it is to be a man here. It is really a perfect metaphor, because these really tough guys job is to rescue people all day with little regard for their own welfare, yet we see that they themselves need rescuing, but they are alone and there's no one coming for them.

Yep Rick, it's a great example of what we've been talking about.

We train men to disconnect from their emotions and to be prepared to give their lives for society - in a violent way if needed. When men then proceed to perform their function (firefighters, etc)  we take them for granted 99% of the time. But when male training translates into random violence or rape then the papers are outraged and men depicted as horrible human beings.

Society can't have it both ways, and that's what we all have to get at a deep level.

We have to trust that even if men are allowed to be emotionally whole beings that respect their own wishes and feelings, they/we will still want to be guided by a higher purpose in our lives, a purpose that will benefit society as a whole.


peace
Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Rick: ”Oh, and I just wanted to point out that we are kicking the shit out of the female thread. We started after they did, and we're like 25 posts up on them. Female sharing and dialouge my ass. ;^O.”

Rick, you clearly haven't been following the Integral Women thread this week.

And something comes to mind about quality rather than quantity. Women have been writing and sharing deeply, powerfully and cogently these last few days. And it's not a competition in any case.

And I've got to say I've been finding some of the content on this thread rather ugly of late.

Lol

Edit: I thought this post had got lost in cyber space, so I re-wrote it from memory (and as it turns out a little differently) and posted it again …. where it's appeared further down.

Re: Integral Men

Lots of reasons why men are as they (we) are. No excuse for not going beyond that stage/state…

Pelle:

“We have to trust that even if men are allowed to be emotionally whole beings that respect their own wishes and feelings, they/we will still want to be guided by a higher purpose in our lives, a purpose that will benefit society as a whole.”

????? are you seriously asking that question? Isn’t it clear to everyone that” Only if men are allowed to be emotionally whole beings….we will be able to be guided by a Higher purpose…”

Frans

Re: Integral Men

I mean that men will still be ready to do dangerous jobs etc, and strive for something higher than themselves even as we move beyond amber. You don't have to be brainwashed to be ready to sacrifice, it can be done from a higher level as well.

This is probably obvious for most people on this forum, but we have to start the discussion from where men and women are today.

Pelle

Re: Integral Men

There's a famous film from the 70's that some anthros. put together to explore this aspect of the U.S. male dominated, militaristic culture. I was checking it out when this discussion began. They interviewed soldiers back from Vietnam about their lives and what them to this point. One of the carreer soldiers just calmly states, “We [boys] actually enter bootcamp around the age of 5 in this country, the Army transition wasn't alien to me.”

Re: Integral Men

Frans,

Maybe this is why Ken said that all nations should be like Amsterdam. We're not there yet.

No. It's not clear to everyone. Our definitions of maturity will always be more accurate when we account for Stages and Lines. To impose one level's criteria for purpose on another level may not serve clarity, but, for me at least, only clouds my appreciation of where we're at, collectively.

When the day dawns that each of us can come wholely from the center of the quadrants without being buffeted into hyper-roles, stressing one line set over others, and self-cleaving our interiors in sacrifice to the collective imbalance, maybe then we can equate emotional wholeness with Higher purpose agency.

Until then, I see the evolutionary impulse as addressing our fragmentation.

Like I recently said to a friend, “Chivalry and chauvinism aren't dead if they're merely burried alive”.

jiki

Re: Integral Men

Rick: ”Oh, and I just wanted to point out that we are kicking the shit out of the female thread. We started after they did, and we're like 25 posts up on them. Female sharing and dialouge my ass. ;^O.”

Rick, you clearly haven't been reading the Integral Women thread this week.

And something comes to mind about quality rather than quantity. Our sisters are writing and sharing deeply, cogently and powerfully ….. which is more than can be said for our contributions on this thread recently (including my own). I've got to say I've been finding the content here rather ugly of late. And it's not a competition in any case.

Lol

Re: Integral Men

Hi Pelle,

In that case:

“We have to trust that even if men are allowed to be emotionally whole beings that respect their own wishes and feelings, they/we will still want to be guided by a higher purpose in our lives, a purpose that will benefit society as a whole.”

I would say that the right reaction to this for men in general is that we should read this statement as: “…unless men are allowed to be emotionally whole…..we can’t be guided by a higher purpose…”

If we’re not acting from a position of being whole, it’s all about ego and higher purpose is a nice phrase, but 100% meaningless. As for allowing men to be whole - we have to stop hiding behind society/culture (the disallowing LR and LL) and take affirmative action for ourselves (UL), knowing ourselves as complete beings.

LOL, I agree, this thread isn’t getting prettier on the whole…

Frans

Re: Integral Men

Jiki,

When you say “we’re not there yet” - do you refer to the men on this pod? I truly believe the men on this pod are there, or at the very least have access to being there, even if they choose not to. Men in general - I agree, most aren’t even close.

I never heard Ken’s statement about Amsterdam - makes some sense, for sure.

Frans

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Yes Frans,

I meant the big we, humanity, even genders as participant in one another.

j

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He Rick,

You play the part of the chest beating neanderthal really well! Emphasis on “play” :)

f

Re: Integral Men

Hey, I take offense at the pejorative way you are casting our poor Neanderthal in here. The poor Neanderthal male has often been cast in a disparaging light, and we really need to reassess our preconceptions of the poor guy. If some physical anthropologists are right, then our ancestors may have had something to do with his demise, perhaps because he was too sensitive, and maybe not in touch with his aggressive masculine tendencies the way we are.

And yes, I am fucking with you.

But seriously, there's actually no evidence that the Neanderthal was anymore aggressive than any human. Their brains were bigger after-all.

Re: Integral Men

But he did beat his chest really well - no kidding!

No need to explain your humour - I get it.

Frans

Re: Integral Men

Look guys. Didn't we hash this out way back at the beginning of this thread? We agreed that we weren't going to try to replicate the female thread, but to more honestly represent us as men here?
If so, then we shouldn't compare our content to theirs. In a way, we've already talked over the deep stuff and all pretty much agreed to both important issues, causes or those issues, and possible solutions to them. We even did a lot of sharing, so kudos to us.  All in record time with male like efficiency.
As a matter of fact we should add that to a list of positive male traits in our culture.

Re: Integral Men

I also think there has been a lot of good stuff in this thread, both deep sharing and theoretical concerns.

One thing I'm proud of is that we haven't turned to female-bashing, while there are several male-bashing posts in the Integral Women thread.


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Hi Rick

I take your point that “… we shouldn't compare our content to theirs ..” and that we'd demonstrated we wanted to “… more honestly represent us as men here ..”

But to go back to what you wrote at the end of a post above:  ”Oh, and I just wanted to point out that we are kicking the shit out of the female thread. We started after they did, and we're like 25 posts up on them. Female sharing and dialouge my ass. ;^O.”

…. yes, I can relate to that as a representation of male-speak, and can accept that I need to be mindful of what I'm reacting to / judging … and why.

And .. if it's the case we shouldn't compare our content to theirs, should we compare the two threads with each other at all … as you are clearly doing above? In the same breath I have to say I've been wondering if your  ;^O  emoticon isn't showing tongue-in-cheek rather than a nose?!

As for my comments about “… finding the content here rather ugly of late ..”, yes it's a judgement …. and I have to look at my motivations … for example to what degree am I trying to make myself look good in the eyes of our sisters (I consciously chose those two words there …. sometimes I can find even saying “the women” can sound harsh, or somehow disparaging, in my head …. it's all relative / context dependent, innit?! ) because I will readily own that I am at times (god! how much of the time, really? … more than I care to admit to myself, methinks) concerned about looking good in woman's eyes.

So yes, it's a judgement …. but the sentiment  is equally representative of male-speak, just a different flavour that's all …. and coming from an underlying motivation that we remain mindful of the potential for alienating our sisters through our comments and remarks in this thread.

And I want to say man to man that I love ya, Rick, and that you're one of the guys I've been meaning to PM a “zaadz friend” invite for some time now, so off I go to do that.

With love,

Lol

Re: Integral Men

Look, that whole “we're kicking the shit out of there thread,” bit was a bit. I have a pretty quick wit and I saw the numbers. I haven't even been looking in on the women's thread. It's the “WOMEN'S” thread, after all.

Re: Integral Men

It seems like we've left this stage to bring energy to the creation of the private pod. That comes with mixed blessings, of course.

I'm jumping back in here because I just poked my head into the women's thread for the first time in a week. The current topic is a dialog between Andrew Cohen and KW, in which Andrew rather deftly inserts his head up his ass. Either the women he encounters (and uses in the formation of his theoretical jibber jab) do not even come close to offering a representative sample of women in the world today OR he is totally unable to grasp their experiences. Lauren quoted him extensively in her recent post, so I won't copy it here. Some of the women seem simply aghast.

After reading the aforementioned quoted dialog, and given my experience in the past on the inside of some women's discussions, it seems to me that he utters one ridiculous “insight” after another (in this context alone; I'm not making unilateral judgments here).

One from AC: I've tried to imagine what it would be like, for example, to become aware, at a very young age, of the fact that half your species has the power to physically overwhelm you at any moment. What would it be like to feel that vulnerable. That's an experience a man almost never has. On an almost preconscious level, women experience a state of visceral biological vulnerability that is just not part of the male experience.

Umm, hello, Andrew? Yeah, no man has ever felt physically vulnerable in the face of another man. Ever heard of bullies, Andrew? There are stacks and stacks of research illustrating the vulnerability (and outright fear) felt by many boys when confronted by bullies (not as much on men; though, real life experience suggests this to be true to some degree as well).

Anyone else feel like jumping in here?

Re: Integral Men

True Colin, but I don't think that most men ever experience this fear on the level that many women do. I sometimes feel fear, but it really doesn't stop me from going out at night. I never think about someone breaking into my home and robbing and rapping me.
It's true that I'm a big guy, and have a lot of experience in dangerous places with dangerous people, enough to know that most people really aren't that dangerous, and that there is really nothing to fear as a man in most situations.
I've had a gun put to my head and I've been surrounded by guys intent on kicking my ass, and once I was in a big brawl in Mexico, but I still don't think I can come close to understanding the fear of things I consider trivial that my wife is constantly aware of. Just driving at night is an issue for her. I think that it is because we are so unaware of this fear that we don't really recognize it as an issue, but I'm become more sensitive to these things at an older age.

Think about it Colin, do you ever plan out your daily safety in daily situations in your life? Unless you've had some serious abuse in your life, the chances of that are low. To most women, this is a very real and daily concern.

Re: Integral Men

Good points, Rick. I totally agree. And, I actually have much more insight on this than most people do, due to my relatively unique life experience. I remember that fear; it used to severely taint my actions in the world. I no longer fear walking in the dark at all.

That said, I wasn't intending to make a comparison between men and women. I meant more to highlight the absurdity of claiming that men have no idea what fear and vulnerability feel like.  The fact that you're a big guy, as you said, likely has much to do with your experience. Find some guy that others project “fag” onto (a statistically signficant minority, whether actually gay or not), and talk to him about feeling fear and vulnerability. Well, if you could get him to admit it without the fear of looking weak in that moment.

Re: Integral Men

I see what your saying Colin. That's true. But do you think that's what AC is saying?
This is a much more universal condition for women in the world, cross-culturally, than for men. So while we can say that fear and vulnerability is a universal human condition, the degree of it is very disproportionately placed on women. This is more of a numbers game, and while there may be a standard deviation for the sexes, the Mean, I'm sure, is much greater for women on this issue.
Almost every relative argument can be picked about with details, so sometimes it is good to see what the overall point is. In anthropology this is an issue, and it is called, “My Tribism.”
Everytime a great theorist in the field comes up with a generalized cultural praxis to work from, someone, somewhere in the world, pops up their heads, and points out an exception to the rule; without fail. This is probably why there really aren't many new grand theories in the social sciences in the last few decades.

I'm no fan of AC, but KW talks a lot in ridiculous, generalized statements as well. This is an issue with both of them really. They are men that speak with the Mean and almost wholly ignore the details.

Re: Integral Men

I don't want to trivialize the fear of women in any way. It is real, and it really must be a very special experience to realize that you are physically weaker than the other sex.

That said, men are twice as likely to be the victims of violent crimes, rape included, so if men feel less  fear it is certainly not on statistically rational grounds.

I also agree with Colin, how many men have not been bullied and/or been in fights growing up? We know that we too are physically vulnerable whether we like it or not. I believe that many men suppress that knowledge, at least at an emotional level.


Pelle

Re: Integral Men

Yeah Pelle, but what is the average context of the the violence that men face? Qualitative data is a poor extrapolator of the interiors of an issue.
Most people that are victims of violence put themselves in violent situations in the first place. Men, I'm sure, to a much greater extent. I doubt that random victims of violence with no relation to the perpetrator are also men in a majority. Even so this violence is almost exclusively violence of men against other men, who have a real fighting chance in the struggle.
If all the guys on this forum all got together and fough each other one by one, many of us would have pretty good chances against each other. No woman on this thread would probably have a chance against most of the men on it, though.

Your getting lost in context free numbers Pelle.

Re: Integral Men

Rick:
No woman on this thread would probably have a chance against most of the men on it, though.


There are no women on this thread.

Re: Integral Men

Those are good points, Rick (with the exception KW and AC not talking about details).

We should also be careful about taking quotes out of context, holding up particular ideas as representative of the whole teaching, presenting old quotes as representative of a person's current thinking. People love having a scapegoat, and AC's an old favorite, though I have criticisms as well.

Re: Integral Men

David, respectfully…why all the repeated focus on scapegoating in this pod? I don't see anyone here with a need to scapegoat, conscious or otherwise. We're all exploring ideas and discussing ways in which some ideas simply don't resonate for us. Well, I'll just speak for myself. I have no ultimate opinion of AC. I couldn't care less about his frontal self, really. And I mean that with no negative or positive undertones. And even if the quoted ideas are somewhat out of context (are they?) or old, we're still discussing ideas, not personally attacking an individual. Even when I say something like “he's got his head up his ass” I'm speaking in the context of the quoted thoughts alone, not as an ultimate judgment. No “may a pox fall upon him!” is happening here.

“We should also be careful about taking quotes out of context, holding up particular ideas as representative of the whole teaching, presenting old quotes as representative of a person's current thinking.”  

Where do you see this happening? I don't get it. Why should we be careful when discussing ideas? I am making no attempts at communion with Andrew; if I was, I would frame my feedback differently. In the quoted context, he doesn't seem to take care in making sweeping generalizations that don't even seem to resonate for some relatively developed women. Why is it an afront to you for some people to point that out?

Just sayin' not attackin'

Re: Integral Men

Scapegoating's a really pervasive dynamic in all groups. Very few have really gone beyond it. It's just one of the things I notice. Each person has a few things they notice, right? Each person sees different things and has something different to contribute. I really appreciate, for example, the message you and Mascha have been trying to get across about listening and simply being with eachother. I think what you're really saying is we need to stay unified, together, whole, and everything needs to take place within that context, right? What happens sometimes is that we divide and make other people “other,” and men frequently do this right off the bat when emotions come up, right, because most are not comfortable or well trained in dealing with them?
 
The crudest forms of scapegoating involve human sacrifice, tearing out someone's heart and showing it to the sun, that sort of thing. Whole races, religious persuasions, sexual orientations,  genders, economic groups, subcultures of all kinds are scapegoated (meaning not treated as one would treat oneself and those one identifies with), and within those groups individuals will be scapegoated. It's a big thing. It gets more and more subtle as you go up. It's very difficult not to pass this sort of treatment on if we have been on the receiving end of it. I don't claim to be entirely beyond that dynamic myself.
 
Online it can include things like cliquishness, ignoring out of malice, having kind words for “friends” but not reaching out or including “nonfriends,” subtle verbal attacks that are nevertheless felt in a negative way by someone on the receiving end, subtle attempts to get an energetic advantage, as well as outright verbal attacks and attempts to drive people away. I'm not saying it's so bad here; things are good here, but if we want to get to the next level as a collective we have to become aware of all these subtle things and what true care really involves–it means care for the evolution of each person without exception, even when we are under stress, even when a person triggers us, even if we don't like a person, and even when that person attacks us. It's hard to do, a big challenge, but there are a lot of good vibes for everyone all around if we can get to that level.

And this is actually just where AC's teachings excel (how well he and his students live it is another question, and, by the way, I don't think gender issues are his strong point, and I don't consider those a part of his most formal teachings).
 

AC: Yes, I agree. And you know, in the end, I have found, it always simply boils down to this: How much do we care? How interested are we really, and how much do we care? Because you see, when we're under pressure, when our back is against the wall, the only thing that really counts is how much we care. And that's when this whole question of the authentic self, or soul, comes in, because when this is cultivated, then a deeper capacity to care-to care more about truth, about what is higher-begins to emerge. And our capacity to not be swayed from that position is strengthened, which then makes it possible to actually carry the already liberated state through the trials, tests, and challenges of life.

KW: And also, once there's that acknowledgment and recognition of the already free and liberated condition, then that becomes the basis of a motivation of, in a sense, duty.

AC: Yes, an obligation.

KW: You're not motivated out of lack. You're not motivated out of “I'm seeking or grasping something.” I mean, a lot of people say, “If you had the experience of being one with everything, how can you be motivated at all?”

AC: Actually, you'd be more motivated.

KW: You're more motivated-of course. You're motivated now to express that, to make that happen, as a duty, to be true to that nature that's been awakened.

AC: That's what we're here for.

KW: At that point your center of gravity shifts to the authentic self, the deeper psychic, because you can never go back now.

AC: Yes.

“in which Andrew rather deftly inserts his head up his ass.”

“(and uses in the formation of his theoretical jibber jab)”

“OR he is totally unable to grasp their experiences.”

“Umm, hello, Andrew? Ever heard of bullies, Andrew?”

So, it could just be a little kinder and less sarcastic. We should be as charitable and kind as possible, right?

Re: Integral Men

Hi, David.

I appreciate your concerns about Right Speech. If you've been in this pod paying attention (which I assume to be the case), you know that Right Speech is a big concern of mine, too.  That said, I really don't see the problem with the rather dull “attacks” I issued. How does one use language to point out what one views as utterly absurd without using language that is somewhat inflammatory? Those words I used were used intentionally to communicate that I thought what Andrew was saying was ridiculous. Saying nicey-nice words doesn't accomplish that goal. The intention is to stir up the reader a bit to get some attention directed at the assertions made by a somewhat influential teacher. Would you offer a different way of accomplishing that goal given this current example? What language would you use that would pass your test? Who shall we be “charitable and kind” to? The frontal self of AC or Spirit?

What is scapegoating from one view is communication with purpose from another. Might verbal “attacks” (without being abusive) fit within the spectrum of Right Speech, when concern is not for the frontal self but for a deeper truth?

I'm in a bit of a rush, so please look past the minor details in what I've put forth; overall emphasis would likely be more productive…

Re: Integral Men

I can see that you're very sincere about all this, Colin. I don't mean to characterize you in a negative light in general.

I'm going on the overall vibe and feel as well as the words.