IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

One of the core concepts in Wilber-5 is the worldspace. No longer is there a reality out there simply waiting to be discovered. Intrinsic features of the Kosmos are in part interpretive (con-structured) and not just part of a pregiven world. Whatever is “intrinsic” to the Kosmos changes with each new level, each new worldspace

This means that every new level or station that appears must explore the territory with fresh eyes, not knowing exactly what will be found… or I should say con-structured.

Each essay will be published in this thread, and will also be cross-posted in that person’s blog. Everyone in the pod is invited to comment, in that sense this is just like any other thread!

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Sounds great, Pelle.  Looking forward to it! 

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Delicious!  Thanks Pelle for orchestrating this Blogapalooza on Worldspace…. can't wait for Monday (did I just say that? ;-)

Cheers,
Stacy

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind re: worldspace, or lifeworld as Habermas calls it. This is excerpted from a longer discussion called “Postmetaphysical Thinking 4: Enter the Dragon” at Open Integral (http://www.openintegral.net/blog/?p=107)

From Martin Morris in The Derrida-Habermas Reader: “Between deliberation and deconstruction: the condition of post-national democracy,” pp. 231-253.

Habermas accounts for the ‘space in between' by locating it, so to speak, on the phenomenological ground provided by the concept of the lifeworld.

But the lifeworld only reveals a portion of itself in any dialogue because it exists as a phenomenological ‘background' of pre-theoretical, pre-interpreted contexts of meaning and relevance.

The ‘lifeworld' itself cannot be the proper theme of communicative utterances, for as a totality it provides the space in or ground upon which the utterances occur, even those that name it explicitly. It is, hence, ‘at once questionable and shadowy…it remains indeterminate'; its opacity and taken-for-grantedness endures even for theory, which hence cannot adopt a transcendental approach to the lifeworld's structures themselves.

Communicative actors are always moving within the horizon of their lifeworld; they cannot step outside of it.

I suggest that his [Habermas] solution to the problem of the indeterminacy of this space is unsatisfactory…. [it] ought not be considered only in terms of…the lifeworld or…the dynamics of reaching agreement in language.

Derrida refers to Plato's notion of (the) khora…[which] is the space that ‘gives place.'

Here we return to the articulation of the ‘space-in-between'…. But khora is a concept at once non-identical with itself in its very intention ‘as if there were two, the one and its double', for it opens ‘an apparently empty space' but is not ‘emptiness'.

For Derrida, by contrast, what is indeconstructable is rather the formless, structureless space in-between, the abyss or chasm ‘in' which the cleavages between sensible and intelligible, body and soul, can have a place and take place.

There is no natural identity among differentiated social identities that can claim the right to represent the wholeness of all….But some identities do claim this right and achieve hegemony. Such an identity can do so only by signifying itself as that which takes the place of the ‘empty signifier'….the operation of hegemonic identities depends on successfully taking the place of, and representing, this constitutive absence.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

And if you're wondering if “lifeworld” is the same as “worldspace,” here are a few quotes from the final draft of Integral Spirituality before publication. I don't have the published book but have skimmed it and most of the draft, if not all of it, survives intact in the book but at different page numbers.

These 8 primordial perspectives of any occasion are summarized in figure 1.2. The sum total of these 8 views we call Integral Perspectivism. We inhabit these 8 spaces, these zones, these lifeworlds, as practical realities. Each of these zones is not just a perspective, but an action, an injunction, a concrete set of actions in a real world zone. p. 50

Each view or perspective, with its actions and injunctions, brings forth a world of phenomena; a worldspace that (tetra-)arises as a result; a worldspace with a horizon. The sum total of all of that we simply call a hori-zone, or zone for short. A zone is a view with its actions, its injunctions, its lifewold, and the whole shebang called forth at that address. p. 55

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Both of the above quotes do indeed survive verbatim per this link:

http://www.kenwilber.com/Writings/PDF/ISChap1_EXIS_2006.pdf

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Here's some more background for your lifeworldspace:

From HABERMAS’ LIFEWORLD: VALUATION AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NARRATION by Nicholas SCHMIDLE at
http://www.new-thinking.org/journal/habermaslifeworld.html

“From a perspective turned toward the situation, the lifeworld appears as a reservoir of taken-for-granteds, of unshaken convictions that participants in communication draw upon in cooperative processes of interpretation.”(9)

HABERMAS DEDICATES NEARLY half of the second volume of The Theory of Communicative Action to working out the terminology, meaning, and implications of this statement.

The main point of agreement between Husserl and Habermas concerns the a priori status of the lifeworld—specifically, its being “always already” there.(11) According to Habermas: “it is prior to any possible disagreement and cannot become controversial….”(12) Moreover, the lifeworld constitutes a background enabling mutual understanding that the individual cannot step away from; participating in the lifeworld presumes the inability to ‘get around it.’ “In the situation of action, the lifeworld forms a horizon behind which we cannot go; it is a totality with no reverse side.”(13)

As Husserl noted, for the lifeworld to count as a shared understanding it must be given to the ‘we.’ Habermas states: “The members of a collective count themselves as belonging to the lifeworld in the first person plural….”(22) But stepping beyond Husserl, Habermas grants that the lifeworld, while individualized, is not privatized in consciousness.(23) It is not my lifeworld that surrounds my involvements in work, school, home, etc. It is ours, in so far as it is given in the “first person plural.” As a result, Habermas does not rush to embrace the isolated individual and determine how he or she discovers meaning in the world. On the contrary, he is committed to discerning how value and meaning are transmitted and reproduced through communicative action in the domain of the lifeworld.

The lifeworld consists of three components—culture, society, and personality. According to Habermas, previous conceptions of the lifeworld were too often cast in a single dimension.(25)

However, Fultner contends that an origin of valuation is never given because Habermas’ theory of communicative action presupposes an “always already” meaningful lifeworld, which itself supports communicative action with meaning. “If the lifeworld and communicative action mutually presuppose one another, the notion of intelligibility or meaningfulness itself remains, in some sense, mysterious and unexplained. Thus, we cannot really speak of a ‘ground’ of meaning.”(27) So which comes first, communicative action or the lifeworld?

“The lifeworld is the…vast and incalculable web of presuppositions that have to be satisfied if an actual utterance is to be at all meaningful, i.e. valid or invalid.”(28)

“The more cultural traditions predecide which validity claims, when, where, for what, from whom, and to whom must be accepted, then less that participants themselves have the possibility of making explicit and examining the potential grounds on which their yes/no positions are based.”(32)

Before Habermas even adopts a theoretical attitude towards the lifeworld, he is already situated in the lifeworld that is meaningful to him. Habermasian valuation, therefore, cannot be traced back to any “ground of meaning.”

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Or in Habbie’s own words, from Postmetaphysical Thinking, pp. 142-3:

This [lifeworld] background, which is presupposed in communicative action, constitutes a totality that is implicit and that comes along prereflexively—one that crumbles the moment it is thematized; it remains a totality only in the form of implicit, intuitively presupposed background knowledge. Taking the unity of the lifeworld, which is only known subconsciously, and projecting it in an objectifying manner onto the level of explicit knowledge is the operation that has been responsible for mythological, religious, and also of course metaphysical worldviews.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Hi theurj,

Thanks for sharing some background info about lifeworld, it's seems to be a precursor to worldspace - but not quite the same thing.

The goal of this blogopalooza (thanks Mary for coming up with the name!), is not necessarily to explore the theoretical underpinnings of the worldspace, but instead to share some perspectives that have become apparent to the participants after they were (involuntarily) catapulted into an Integral worldspace. It could of course also be about exploring what a worldspace is, since it is only at integral levels it makes sense to talk about this concept, but not necessarily.

peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Ok, here we go!
The Blogopalooza starts today, and here is my contribution.
It is also cross-posted in my blog.

Personal Perspectives from an Integral Worldspace

(or… what I consider to be important shit right now)


Shadow work

Any part of the psyche’s I-stream can be severed from our self-identity and be either repressed, projected, dissociated or in some other way hidden from ourselves. The cut-off parts are usually unconscious and hence referred to as Shadow. Normally we tend to think that Shadow is a bad thing and something that needs to be fixed ASAP. While it is definitely true in my book that Shadow work and reintegration of lost parts of the psyche are some of the most important spiritual practices there are, let us also remember that our ability to form Shadow is a gift without which human societies wouldn’t be able to function.

Growing up, our life in general and our families in particular (or lack thereof) expose us to a series of mini-traumas and possibly bigger ones as well. The ability to form Shadow in these situations is what keeps us sane and enables us to keep on growing cognitively, value-wise, in our sense of self, etc. As children we still don’t have the ability to change our life circumstances, nor do we know how to sublimate or use other more mature strategies to deal with life’s hardships. To a certain extent (ie in at least some lines of development) this can be true throughout people’s lives, which makes the ability to form shadow an important and natural part of being human.

Even though it’s a gift to be able to form shadow, it is just as important to be willing to deal with it when more favorable conditions return. As Integralites we climb higher up the spiral than most, and this makes it especially important to face disowned parts of ourselves. High towers need strong foundations to stay in place… It's also important to remember that the higher up the spiral we go the greater our ability to affect other people, and large amounts of unprocessed shadow will make us about as responsible as Darth Vader.

So how do we integrate lost parts of ourselves? First let me say that I do not include psychosis and PTSD in the concept of Shadow, these are distinct disorders and need different approaches. The Shadow work I want to promote in this essay is psychotherapy, even though there certainly are other valid practices. The second person perspective that a trained therapist can bring to the table is invaluable, considering that our deepest projections and repressions are very hard to spot on our own. Furthermore a therapist can provide a cocoon of unconditional acceptance that eases the knots of anxiety that usually keep repressed/projected parts in place. In a way I believe that seeing a trained therapist is extra important for people with high cognitive development, such as Integralites. Amidst our brilliance regarding meditation, books, yoga and frameworks it can all too easily be tempting to want to bypass good old-fashioned terapia, I certainly know that I did for a long time…

Some of the more common therapies include psychodynamics, cognitive-behavioral, Gestalt, dialectical behavioral therapy, transactional analysis, body psychotherapy, and many more.


Framework

How do we think about ourselves, our lives, Kosmos itself and where we are going? All of this is largely determined by the framework we consciously or not so consciously ascribe to. At integral levels of consciousness Ken Wilber and his AQAL framework is the best known and as far as I know most complete framework. Having some intimate knowledge of his latest model Wilber-5 is invaluable to any person with an integral cognition. It is of great value for quickly and effectively communicating with another person who knows of the framework, and it has great potential as a tool to bring different branches of science together, just to mention a couple of its uses. Once you “download” the AQAL framework to your mind it is there in the background for you to draw upon as needed.

A potential problem with AQAL is that it is so all-encompassing that you might think it’s the only framework you’ll ever need. Another trap many of us tend to fall into regularly is confusing the content-less AQAL structures with Ken’s own opinions on a variety of subjects (effectively making him both judge and jury, though he never asked for those positions). A third pitfall is getting stuck in your head juggling concepts, instead of exploring actual territory with your own raw Integral consciousness. An effective antidote to address these three traps is getting familiar with other Integral frameworks and thinkers.

Susanne Cook-Greuter for example has some vivid, alive and yet scientific descriptions of Ego Development that add some much needed meat to the dry bones of AQAL levels. Robert Augustus Masters, a k a RAM, is an Integral Therapist who in his texts repeatedly displays a grounded Integral consciousness while remaining fluid in thought, body and spirit. To me it is apparent that there is deep value in freely expressing interior Integral worldspaces without automatically being restricted by AQAL, and in my book RAM is one of the best examples of this.

To be effective in one’s daily life I believe in having a framework that is not strictly related to different stages of consciousness. AQAL is great to have in the background to make sure most bases are covered, but it is not exactly juicy nor does it inspire me to take action. NLP on the other hand is a much better example of an action-oriented framework focused on results. One of its simplest techniques is focusing on what you want versus focusing on what you don't want, and this is a key concept for everyone wanting to be effective. Human creativity is sparked by the images, thoughts and feelings we carry around; so intentionally focusing on what we want will automatically give us a stream of ideas on how to achieve it. This also connects to the importance of Shadow work, since we will naturally focus on positive goals/dreams instead of negative fears as the death grip of the Shadow subsides. Whether strong human intentions can sometimes translate into non-local communication between humans, and thereby also aid us in pursuing our highest purpose, is a controversial topic in the Integral movement and I will therefore let it rest for now. For the purposes of this discussion it doesn’t even matter since a clear focus and strong intentions are still needed to put your brain and creativity to work for you.

Other interesting NLP concepts are Presuppositions (here and here), Representational Systems (a type model), Meta Programs and Reframing.



The Masculine and The Feminine

You can call them types, energies, polarities, modes of being or any number of terms. Throughout history man- and womankind have been fascinated with the Kosmic play between the masculine and the feminine. Integral is the the first stage of development where we have access to a worldspace wide and resilient enough to start investigating and integrating these two energies in a deeper way.

On a group level men clearly have a predominance of masculine energies and women of feminine ones, but individually it may vary. Important to remember is also that every individual possesses both, and therefore must make peace with each side of the spectrum and somehow find a way to work with both in spiritual practice.

Besides making the distinction between the masculine and the feminine, I distinguish between the intellectual, the interpersonal and the spiritual. This leads to six different combinations: the intellectual masculine, the intellectual feminine, the interpersonal masculine, the interpersonal feminine, the spiritual masculine and the spiritual feminine. It is my hope that fleshing it out this way will be of practical value, and not only an exercise in theory.

The intellectual masculine means having the agency and guts to flesh out your own ideas as clearly as possible, and also daring to disagree with others if you don't feel that their ideas hold up to scrutiny. It all takes place in the world of concept and ideas, and the intellectual masculine is usually thriving on Integral forums such as the I-I pod and the Multiplex forums.

The intellectual feminine is less preoccupied with structures, framework and agentically challenging others’ ideas. Instead it wants to engage intuitive and messy ideas that it feels doesn’t get, and might never get, addressed by ever-expanding frameworks from the intellectual masculine. Instead of wanting to challenge other people's ideas, it simply wants to be heard and hear others sharing their ideas.

The interpersonal masculine is an outward force that is striving to help others acheive agency. A core example is lovingly challenging someone else to grow, or challenging them to own something they appear to resist. This could be when somebody openly claims to have a certain shadow, but behaves in quite the opposite way - to take one obvious example. It can also be in the form of asking a tough penetrating question, and that of course has the advantage of letting the other person choose how deep he/she wants to go in the growth process. Fatherly tough love also falls into the category of the interpersonal masculine.

The interpersonal feminine wants to unconditionally embrace people, no matter how messy the situation is or how much a person has fucked up and gone against the good, true and beautiful. It doesn't consciously challenge another person to grow, but can still induce growth by increasing self-acceptance.

The spiritual masculine is addressed rather often in the Integral movement. Key points include the striving for freedom and transcendence, for example through sitting meditation. In some ways it is a “clean” and ascending spirituality that aims to transcend the messiness of lower levels. It is impersonal and ultimately looks for unity with the creative impulse of Spirit itself.

The spiritual feminine is also increasingly addressed among integralites. The focus here is more on bringing spirit down to lower levels, and embracing more and more in ever-expanding circles of love. Embodiment is a key feature, as are engaging paradoxes and trusting intuition. Spiritual dancing is a common example, but there are also forms of meditation that lean towards the feminine.

Ultimately all six categories represent different ways of approaching God and approaching Love.

The Missing Links of the Wilber-Coombs Lattice

One of the important concepts of Wilber-5 is the difference between horizontal and vertical enlightenment. The first one means state training until you reach a non-dual plateau, since that is the “highest” state known, and the second one means transcending and including relative realm stages until you are at the leading edge of the evolution of consciousness. The two concepts make a lot of sense and do clear up a lot of confusion around the issue of enlightenment. At the same time they raise a new set of questions…

Regarding vertical enlightenment, exactly what lines of development need to be at the leading edge? Cognition? Values? Who gets to decide what lines of development need to be at the leading edge to have achieved vertical enlightenment? It seems to be at best a moving target… Horizontal enlightenment on the other hand, seems to be more easily defined, as long as we can assume that there is only one horizontal line. The problem that arises here is instead that even a non-dual state plateau does in no way guarantee good health of the bodies that have been transcended, ie gross, subtle and causal. In the gross realm we give Shadow and levels their due attention – but why not extend the same courtesy to at least the subtle body?

I am a firm believer that vertical development of the subtle body exists; one example is the development of each chakra through different stages. We also find Shadows in the subtle realm, and these are often spoken of as blockages in the energy flow. Furthermore it is quite possible to speak of the horizontal health within a certain level of development of the subtle energy body (ie healthy translation). Finally we have the current state of the subtle body or of an individual chakra, and this seems to be the most common way of addressing the health of this energy body - but obviously this is an oversimplification.

Spiritual Bypass vs Genuine Spiritual Gains

Steve Pavlina and his subjective reality perspective on VA Tech seems to be an endless source of controversy and debate, spawned by a blog entry of his. Many people in the Integral movement felt he was championing a dissociative approach in this blog post, and not accepting the suffering of samsara. I want to state my position on these questions briefly but clearly.

Pain cannot be escaped. Loss cannot be escaped. Emotions cannot be escaped. These are intrinsic parts of human beings in 3D reality.

However, our relationship to pain, loss and emotions can be modified in at least two general ways. First of all Ego Development as well as healthy translation can make us more complex and resilient as individuals. This leads to the ability to feel pain more fully in the moment and hence process it more quickly and more thoroughly. Secondly, horizontal spiritual development through meditation and other state training techniques lessens our exclusive identification with the gross realm. This does not make pain go away, but it can make suffering as a consequence of pain all but disappear.


New Age

This is another point of controversy and a pet peeve for lots of Integral debaters. I personally believe New Age to have both healthy and unhealthy green spirituality hidden inside of it. The healthy parts include love, hands-on healing, community, treating people well, reconnecting to spirituality after losing touch within the orange worldspace. Unhealthy parts include magical thinking, not wanting to look at one’s dark parts (Shadow!), not wanting to do any uncomfortable work at all, not being able to distinguish compassion from idiot compassion.

The healthy parts have their given place as partial truths within an Integral worldspace. The unhealthy parts need to be addressed by integralites, but lovingly as well as firmly, so as not to alienate those who are struggling to find a spiritual path in their life. Didn't we all use to be green at some point in our life? Can we find compassion for those we were and for our current internalized green selves? If we can, I think it will be much easier not to attack green but instead gently point out its inconsistencies and carefully explain to its followers how a more Integral approach could be of benefit.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

great to get a good long piece from you pelle!

nice work.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Hi

Kudos to you for starting the blogapalooza! I like your essay a lot - I feel its rooted in your experience and enquiry and that makes it very real for me. Reading it slowly as I eat my mushrooms some thoughts occur…

You say that being able to create a shadow is a gift for human beings. It helps them function in dangerous situations where if they did not repress certain things they would surely be targets for other people’s anger. I agree, repression is an important of immature defence. So just to round this out the mature form is conscious repression and that would be a better gift than shadow making but not one that is much given when young.

I was just listening to the latest Ken chat today, and he reminds us that we grind to a halt in our “relative enlightenment” ie up the structures if we have too much energy trapped in our shadow. I think that’s an important point and I wonder about Darth Vader types. I don’t think Darth Vader’s centre of gravity is high on the spiral at all. But his ability to use subtle energies is very high. Just that one line. BTW, I think most of the jedi would also have a major shadow and thus be fairly structurally low….? Because they are all trapped in the duality. How many Jedis have them have embraced the dark side? And why was that martial arts sith dude the sexy one? What we need to spice up that series is someone who has truly embraced both sides! And please not a muppet. It would be a divine opportunity lost for a truly sexy character.

You ask a good question about which lines are the key ones. I suppose the ITP modules give a clue of which lines I-I thinks are the key ones: spirit, body, mind and shadow. I would immediately plonk “interpersonal” right in there. Bang In the middle like a cuddly fat bottomed toddler .

I have a question for you on shadow work. You say that there needs to be more on subtle shadow work. But I thought that most shadow work was at the subtle level? (cognitive, emotional). As far as I understand, the ater development was the gross manifestation of shadow (Reichian body armour, Hakomi etc)?

And finally, the Pavlina issue. You say our relationship to suffering can change with ego development (vertical development) and horizontal development ie structures and state development. I would add shadow work too, because if you do the first two and have a big shadow, there will be a lot of unconscious suffering that will erupt like a tsunami at some point.

blessings
Gitanjali

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Gitanjali said:
You ask a good question about which lines are the key ones. I suppose the ITP modules give a clue of which lines I-I thinks are the key ones: spirit, body, mind and shadow.

Shadow (ego defenses) is a legitamite line, but body, mind and spirit are stages (with for example the cognitive line or the shadow line running through them).

I have a question for you on shadow work. You say that there needs to be more on subtle shadow work. But I thought that most shadow work was at the subtle level? (cognitive, emotional). As far as I understand, the ater development was the gross manifestation of shadow (Reichian body armour, Hakomi etc)?

I agree with this: shadows have UR correlates, which express as subtle energy blockages and (later?) in the gross body as muscle tensions and even diseases. But when moving horizontally through the WC-matrix (state training), you can develop different kind of shadow issues, apart from those in vertical development. I think Pelle is referring to those as well. As I understand, Ken is writing about that for his extended version of Transformation of Consciousness. Does that also appear in the current version? I don't have that book, since I'm waiting for the new version…

But I agree with Pelle that there's very little knowledge of what actually happens in terms of subtle energies in relation to shadows, but then again, scientific studies into subtle energies are in their infancy. Blocked chakras seem to be turning counter-clockwise, while open chakras turn clockwise. But since each chakra has multiple stages, can a given chakra be blocked at one or two of these stages only?

Related question: the most detailed account on the structure of the human energy system I've come across to date are the books by Barbara Ann Brennan (I'm not a big fan of her theorizing though). I'm studying these books at the moment. If anybody knows of similar or even better works, then I'm very very interested! (I already know about Leadbeater, Motoyama, Myss, Bruyere)
 
Peter
 

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

julian:
great to get a good long piece from you pelle!
nice work.

Thanks Julian.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

That's a very interesting read, Pelle! Apparently, we share the same worldspace :)

I have a few questions/comments, as well as some minor criticisms, which I will try to get back to later today. For now, I'd just like to ask if you came up with those six masculine/feminine distinctions yourself. I like them a lot, extremely useful!


Peter

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

My experience tells me there is no finite self. Therefore there is no finite shadow. I do not see the unconscious shadow as a accumulated package that I will be able, one day, to trancend, disolve or accomodate. Therefore I do not need to address it, as that only would forever perpetuate its manifestations. There is no bottom to the phyches barrel. There is no end to human traumas.  I will address it in the sense of being aware of it when it arises in my experience and see its habitual patterns but my focus would be on the clear seeing, the awakened awareness that brings maturity and sane rational thought to any situation. In that sense, there is no “turning back”, only looking forward, if you see what I'm trying to convey? I have never been exposed to therapy so I can't speak of the benefits, but I have never been drawn to it. My focus and heart has always been in finding the truth, realizing the truth, share the truth, heal with the help of truth, awaken others to a relationship that has no limits. A meeting where One self operates between us. Through joint seeing, through sheer and utter trust in this real position of non-seperatness, of you and me seeing eye to eye.
What I do see, since awakening to mine and yours timeless/eternal Self, is a growing sense of “dressing” this new birth with clear understanding of acting in selfless love, based in an ever increasing love for the mystery itself that burns within. In relationship everything comes to a point, ones love and understanding is immediately revealed as you face another.
This is so much more rewarding I believe than to do years of personal therapy work. Why? Because in the end, you still have to go out there and “meet” your neighbour, and you can never learn how to be with another. That is a moment that has never before occured and the focus is on clear seeing and wanting to meet in truth. That is not dependant on your shadow. It might still be lurking there but it is of no greater obstacle to our meeting, if we pay attention.
That's why I would always promote to seek the truth rather than to go to therapy. But this is if we are looking for spiritual freedom. People who is looking for something else, therapy might be very valueable. Why would I stick by this view? Because I have seen so many people who are fantastic in knowing of their traumas and shadows but still have no clear understanding about spontanious loving freedom. A freedom that can be enacted with shadow present.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Björn:
In relationship everything comes to a point, ones love and understanding is immediately revealed as you face another.
This is so much more rewarding I believe than to do years of personal therapy work. Why? Because in the end, you still have to go out there and “meet” your neighbour, and you can never learn how to be with another.

Do we have to choose? Can we not practise both at the same time?


Björn:
Because I have seen so many people who are fantastic in knowing of their traumas and shadows but still have no clear understanding about spontanious loving freedom.

I too have met lots of people who fit that description. Therapy can easily be used to get to know your shadow without actually changing or processing anything. Some therapists have no problem with this since they get a paying customer for years and years.
Buuut, I have also met lots of spiritual people who are great at state training, seeing the One in everyone…. and still are either big assholes or disembodied or in some other way dominated by their relative self and its shadows.

I respect your choice to focus on the “higher” perspective, but I think it's vital to include the bringing of awareness to shadow that you talk about.


peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Yes Pelle,

You're right of course. I'm a bit quick to generalize.

Thanks for a thorough and meaty post. I will have a read again.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Hmm, you seem to be dodging therapy by saying that only the nondual matters, and denying the dual realm in the process…
 
Shadow, by definition, is a distorted self-image, necessarily accompanied by a slight or severly distorted view on the rest of the world.  So whatever you think “clear seeing” is: how are you going to accomplish that with all shadows intact?

Since shadow is unconscious, it's not going to arise in your awareness. Except if you make it conscious, but then it's no longer shadow, and that very process is therapy.


Peter
 

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Maybe I am dodging therapy, but it has never drawn me in. (Maybe I'm unconsciously avoiding it in order to keep my dark side?) No but joke aside, I do appreciate the dual world and all thorough distinctions we draw from it. I only feel it comes to be truly understood from a “non-dual” perspective though. And in any given encounter all our “flaws” are revealed, made revealed and if payed attention to, also made self conscious of. If we want to see ourself clearly, we first need to seek that clear perspective. Once we have tasted “One taste” we can distinguish between appearances, perspectives, ideas, conditioning and cultural and gender manifestations. If we pay attention, all is revealed to us. If not alone, for sure it will become evident in relationship with others. But of course, the key is, if we want to find out. If we don't want, or don't care, we wont bother and then just gloss over all information that is readily available to us all the time.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Bjorn:
And in any given encounter all our “flaws” are revealed, made revealed and if payed attention to, also made self conscious of.

Well, that sounds just like therapy, so maybe everybody's your therapist and you're not paying for it. Which is…. very smart! :)

So yes I agree with that; every relationship acts like a mirror. The only difference with “real” therapy, is that using a good therapist can be a lot more efficient. Maybe you're not dodging therapy, just the therapists :)


Peter

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Gitanjali:
I don’t think Darth Vader’s centre of gravity is high on the spiral at all. But his ability to use subtle energies is very high.

I agree. I was mostly using him as a humorous illustration…


Gitanjali:
And why was that martial arts sith dude the sexy one?

Cause he looked like me?
That's the most serious response that comes to mind, lol


Gitanjali:
You ask a good question about which lines are the key ones. I suppose the ITP modules give a clue of which lines I-I thinks are the key ones: spirit, body, mind and shadow. I would immediately plonk “interpersonal” right in there. Bang In the middle like a cuddly fat bottomed toddler .

So that would make cutting edge interpersonal skills part of vertical enlightenment?


Gitanjali:
You say that there needs to be more on subtle shadow work. But I thought that most shadow work was at the subtle level? (cognitive, emotional). As far as I understand, the ater development was the gross manifestation of shadow (Reichian body armour, Hakomi etc)?

Good point. What I'm really outlining in my essay is a pure UR perspective of the subtle energy body (ie UR/subtle), and reminding myself and all of us that even here we can add levels, Shadow, etc.
It's not necessarily a separate Shadow or separate levels from the UL (though it could be that some shadows more easily pop into view from this perspective), but I think it's a good exercice to let go of the exclusive focus on UL/gross when talking about levels, and UL/subtle when talking about Shadow.


Gitanjali:
And finally, the Pavlina issue. You say our relationship to suffering can change with ego development (vertical development) and horizontal development ie structures and state development. I would add shadow work too, because if you do the first two and have a big shadow, there will be a lot of unconscious suffering that will erupt like a tsunami at some point.

I agree. What I'm actually talking about is an increased ability to process emotions and that certainly includes processing shadow emotions too.


peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

kessels:
For now, I'd just like to ask if you came up with those six masculine/feminine distinctions yourself. I like them a lot, extremely useful!

Thanks. And yes, I did come up with them myself.


kessels:
I agree with this: shadows have UR correlates, which express as subtle energy blockages and (later?) in the gross body as muscle tensions and even diseases. But when moving horizontally through the WC-matrix (state training), you can develop different kind of shadow issues, apart from those in vertical development. I think Pelle is referring to those as well.

Exactly. Some shadows are more easily seen from the UR/subtle perspective, and state training shadows could certainly fall into this category.


kessels:
Blocked chakras seem to be turning counter-clockwise, while open chakras turn clockwise. But since each chakra has multiple stages, can a given chakra be blocked at one or two of these stages only?

I've read about the clockwise/counter-clockwise thing and I can actually sense in my own body that this is so. Theoretically it's a bit harder though. What is clockwise the end result of? Healthy translation, ie not a lot of shadow? A certain level? A certain state? The last alternative can be ruled out through repeated measurements, but otherwise we don't really now what is being measured except that one option is a lot healthier than the other…

Can a chakra have a block only at a certain stage? My guess is yes. I'm thinking that most blockages in chakras actually correspond to a certain stage, just like shadows from an UL perspective can be said to correlated to a certain developmental level.


peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

pelle:
Thanks. And yes, I did come up with [the six m/f categories] myself.

Respect! I'll properly refer to you when I use them, then :)

Can a chakra have a block only at a certain stage? My guess is yes. I'm thinking that most blockages in chakras actually correspond to a certain stage, just like shadows from an UL perspective can be said to correlated to a certain developmental level.

That would be my guess as well, but if some stages of a chakra are open while some are blocked, then why is that chakra turning in any specific direction? Maybe each sublevel of a chakra is turning indivually (once it's activated) and you mainly feel one of these because it dominates over the others (higher amplitude)… I can imagine that a block in the emotional field influences emotional energies in a much different way than it does thought-related energies.

Peter

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

kessels:
That would be my guess as well, but if some stages of a chakra are open while some are blocked, then why is that chakra turning in any specific direction? Maybe each sublevel of a chakra is turning indivually (once it's activated) and you mainly feel one of these because it dominates over the others (higher amplitude)… I can imagine that a block in the emotional field influences emotional energies in a much different way than it does thought-related energies.

I would tend to agree with these guesses. It's still very much a black box though…

peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

thanks for emphasizing the psychotherapeutic/shadow aspect of integral self-work pelle!~ glad this is generating some discussion.

your masculine/feminine extrapolation is elegant and well-thought out - thanks for that beautiful contribution.

i have a couple questions for you.

q1: you pointed out the problem with magical thinking, but it sounds like you don't think the pavlina va tech piece is magical thinking - so:

a) why not - how do you distinguish magical thinking in it's negative sense (or what you are calling unhealthy green) from specifically what pavlina said that created such a commotion? it sounds like you see them as different - how so?

b) i know you wanted to be brief but clear. i still feel unclear on your position though. if you have a moment, please explain the ways that your integral analysis of that pavlina va tech moment differs from IN host stuart davis and Integral Theory creator ken wilber's to-the-point analysis of it as “the meanest of the mean green meme” and “absolutely pathological.”

q 2: my sense is that dissociation occurs along a spectrum from full blown delusional psychosis to mildly compartmentalized, checked-out denial and rationalization. so while i agree that psychosis and dissociation in their most extreme forms are rare:

a) do you not see the compartmentalized denial and rationalization of say pavlina's so called “subjective reality” concept and/or the magical thinking inherent in both his interpretation of va tech a la numerology, manifestation etc and the secret's so-called “law of attraction?” if these are not good examples of defensive/deluded magical thinking - can you give an example of what is?

b) seeing as you have expressed the idea that there are authentic higher stage versions of both the LoA and subjective reality - how do you distinguish prerational from transrational in these specific classic new age cases?

3) lastly, how does your understanding of the shadow, repression, and other classic psychodynamic defenses relate to either or both a) subjective reality and the LoA (especially with regard to tragedy, injustice, child abuse, chaos etc) and/or b) people like myself, stuart davis, ken wilber and others who might by your assessment be erroneously commiting a reverse pre/trans fallacy in our integral analysis of these popular ideas? pavlina has suggested of course that we are “just jealous…”

oh and here's wilber on the subject of the relationship between absolute and relative - which is what i think you are getting at with your assertion about how suffering affects us as we keep developing. your paragraph on ego-strength/resilliency and being present with pain in an authentic way is quite powerful - i think both what you are saying and what wilber is saying in the above video is quite different from what i see as pavlina's mangling of non-dual, psychological and oversimplified philosophical (solopsistic) ideas - ideas that actually can be quite damaging and iimiting of the kind of growth we want to foster.

notice also that wilber does not say that the pain affects you less - he says that as you keep waking up it hurts more - but bothers you less. as you allude to - healthy growth means that  one can honestly tolerate the existential relaity of pain with more compassion. i would offer that in terms of pre/trans confusion - if you leave out the “hurts more” part you have by definition disconnected from the relative realm in pursuit of a kind of regressive narcissistic perfection where pain is not real at all.

this goes to balder's wonderful piece on the difference between krishnamurti's ideas and the way they get distorted by new age voices.

anyway - as i said, nice to get a good long piece from you and well done on starting what promises to be a fun and thought-provoking week!

~julian

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Julian,

My take on Pavlina's piece is that:
1) He needs to clearly say that he is referencing the absolute, if he is in fact doing that. Not explicitly stating this is confusing and unskilful means.
2) Some of what Pavlina is writing could certainly be interpreted as magical thinking. Another interpretation of the same sentences, is that he is relentlessly using all information as a way to grow interiorly. I don't know which option is true for Pavlina, you need to ask him yourself to get the answers you're after!


My thoughts on the LoA can be further explored in this thread, the LoA is not the focus of this discussion.

In your other questions you are making a lot of assumptions that are not in my text. If you want me to answer something you claim that I have said before, please quote exactly what I said so I can comment further on it, if needed.


peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Oh, I had a sense that this whole Pavlina can-o-worms was going to get opened again.

For the record, I hadn't really read much of Pavlina's blog before the whole controversy erupted. Having read the VA Tech post, I agree that the way it is written can cause a whole lot of confusion in readers, depending on their altitude. He seems to conflate absolute with relative, leaving a trail of disillusioned readers behind him. And that's all I'll say about this horse that's a bloody mess after all the beatings.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Cross-posting from Pelle's blog:

Pelle, first of all, I want to say thank you for organizing this Blogopalooza and inviting my participation. I loved this day one exploration of integral wordspace. Now on to the dialectic…

You said: “It's also important to remember that the higher up the spiral we go the greater our ability to affect other people, and large amounts of unprocessed shadow will make us about as responsible as Darth Vader.”

I get the gist of your statement here; however, I would add for clarity that it is our ability to affect people in a constructive manner that is enhanced. People at all stages have the power to act in ways that are destructive to the people around them, often in ways that are more impactful (in an immediate sense) than the subtle direction those at higher levels are able to offer.

Regarding psychotherapy, you'll see in my essay that I am a huge proponent of it, so kudos for hitting that important nail on the head. Based on my experience, too many people feel “above” psychotherapy, and they lose out on a potentially extraordinary tool that can have significant impact on their ability to translate successfully and transform to higher structures.

Regarding frameworks, I love AQAL, but I find that the jargon is of limited use in the world at this point. Very few people are schooled in AQAL, so its impact in my life has been primarily internal. Well, outside the I-I Zaadz pod, anyway! The internal impact has been profound in terms of significantly upgrading my worldview, but now that I have a more inclusive OS, I don't go around thinking in terms of quadrants all the time. It's more seamless than that. It's like AQAL helped me see all four quadrants, but the lifeworlds I inhabit tetra-arise and I don't have to name them as UL, UR, etc. Once one has integrated AQAL, I find using the jargon limits the ability to see the world in all its messiness. On the other hand, when I am in contact with AQALly aware peeps, the jargon can help frame the discussion without all the explication that is required in conversations with those not in-the-know, so I agree with you on that point.

I also agree that one potential pitfall of the AQAL model is that most of the people that are attracted to it have a pretty robust intellectual line, and there is danger of that line being relied on to the exclusion of embodied practice (I have been prone to that myself!). I think this is one of the distinguishing features of teal versus turquoise: Teal is an intellectual investigation; turquoise implements embodied integral practices.

I recently finished the overview paper you've linked to by SC-G, and I agree that it is quite useful for adding meat to the AQAL bones. RAM is great for reading examples of a lived practice. I haven't investigated NLP much; more to do!

I see much value in your attempt to flesh out masculine and feminine typologies; I agree with jikishin that some clarification and reformulation might be even more useful. Unfortunately, I don't have time to riff on that right now.

I laughed and cringed at the same time when I saw the mentions of Pavlina and New Age. LOL. I agree that it is useful (and wise) to discuss the positive aspects instead of simply berating the negative; otherwise, partiality clouds the attempt at bringing people to higher levels of understanding, if that, in fact, is the purpose of such critiques.

Again, excellent debut!

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

My reply to Colin, cross-posted from my blog:


Hi Colin,

Thanks for your feedback!

I do agree that I could flesh out my six m/f categories in more detail… it's just that the categories came to me so recently that they haven't matured in my interiors yet. Any constructive criticism is welcomed.

Regarding higher development and ability to affect others constructively/destructively… Yes, it's certainly true that developing emotionally, value-wise etc will only let us affect more people in a more constructive way. But if we for example have a cognitition that has risen all the way to teal/turquoise, but have our values and emotions at a red/amber level - then we could certainly use our high cognition to do more harm than less developed “evil-doers” are capable of.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Pelle: Regarding higher development and ability to affect others constructively/destructively… Yes, it's certainly true that developing emotionally, value-wise etc will only let us affect more people in a more constructive way. But if we for example have a cognitition that has risen all the way to teal/turquoise, but have our values and emotions at a red/amber level - then we could certainly use our high cognition to do more harm than less developed “evil-doers” are capable of.

I agree with you on the distinction between intellectual and emotional/value lines. I'm not sure that one at second tier cognition would be likely do something that would cause more harm that someone at lower levels might cause. Have any examples? Perhaps by using intellectual understanding to deconstruct less-evolved worldviews and then leaving them to themselves to sort through the demolished belief system? That predisposition might be more teal than turquoise. Hmm.

By the way, it seems that it might be prudent to direct comments on the subsequent essays to the poster's blog. It could get quite messy in here otherwise when people hit this thread for the first time mid-week and want to comment on earlier contributions. Anyone agree?

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Colin:
 I'm not sure that one at second tier cognition would be likely do something that would cause more harm that someone at lower levels might cause. Have any examples?

Usama bin Ladin and 9/11 (teal cognition, red values)
Karl Rove (teal/turquoise cognition, amber values)


Colin:
By the way, it seems that it might be prudent to direct comments on the subsequent essays to the poster's blog. It could get quite messy in here otherwise when people hit this thread for the first time mid-week and want to comment on earlier contributions. Anyone agree?

I want podsters to be able to comment right here in the pod, otherwise we divert all energy away from the pod. If this thread gets messy after a while, feel free to start a new thread for a new essay. Cross-posting in our blogs is still a good idea, since Zaadzsters who are not in the pod get to comment as well.


peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Pelle: I want podsters to be able to comment right here in the pod, otherwise we divert all energy away from the pod. If this thread gets messy after a while, feel free to start a new thread for a new essay. Cross-posting in our blogs is still a good idea, since Zaadzsters who are not in the pod get to comment as well.

Good points. I guess we'll have to determine if new threads are appropriate as the week unfolds.

Pelle:
Usama bin Ladin and 9/11 (teal cognition, red values)
Karl Rove (teal/turquoise cognition, amber values)

What proof do we have that these guys are at teal cognition? High intellectual capabilities do not necessarily translate to teal cognition (I know this is obvious, but…)  Sedond tier cognition implies the ability to take the entire self and systems as objects for inspection. Do we believe this is true for these guys? 

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

I'm actually glad that this distinction is coming up here because it is one of the areas that I still find myself confused. For example, Susan Cook-Greuter's (featured on IN this week, BTW) model discusses levels of psychological development, right? I haven't yet seen an explication of how one develops from magenta through indigo and higher in different lines. What's a good KW resource for that? I mean, I get it in theory, but how does this actually translate to lifeworlds? I guess I just don't see how Bin Laden or Rove could be seen as having second tier capabilities, despite their high intellectual functioning. As I said before, do they take their selves and the systems in this world as objects for evaluation? Have they moved beyond sole identification with their finite selves? Perhaps I'm the one confused, but there seems to be more to second tier than what these men have achieved.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Colin,

When we talk about “second tier persons” I think we are implying that at least cognition and values have developed to integral levels. If you subtract the values from the equation, the person will no longer appear to be second tier at first glance, but if you start noticing what they have achieved and how they are able to think - you can make a qualified guess that they have an integral cognition.

I'm not sure if cognition is enough to see a new worldspace. Maybe it is, but I would imagine that the new worldspace opens up even more when the values line catches up.

SCG combines perspective-taking (ie cognitive development), values and sense of self in her model. She combines these to get “stations of life” in a sense, and we usually have one station that we predominantly act from.


peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Hmm. That helps some, but it's still hard for me to imagine how one might get to a truly integral cognition and still have a red or amber value line.

Moving on…

8)

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Pelle,

I like your essay - it seems well balanced, especially the section on Framework.

One comment: you state,

An effective antidote to address these three traps is getting familiar with other Integral frameworks and thinkers.

The trap in there is that those of us who tend to “be in their heads” too much never get “out of their heads” anymore…

Good work - looking forward to the other essays.

Frans

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Frans:
An effective antidote to address these three traps is getting familiar with other Integral frameworks and thinkers.

The trap in there is that those of us who tend to “be in their heads” too much never get “out of their heads” anymore…

Yes, we do need to move beyond frameworks entirely.

Sometimes we can “enter our bodies through our heads”, for example RAM's writings can be an example of this.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

“We need to move beyond frameworks entirely”

That, my friend, is a very significant statement - and I couldn’t agree more!

Frans

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Thanks, pelle; that was great. I especially liked the explanation of the shadow and how it forms; that was really clear. Also, the question about which lines are most important is really interesting; that would make a good thread. I also liked the positive aspects of the New Age you mentioned; it is generally more positive and, in some cases, less decadent than the cultures that precede it . Another thing it tends to lack is a purpose higher than one's own self.

I also really liked your distinctions between the intellect, the interpersonal, and the spiritual, and the masculine and feminine versions of these. The one that needs particular attention, I think, is the intellectual feminine; I don't think we can characterize it as “messy,” for example. It could be, if the person hasn't adequately developed their intellectual masculine, but not necessarily so. It seems to me that the intellectual masculine is concerned with the philosophy and activity of agency and thinks in very linear, cerebral ways while the intellectual feminine is concerned with the philosophy and activity of communion, or relationship, and thinks in intuitive, nonlinear ways that will end up being just as sensible if the person has developed the intellectual masculine as well.

In terms of writing, the intellectual feminine might not favor the introduction-discussion-conclusion-type format that the intellectual masculine often prefers; it might get its message across by telling a story. We might say that, generally speaking, essays are a masculine form. and fictional and poetic forms are examples of the intellectual feminine. In the case of fiction, if the person also has a well-developed intellectual masculine, you might get something like Anna Karenina or Buddenbrooks; if the person doesn't have a well-developed intellectual masculine it might look like … I don't know, think of a big messy novel without form and direction. Likewise, a discursive essay could be very rigid and closed or very flexible and open depending on how well a person has developed the intellectual feminine. Of course that's also a stage issue.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

David,

Thanks for the feedback on the intellectual feminine, you add some extra meat to what I wrote.
BTW, I used “messy” in a positive context, ie that the intellectual feminine will have less tendency to shun away from that which is hard to explain or just flat out weird.


In terms of writing, the intellectual feminine might not favor the introduction-discussion-conclusion-type format that the intellectual masculine often prefers; it might get its message across by telling a story.

I actually included this in an earlier draft! That the intellectual feminine would tend to use story telling, poetry, stream of consciousness writing, etc to get its point across. The reason I deleted that part is that I don't believe that there are any rigid boundaries in this area. Poetry and story telling can access both polarities I think,  even though the feminine is usually predominant. I'm thrilled that you brought it up with examples and all, and we seem to be very much in agreement here.


peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Pelle,
thats a great combination of integral clarity and invitation to be in touch with embodiment in practice.

I’m fascinated by your section on the Wilber-Combs lattice.

arguably the three horizontal levels indicate the three most important lines of development, as ive tried to play with in this diagram: (couldnt hyperlink for some reason) http://aura.zaadz.com/photos/20/196195/large/Diagram1.jpg?

its a 5 minute job so could be way out, but the idea is to somehow explore the lattice with three simultaneous lines that are integrated, a way to try and focus on the moving target more inclusively,. whether it works or not - probably trying to simplify something complex into a 2d diagram isnt viable.

I think its a topic that needs exploring.

fascinating typologies of masculine and feminine. i’ll need time to digest that, when ive had a good nights sleep ;-)

brilliant stuff!

cheers

melv

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Hey Melv,

Thanks a lot for the praise!

I don't think I grok what you're saying about the W-C lattice, but then again it's even later here than in England :)
If you write something more tomorrow I'll be sure to check it out.


peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Totally buzzing thread! :)

There's a lot of branching pathways in this journey….

But just starting from my first point of confusion…Peter, (or anyone) can you explain to me a bit more about the ITP lines of development or states? I dont have it here myself but I figured that the mind aspect really developed the coginitive line, the body aspect, the gross body, and the spiritual aspect, the ability to go into different states, no?

All confused and I probably need to go read my Wilber 5 again…
Gitanjali

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Mr Pelle,

i agree with others that the masculine feminine concepts you have introduced are very interesting…

Just looking at how youve delineated them, I could see them as three of the key lines of development: spiritual, interpersonal and intellectual…
So, then it makes me think that perhaps all the lines can be divided into masculine feminine? kinesthetic, music, shadow, body, ethics, work?
Perhaps part of the fleshing out of AQALwill involve looking at this?

Miss Gitanjali

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Hi Miss Gitanjali,

A good thing to keep in mind is that we all have access to the feminine and masculine aspect. The higher up the colour scheme we are, the easier it becomes to move fluently between the two…

Frans

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Yes Frans….I have a feeling….thats where a lot of the fun is…


OK this smilie is driving me nuts

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

gitanjali:
Just looking at how youve delineated them, I could see them as three of the key lines of development: spiritual, interpersonal and intellectual…
So, then it makes me think that perhaps all the lines can be divided into masculine feminine? kinesthetic, music, shadow, body, ethics, work?
Perhaps part of the fleshing out of AQALwill involve looking at this?

I agree. Every line at every level has both a feminine and masculine perspective/approach.

What I have tried to do is describe some broad areas of life (sometimes fusing more than one line), and breathe some life into the masculine and feminine perspective. To me this makes it more practical and alive, ready to be used in dialogues or interior introspection.

You know if your smilies don't stop dancing soon, we're gonna have us some of this:




pelle 

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Dear Pelle, THAT smilie is Gross. Definitely not subtle. :P

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Yeah that was a bit muddled… ;-)

what i was first trying to expand on was the highlighting of the fact that the cognitive line sometimes gets valued above others, though i can see that Wilber is right when he states that the cognitive does need to be developed to a certain degree for 'the rest' of our beings to eveolve (2nd tier from teal to turquoise for instance), so i was trying to construct a three headed intertwined spiral of three of the most important lines: cognitive, physical (including centaur and even subtlerawareness)  and emotional (covering shadow work and interpersonal growth), using the three circles idea to try and see how they might cross over. So then you could use that to expand on the dots in the Wilber-Combs lattice, with each dot becoming three 'dots' to show how each line might look in a state and stage of horizontal and vertical developement.
Perhaps a little over-ambitious (certainly for my state of consciousness last night), but ill let it sit there, and maybe someone else can pick up and clarify…

Here's your words again:
Regarding vertical enlightenment, exactly what lines of development need to be at the leading edge? Cognition? Values? Who gets to decide what lines of development need to be at the leading edge to have achieved vertical enlightenment? It seems to be at best a moving target… Horizontal enlightenment on the other hand, seems to be more easily defined, as long as we can assume that there is only one horizontal line. The problem that arises here is instead that even a non-dual state plateau does in no way guarantee good health of the bodies that have been transcended, ie gross, subtle and causal. In the gross realm we give Shadow and levels their due attention – but why not extend the same courtesy to at least the subtle body?

I am a firm believer that vertical development of the subtle body exists; one example is the development of each chakra through different stages. We also find Shadows in the subtle realm, and these are often spoken of as blockages in the energy flow. Furthermore it is quite possible to speak of the horizontal health within a certain level of development of the subtle energy body (ie healthy translation). Finally we have the current state of the subtle body or of an individual chakra, and this seems to be the most common way of addressing the health of this energy body - but obviously this is an oversimplification.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Ok Melv, I see where you're going with that. We can map each line at a certain stage and state to get as much information as possible from a single glance at a diagram. You should definitely keep drawing your diagrams 'cause we do need to advance to 3D integral models instead of only 2D. I'm still contemplating the hypothetical transversal line, that one could possibly add to the W-C lattice. Ken and a Czech philosopher discussed this on an ISC conference call, and the latter suggested adding a transversal line to represent spheres of existence. He might very well be onto something here and in my mind I'm trying to connect that to the work of David Hawkins.

Another possibility is simply to add healthy translation as a third axis to the W-C lattice, that should give us some interesting 3D images as well.

Thanks for your input,

peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Even though it’s a gift to be able to form shadow, it is just as important to be willing to deal with it when more favorable conditions return. As Integralites we climb higher up the spiral than most, and this makes it especially important to face disowned parts of ourselves. High towers need strong foundations to stay in place… It's also important to remember that the higher up the spiral we go the greater our ability to affect other people, and large amounts of unprocessed shadow will make us about as responsible as Darth Vader

I am compelled to  resond to that bit, because its very relevant in my job…

Unfortunately its not only as we climb the spiral (if genuine growth occurs  the shadow will hopefully have been integrated enough to prevent too much of it running free to damage others), but also as we climb the responsibility ladder, which, unlike the spiral, can be done through many ways, from genuine readiness for responsibility to using, for example, feminine charms, to climb  the ladder in an organisational structure.
Then the tower can be held up falsey (for a time) until the goodwill of others runs too thin, but until that time, the ability for us and our shadow to affect others is unfortunately very high. (and there is allways the chance for redemption, for Darth to cast the shadow over the abyss even right at the end, though hopefully it doesnt have to involve the self-sacrifice of physical death…)

With regards to framework, i deeply resonate with your approach, open yet fully investigative.
A useful(?) idea im working with is to extrapolate the method described in some visualisation excercises, where one constructs a mental picture, whether pictorial, geometric or other, and while still retaining full focus and conscious awareness, one dissolves the picture to allow the space left behind to in some way speak to us.
This is how i am beginning to view the AQAL (and other) model(s), as i naturally dont really carry it with me in moment to moment interaction, but its allways there, yet i still want to explore such models more and more, and this way seems to open up the opportunity for meta-exploration without becoming too analytical in the moment.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Melv:
Unfortunately its not only as we climb the spiral (if genuine growth occurs  the shadow will hopefully have been integrated enough to prevent too much of it running free to damage others), but also as we climb the responsibility ladder

True. And they're also intertwined in that a person with high cognition and low morals will be the “ideal” person to climb the ladder of responsibility with less-than-pure intentions.


melv:
one constructs a mental picture, whether pictorial, geometric or other, and while still retaining full focus and conscious awareness, one dissolves the picture to allow the space left behind to in some way speak to us.

Seems like a cool way to bridge framework and territory. You seem to be a very visual person (according to NLP representational systems), and this makes you well suited to construct new diagrams, think up visualizations methods, etc.
Keep it coming bro :)


peace
pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Pelle,

I am particularly appreciative of your treatment of shadow here. Your middle two paragraphs (which I will not quote for length and repetition here) I particularly love. As you can see I, at least briefly, touched upon this in my piece below. The realization of shadow as, very often, though not necessarily always, a survival mechanism is, I believe, an important aspect to eventual re-integration of those lost parts and many other things. In one sense, in a form of self-forgiveness, in another sense, I think, in an objective appreciation of a natural wonder and in another, a sense of appreciation for the gravity of the challenges and difficulties we as human beings by nature face. (Social, emotional, existential, etc.)

I am also appreciative of you mention of the need to eventually reach the “favorable conditions” for re-integration. How do you think that might work in terms of levels/stages? It seems like -at least to some extent -there might be the possibility to discover or create some kind of matrix or guide to better ensure that re-integration of shadow is not attempted prematurely (resulting, i.e. in just more shadow). Or am I thinking of this too simplistically or narrowly?

Also, what in you opinion is the basic difference between something like PTSD and shadow as we more commonly speak of it? Is it that PTSD eventually reaches down to Fulcrum 1 structures, and thus though affective (Fulcrum 2 -) and psychological (Fulcrum 3 -) elements might be healed and reintegrated, it is difficult to impossible to affect the same PTS methods and means to Fulcrum 1 structures? Also, do you think past the centaur level (or even just through state development) it is possible, perhaps, fundamentally change the nature of what could happen at Fulcrum 1? (I hope I'm not rambling off on a tangent here.) Meaning, would or could it be different for a sage or developed centaur experiencing what might cause PTSD in others?

I know this is your field of expertise (right?) that's why I'm asking.

All for now.

Peace, Tim

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Great comment Tim, let me try to respond as well as I can, mixing what I know and what I intuit.

I am also appreciative of you mention of the need to eventually reach the “favorable conditions” for re-integration. How do you think that might work in terms of levels/stages? It seems like -at least to some extent -there might be the possibility to discover or create some kind of matrix or guide to better ensure that re-integration of shadow is not attempted prematurely

I definitely believe that it is possible to create a kind of healing matrix, in spite of how simplistic that might sound. Like I said the 2nd person perspective is invaluable in helping us become aware of a shadow, and awareness is always the first step… turning shadow into no-longer-shadow. The 2nd person perspective (the therapist) can also help us greatly with letting go of the shame, because regardless of the content of the shadow it is almost always packaged in shame…
To this I would add having resources enough to start seeing, feeling and reintegrating the no-longer-shadow. Having resources I correlate more with healthy translation than having a high stage, though orange is definitely the minimum stage neeeded. Not having enough resources would mean that deep shadow work is premature. Fragile psychiatric patients for example often need their ego and general resources strengthened, as well as learn coping mechanisms. Trying to do deep shadow work with them will simply catapult them in a psychosis or cause self-mutilation, depending on the type of condition.

In other words I would say a healing matrix needs at least:
1) Second person perspective, preferably a therapist
2) Seeing the shadow clearly for the first time
3) Being thoroughly accepted by the therapist/person, so that shame is alleviated
4) Resources enough to keep functioning on a day-to-day basis while facing the former shadow fully for the first time, and integrating its gift.


I agree with you completely that the fundamental difference between PTSD and ordinary shadow is that the former reaches down to fulcrum-1 in a major way, wheras the latter might affect fulcrum-1 as well, but not as strongly and not primarily. Therefore I believe that regular trauma therapy benefits greatly from the addition of EMDR or binaural beats (for example Holosync). A fulcrum-1 issues needs a fulcrum-1 approach would be the simplistic rule of thumb…

As to who is sensitive to getting PTSD… that is a more complex issue. There are some biological variables, such as being born with a small hippocampus (part of the brain's emotional circuit). From an integral perspective, we can certainly speculate that general resilience from having done meditation and shadow work would make the brain less susceptible to PTSD. A centaur should be very much alive to the present moment, and therefore be less likely to dissociate and be flooded by norepinephrine by a large external trauma (ie less likely to get PTSD)

This is kind of my field of expertise. I worked 3.5 years with psychiatry besides the general training I got as a doctor. All this is in the past though, and I have no intention of going back to conventional health care. Working in such a stiff and orange environment (that the other doctor's believe in with amber conviction), was the fast road to killing my heart and soul….

peace, and thx again for the comment.

pelle

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Monday May 21, 2007
6:00am

The ice is still lurking in large flat pans out from my shore. The ducks and geese are starting to arrive, feed and be gone again. Over the weekend, my bird feeder has been an activity zone of endless squabbles and bird-processing politics. The squirrels are about to beginning their frantic love-making, dashing up and down trees, making impossible leaps, all in an exhausting, enthusiastic, erotic play. Rosie has her dog friend Raymond down for the weekend. He is a scrawny, yellowish, energetic fellow, and I notice she has been starting to ignore him for the last day or so. I think the glow has gone south on that one. Love can be like that sometimes. Even as I write, a tiny wren perches on a post a few feet from my window and flits off again. A raven has been coming and going, depositing guttural, other-worldly sounds into the mix while surveying the situation. The gulls and the osprey will soar high in the sky, but not until later in the day. Last week on my way to Happy Valley, I saw my first bear emerging from the winter sleep. A black bear with a large, bleeding gash on his right front leg. He limped across the road in front of us, and then peered up from the ditch with a bag of garbage hanging from his mouth. In this remote corner of North America, at the end of the road, tucked into the wilderness with a lick and a promise, this is what is happening.

There is more too. My boys are playing soccer in the Labrador Cup soon. Daniel came home on Sunday with a broken nose, “It was crooked but I snapped it back in place. Good to go!” he recounted proudly, saying the word ‘go’ like ‘goa’ with the satisfying Labrador inflection, and then proceeding to add in the details of the enormous amount of blood on the scene from the kick he sustained to his head. He is graduating from high school this year, and the ceremony is Saturday coming up. His right eye may or may not still be bruised. David, the younger, has flown off south for the weekend to run in the Halifax marathon. It always amazes me that a child issuing forth from my womb can run these long distances, and more over has the enthusiasm and discipline. I wonder too at the jet-setting around. It is not congruent with my best intention at minimizing fuel consumption, but it is the way it is.

Beyond this, I have my gardening projects heating up. I am constructing a small green house next weekend from a kit I ordered from the Home Hardware. I have to get my transplants going in the next day or so. Last fall, we hauled stumps out of the back garden, the former site of the dog team pen. We rota-tilled and planted it with clover, a green manure crop, getting the sandy soil ready for big things to come. The snow has almost receded from it now. This garden is part of my big plans at sustainability, eating food from within my bioregion. My other garden is mostly filled with perennial flowers. The snow has lingered everywhere in this apparently endless effort to manifest spring. Now the delphiniums and Jacob’s Ladder, and Sweet Williams are making an honest appearance. The lilies are coming too. And all the rest, all that lay in waiting through this long cold winter, will soon make an entrance. We are finally melting down and opening up again for this year’s abundant return.

All of this is my context. These are the layers upon layers of bonded reality, twisted and turned by time and intention, into and out of which, I peer. Of course, there are more and more layers. There is the aboriginal community with the confounding tragedies. The red and green politics at play in the mess. There is the beautiful Grand River slated for hydro development. The toxic soil from the 2nd world war military instillation at Goose Bay is perplexing. The forests are described as ‘fiber’ and board feet by the forestry management working groups. The low level flying has fizzled out lately. For the last 25 years this has been the major source of income and now the economy of this area is in jeopardy. People are worried and restless. Resourcefulness is not an easy resource. There is Voisey Bay, the world’s largest ovoid of nickel, just up the coast. Mining it is the newest, major source of employment, a fly-in affair. Two weeks in and two weeks out. Lots of money, but lots of disruption. Not much of a way of life to raise a family, not much choice either…And so it goes. These are some of the endless details in this corner of the world that hold each layer bonded together. Each layer interfaces with the next. These layers emerge in my world, as I turn my attention to them, otherwise they just arise, and fall, arise and fall, somewhere beyond my sphere of action or awareness. Although I am not creating this plethora of reality, I am creating my experince of it. More than that, through my intentions, and actions, I can, at times, co-create this arising reality. Yet, even when I don’t do anything, I am still here, watching and waiting. The birds are still returning, the bears are waking up. Like them, my attention perches here and there. “What to do? What to do?”

We are at an unprecedented juncture in our human adventure. As it is, I am on a media fast of sorts; I have been for a long time. I have no television channels, no radio. Occasionally, I meander over to Google News on the nights that I work in the hospital. The details and effects of the global situation flood into this area in other ways. The price of gas goes up, the fashions change, the variety of food at the Co-op expands with labels coming from everywhere in the world. People complain that the pineapples are not ripe enough. In the lineup, they might exclaim and commiserate over the most compelling world tragedy as fed into them through Fox, and CNN. It is forgotten or not remembered that one hundred years ago a pineapple here would have been recognized as an unexplainable miracle. The significance of this miracle has been swallowed by our sheer and utter capacity to turn our attention way from this moment, to take this incredible experience for granted. As Brian Swimme has said, “we have forgotten awe at the surprise of our own existence.”

Around in these parts now, we have instant telepathy. Forget the pre-rational hoo-doo of the past, the nagging suspicions or intutitions, the haunted dreams, the shaky tents and the shaman. Now, we all have cell phones. I can talk to my sweetie and all the ones I love from the most remote corner of the wilderness here. If the reception is not good, there are satellite phones. They are made somewhere, Korea probably or Japan. I just have to plug in a night’s work at the emergency seeing sick people to get a bank credit. Then I follow this by flapping my hands around on this computer and I could get a satellite phone to arrive at the post office within in a week or so. It amazes me more than I can say, that I can tap on this concoction of silicon, plastic and wires, (hand movements once conscripted in essential activities of sewing, knitting and bread making and such) and I can reach into your lives, send out intentions, attract in all manner of stuff. This isn’t ‘magic’ though, I am told. “Science has explained it.” Like photographs and movies, “not magic” either I am told. Like birth, and evolution—no magic in that. “What Pineapples in Labrador! no magic in that, just hard work from some Ecuadorian peasants in bare feet and a coordination of transport and fossil fuels, that is how pineapples got here.” I can, for instance, tap away at this computer station and manifest coffee beans at the post office, or bikes, or clothes. It may even be that I can manifest my Beloved at the Airport. “Not magic though”, I am told. Not magic?! Hmmmph, I think. It looks like magic to me.

That we cannot see that this is magic, is to me, the most magical of all. It is a dark magic, mind. A gloomy sadness pervades the works. The garbage piles up, the need for shadow work increases, the fear of not-enoughness, the increments of denial, the refusal to consider the implications of our wanton behaviours on the whole of our context, all these hint at a terrible accounting problem. The earth is being metabolized at bust. Happiness is held ransom, somewhere enfolded in an impossible future. As Hermann Daly said, “There is something fundamentally wrong with a civilization the treats the earth like a business in liquidation.”

What is being called for at this juncture. What are we yearning to wake up to,? What are looking for?

I had a beautiful friend named Phoebe Rich. She died at the age of 96 a few years ago. In the early years when I first came here, I would sit with her out at Cunningham’s Brook on the bridge of her humble little house, 100 miles out on the coast. It was the same house that she birthed her children in, one of them breech and her all alone before her confinement time. It was the house built by her husband, Uncle Art, who fished salmon there, and trapped and Rocky Cove in the winter. The summers that I was there, we would sew grass, together. She taught me the krinkum-krankams, a method of making fancy edges on the grass mats, and she showed me how she dyed grass with red berries to make pretty patterns. We would sit and watch the sun go down in the late summer evenings, sometimes not talking for hours. “I am right content,” she would sigh, happy for my company, enjoying the stitches of her grass mat, the utter beauty of the setting sun, the gentleness of the summer breeze. All of it to me was intoxication, ecstatic, simple and elegant beyond imagining. “God is a God that gives” she would say to me, “He wants us to be happy.”

So what is it that we yearn for? What is it that calls us through the adrenalized confusion of this mad frenzy? Or alternatively, what calls us through the boredom of nothin’ goin’ down, no excitement what-so-ever? What is the miracle that happens when the story line gets dropped, when ‘the cause and effect’ explanation (as unarguably true as it is), becomes unconvincing anyway? What happens when the expectations get dropped, and nothing special happens, nothing at all? What happens when your eyes have been yearning their way into existence for 13.8 billion years, travelling through fire and brimstone, articulating this very impossible stardust from one impossible miraculous occurrence to the next, through dinosaurs and deserts, watery oceans and sharks and fields of corn, blue skies, and dramas of lust and love, romance and intrigue wars and famine, and more impossible yearning? What happens when these eyes coalesce together in this moment, arriving at long last, to see for the first time all that has been simultaneously arising in order to be seen? What happens when we pause in this messy stew, hesitating between the cause and the effect, the last reaction and the next reaction, and notice all of THIS? I mean, really notice!

The fabric of my life is the cloth with which it is my responsibility to polish the lens of my own perception. In some magic moments, Clarity arises. And in such moments, there is an unmistakable felt experience—the ordinary is infused, imbued, with the miraculous, as it is clear that it has been all along. Compassion blows through this moment like perfume. One drop of this magic and we cannot be the same.

When I lie on my back and look into the clear night sky, starlight arrives after its long journey through time and space onto the evolutionary technology of the givens, in this particular, of my eye retina—the light arrives back to the very place we both began this arduous, tumultuous and impossible journey. I am caught in the moment of eternal present. I know this much: in this moment, I am looking into the eyes of the Beloved looking into these eyes of mine. How could this ever be? I am filled with awe.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

wonderful to get a good long piece from you jane.

this is extraordinary writing - i would love to see you published as a regular column in a periodical or in a book that was a collection of this sort of writing.

so beautiful and evocative.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Beautiful, Jane!

Pausing between the last reaction and the next one, just being within the fabric of life… Your essay invites us into your world, which paradoxically enough is our world too. Thank you.

This quote jumped right out at me:
These are the layers upon layers of bonded reality, twisted and turned by time and intention, into and out of which, I peer.


Turning my attention back towards this moment,

Pelle



(For readers who can't post in this pod, you can go to Jane's blog and post a comment here.)

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Dearest Jane,

Moving past speechless I enter this space to express awe, respect and thanks. Your writing brings together the poetry of an artist, the insight of a mystic and intellectual depth.

Yum, yum, YUMMY!

This is the type of exploration I sensed was coming; thank you so much for providing some feminine balance to the oh-so-beloved masculine drive so frequently encountered here.

Deep Bow.

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Jane,

This is wonderful, the best thing I’ve read in a long while…

I SO appreciate your way of bringing forth the essence of your soulful perspective..

Sometimes, when I’m sifting through all the theoretical webwork we spin around here, I am left scratching my head thinking: “A three minute song can lead me to a deeper level of communion with the Mystery than all this chit-chat.”

Thanks again for this lovely, melodic piece.

–Bob

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Jane, thank you.

there's not an open heart that wouldnt sing at such honest and flowing expression that so hits the mark, way more precisely than theorising can manage.

It's so to-the-point yet full of hope.

And so it goes. These are some of the endless details in this corner of the world that hold each layer bonded together. Each layer interfaces with the next. These layers emerge in my world, as I turn my attention to them, otherwise they just arise, and fall, arise and fall, somewhere beyond my sphere of action or awareness. Although I am not creating this plethora of reality, I am creating my experince of it. More than that, through my intentions, and actions, I can, at times, co-create this arising reality. Yet, even when I don’t do anything, I am still here, watching and waiting. The birds are still returning, the bears are waking up. Like them, my attention perches here and there. “What to do? What to do?”

What to do indeed, yet by asking the question in the way you have, the answer arises…

The fabric of my life is the cloth with which it is my responsibility to polish the lens of my own perception. In some magic moments, Clarity arises. And in such moments, there is an unmistakable felt experience—the ordinary is infused, imbued, with the miraculous, as it is clear that it has been all along. Compassion blows through this moment like perfume. One drop of this magic and we cannot be the same.

That reminds me of the lesson my mother has so often taught, to find wonder in everything that's around us, because it is actually wonderful, just as it is.
You have spread a seed of wonder awe and amazement, both at what you've written, and what those words carry me (back) to.

Humble gratitude.

Melv

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Ohhh blue eyes,

Your writing moves me without fail, your message penetrates to the innermost recesses of my soul, your perspective opens up my own.

These questions

”What happens when your eyes have been yearning their way into existence for 13.8 billion years, travelling through fire and brimstone, articulating this very impossible stardust from one impossible miraculous occurrence to the next, through dinosaurs and deserts, watery oceans and sharks and fields of corn, blue skies, and dramas of lust and love, romance and intrigue wars and famine, and more impossible yearning? What happens when these eyes coalesce together in this moment, arriving at long last, to see for the first time all that has been simultaneously arising in order to be seen? What happens when we pause in this messy stew, hesitating between the cause and the effect, the last reaction and the next reaction, and notice all of THIS? I mean, really notice!”

are a pointing-out instruction.

And before the shimmering display of your answer, my always-favourite one-liner of yours

”The fabric of my life is the cloth with which it is my responsibility to polish the lens of my own perception.”

and then, revelatory,

”In some magic moments, Clarity arises. And in such moments, there is an unmistakable felt experience—the ordinary is infused, imbued, with the miraculous, as it is clear that it has been all along. Compassion blows through this moment like perfume. One drop of this magic and we cannot be the same.

When I lie on my back and look into the clear night sky, starlight arrives after its long journey through time and space onto the evolutionary technology of the givens, in this particular, of my eye retina—the light arrives back to the very place we both began this arduous, tumultuous and impossible journey. I am caught in the moment of eternal present. I know this much: in this moment, I am looking into the eyes of the Beloved looking into these eyes of mine. How could this ever be? I am filled with awe.”

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Dear Jane,

MMMmmmmmmmmmmm… … ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh … … . .mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I love to see, feel, hear, taste this awareness of yours rising at the edge of such broken wilderness  We are those little junkos at the feeder, “What-to-do, what-to-do?” 

“Polish the lens.  Polish the lens.”

I knew you would do this, just the way you did, at just the moment when the scoters fluttered to the ice-free beach and the sirens of suicide were quiet for the night, that you would show us the kingdom of heaven ever-spiralling from the chaos of sorrow and loss.  It takes great courage to seek beauty in such turbid waters.  What an inestimable gift you are to us all.

Thank you,
your Michael

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Thank you Jane,

Reading this tonight, I want to claim a right to be reminded. Having lived a decade of summers down east, along the Maine coast, where black bear meander tree farms and  koots scuttle atop the crack,…. your piece here became for me, layered across what it is, a meditation on childhood. My brothers and I would trapes broad stands of Norway pine risen among glens nested near meadows, finding a good deal more magic than we could imagine.

These days I find the vivid memory of folks like Mrs. Rich as welcome and peculiar as the pineapple. The pineapple. For centuries the motif of captains. On journey's return, they'd spike the fruit on their estate's gate post declaring, with this succulant moon rock of an aromatic beacon, I'm home. The pineapple. A case study in nudging indigeon into ubiquity. As are the cannons of extant and extinct traditions accessible via satelite.

Not too long ago, Jane, I read here of your close familiarity with the phrase(s), “Thank You God for, most, this amazing day”. That's a line I've said and meant aloud and in silence with regularity for years. What's the odds? Probably the sames odds as coconut in Siberia, huskies in Hawaii, I-I in amberland, or the latitude and longetude of any occassion being seen, known, shared, seen…

I I cap'n,

jikishin

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Jane!

I really loved being taken for a ride with you…from the exploding stars other galaxies to the ineffable gleam in your eyes. What a magnificent soul you are….passionate, intense, yearning….out there in the dark radiant air of Labrador…I can see you from my hot dry town on another continent.

Love
Gitanjali

Re: IIZaadz Blogopalooza!

Blogopalooza Day 4 (Jeesh! This is long-alooza …)

Small Moves:  Reflections From Your Friendly Neighborhood Contemplative

I love that scene near the end of the movie Contact, after astronomer Ellie Arroway (played by Jodie Foster) has been tesseracted through several wormholes to meet with an alien intelligence. This intelligence has “uploaded” her memories, appearing as her beloved father on a starlit beach - a wisely hospitable gesture that, the alien explains, makes such momentous meetings easier on the newbie, the one who is having her first close encounter. Ellie has many, many questions she wants to ask: who are you, what is the history of your species, how did you create this traveling machine, to which the alien answers – using a well-worn phrase of her father's: “small moves, Ellie. Small moves.” In other words: this is only the initial meeting, a first step of many. Let us take our time on this journey, foot by foot, bit by bit. There is no need to know everything, say everything, solve everything, at this particular moment. Answers and actions unfold in the by and by … Even then, don't they usually lead to more questions, more uncertainties, more wild and woolly paradoxes…?  And though evolution and transformation does have its grand cataclysmic moments, much of it seems to occur through seemingly small, even hidden, moves tucked deep within the folds of time. Imagine the countless adaptations and mutations it took for humans to become what they are now. Or how a drop of water, which, joined with millions of other drops over the eons, carves great canyons into rock.

A few years ago the French Carmelite mystic Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) paid me a visit in one of my dreams. Therese, often referred to as the “Little Flower,” is a kind of saint of “small moves.” Fresh from an Air France flight, camouflaged in a wool cap and Nirvana T-shirt, Therese a la grunge, she wanted to take a tour of my life - touch all its tiny little details, the textures of my day to day existence. I was a little ashamed to let her see my messy home office, our sink full of gummy dishes, our backyard overgrown with half-dead weeds. What must this young nun, accustomed to a neat and orderly convent life, think of all this mess? But Therese seemed to enjoy the external disorder of my life. With a grin, she peered at one of my disheveled bookshelves as if it were a field of exotic wildflowers.

Therese's “mission” in her short life was to teach the “little way,” that is: the way of spiritual childhood, the path of trust and surrender - a way that we find right where we are, day by day, in the messy sacredness of the small, the momentary, and the ordinary. Although there are New Testament references, in the gospels, about the necessity of “becoming as little children,” Therese usually referred to texts from the Hebrew scriptures (aka Old Testament) when explicitly teaching her little way: “Whoever is a little one, let him come to me” (Proverbs 9:4). “For to him that is little, mercy will be shown” (Wisdom 6:7). There is nothing cloyingly sentimental about spiritual childhood. It is a situating of oneself, with awe, reverence, and curiosity, before this wild Mystery that births us and surrounds us, with a trust that the Kosmos is quietly unfolding as it should, in us, through us, and with us. It is the delighted recognition that we arrived here through a Mother and Father, through forces beyond our grasp. From this perspective, then (referred to by integralistas as “the second face of God”) humility is never a demeaning of oneself. It is an embracing of what is.

These days my life is characterized by small moves rather than grand cataclysmic shifts. (Though of course, that could change at any moment!) Living with dysthymia - an on-and-off mild depression that I currently manage with supplements, frequent walks in sunlight, talks with a spiritual director, laughter, and prayer - is teaching me to focus my limited energy into small projects and tiny disciplines: toothbrushing as a spiritual practice, writing as prayer, editing as cognitive workout and income, the yoga of napping with cats, small-group contemplative volunteer work, and - when ambition has got the better of me - dishwashing and pulling weeds.

And bathing. I really dig bathing: soaking in the sacrament of the present moment.

Lectio Divina

She would never have defined it as such, but back in the day my mom practiced Lectio Divina (“divine reading”) in the bathtub - often with the bathroom door open, so that a passerby might catch a glimpse of her relaxing in the hot water, reading her leatherbound King James Bible and smoking Kent cigarettes. What long, luxurious, holy baths! She usually kept her bathing Bible on the shelf underneath the medicine cabinet. I'd open it sometimes while using the toilet. Its water-wrinkled pages were full of tiny little pencil marks - apparently she kept track of where she started and ended her readings. I saw that she would read just little bits at a time - from a few verses to a few paragraphs.

Long after she'd lost patience with churchrules, until the day she died, my mother maintained a downhome devotional life by sitting and smoking and soaking in the Word.

Lectio Divina is an ancient art - apparently practiced at one time by all Christians and kept alive in the monastic tradition - involving a slow, contemplative praying of the scriptures. Monastics divide Lectio in to four “movements”: lectio (reading/listening), meditatio (meditation), oratio (prayer), and contemplatio (contemplation).

Lectio - the first movement in the prayer, requires us to quiet down and read slowly - usually just a few lines, perhaps a couple of paragraphs. Since the voice of Spirit often speaks very softly and intimately, one reads with an attitude of silence and reverence. In this receptive mode, we listen for one word or short phrase that attracts us, that speaks to us in a personal way. During meditatio - the second movement in the prayer, we take that chosen word or phrase and ruminate on it, ponder it. We turn it over in our minds, and allow it to interact with our inner world of memories, concerns, and ideas. Thirdly, during oratio, we inwardly speak to God, interacting honestly with the Spirit as you would with a deeply loving other. Depending on the selected word or the phrase, one might express yearning, gratitude, anger, desolation, love, sadness, joy, peace, etc. Finally, with contemplatio, one rests in silence with the chosen word, simply being present to Presence.

Lectio divina has alternative forms, and can be adapted in a variety of ways for practice with small groups. Today practitioners see it as a way to open up and “pray with” a sacred book. “Sacred book” can be broadly defined – the New Testament, a collection of Rumi's poetry, a non-scriptural text, the realms of nature, a painting, events in history, one's own life experience…

Most often I practice Lectio with the written word - and once in a while with song lyrics. On occasion I'll keep a notebook of the phrases I've chosen for pondering. I may spend several days or a week or more with a particular phrase, listening to various nuances, inquiring into its meaning, hearing its truths, responding or reacting to it, observing with interest when it synchronistically resonates with some event in my life, perhaps encouraging me to take some action, offering me a long-awaited answer to an inner dilemma, or even kicking me in the ass.

A few of my past lectio phrases include:

“Seek, and you will miss.” (Anthony de Mello)

“Love one another as I have loved you” One-word version: “Love.” (gospel of John)

“There are thousands of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” (Rumi)

“How long must I climb?” (Coldplay)

“You came out of nothing, isn't that something?” (Fr. Thomas Keating)

“Faith is the bird that sings in the night” (Tagore)

“Persevere” (Hebrews 12:1)

“All I need is your extra time and your kiss.” (Prince)

“Jesus wept.” (one of the gospels)

The practice of Lectio can allow a single word or phrase to bloom and release its hidden fragrances into our lives. It can also liberate myth. As Beatrice Bruteau writes in Radical Optimism: “The [biblical] stories are about us. It is to us that the angel of the Anunciation proclaims that through the power of the Holy Spirit we will bring forth from our emptiness divine life…

            “It is to us that the baptismal voice is addressed, saying, ‘You are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.' And if we really hear that, we will be driven into a wilderness wherein we will struggle with the question of what that means and what its implications are. And eventually we will find, as was foreshadowed at our birth, that we are lying in the manger as food for the world.”

I most often use the Bible for both solo and group Lectio. Over the years, its wisdom has washed through me and through my Lectio comrades like a cool subterranean stream. Or perhaps we're… luxuriously soaking in it. I guess I really am my mother's daughter.

Centering in the Hood

For several years, I facilitated a centering prayer group at a Catholic church in a poor neighborhood near downtown San Diego. We would meet once a week to do a 20-30 minute centering sit together, followed up with group Lectio Divina, informal sharing, or one of Thomas Keating's Spiritual Journey videotapes. (An excellent series of videos, by the way, which elucidates the Christian journey in light of recent understandings about development, spiritual stages, psychology, etc. These videos are where I first heard about Ken Wilber).

It was a lively little group of diverse folks leading busy lives. And the church, situated just a few yards away from a busy trolley stop, was never a quiet place. We'd sometimes use electric fans to create white noise while we meditated, but usually the sounds of the city would come through - the trolley horn, police sirens, young men yelling and breaking out in fights. The Ballet Folklorica used the church's rec room to practice, so there would usually be Latin beats coming through the walls. Kids ran up and down the hall outside of the room where we met. So we often joked that we were getting in some very good centering practice - learning to sit still and let all those wild distractions come and go as we inhaled and exhaled …

Centering prayer involves consistently consenting to the presence and action of the Spirit within. Consent is anchored through the use of a short “sacred word,” (not the same as a mantra) which is silently repeated only when meditator becomes actively engaged with thoughts - including sense perceptions, feelings, images, memories, reflections, etc. The idea is to gently let the thoughts come and go while maintaining the intention. With practice, one eventually “falls into” contemplation, a state which, in Keating's words, involves “the opening of mind and heart-our whole being-to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond thoughts, words, and emotions.” It can be a deeply restful time; it also helps folks become more present to the present moment during their lives outside of the sit. As one practices nonattachment by letting the thoughts come and go, one can more readily offer their mind and their heart to whatever the moment requires.

Anyway, I just have to share this story. I know this is long already.

We had been listening to taped discussions on the relationship between contemplation and action. I think we had also recently done a group lectio on Matthew 25: 31-46: “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you … a stranger and make you welcome … sick or in prison and go to see you?” … “In so far as you did this to one of the least … you did it to me.”

Dennis, the attorney-saxophonist in our group, and our most steadfast contemplative, suggested that we needed to do something active together as a group. Our church was surrounded by the sick and the hungry: homeless people who slept on nearby sidewalks, not too far from the trolley tracks. Why not gather some items to hand out to them, and have this gesture become the “active” part of our group contemplative prayer?

I resisted. I already had my neat, tidy, and safe ways of serving the destitute - by donating to charities and giving old clothes to Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul. And since I was the facilitator of this group and all, I took it upon myself to explain that activity per se was not really the purpose of a centering prayer group. Although our contemplative practices should naturally weave themselves into our actions - into our lives outside of the two 20-minute sits a day - that “weaving” was not to take form as a group activity in any explicit way. And I did my spiel of: “Ultimately contemplation is not personal and private, even though we usually practice the prayer solo. True contemplation is never ‘kept to one's self,' but instead charges all our interactions and becomes a part of everything we do, whether we are eating, changing a diaper, teaching, nursing a dying friend, playing, suffering through an illness, managing a business, fighting injustice ….” Etcetera., etcetera.  In other words: Um, let's not get that close to the homeless people.

But Dennis gently persisted. And when Rosie, everyone's favorite Mexican tia, felt persuaded toward this group action, I figured: well, I suppose there's nothing wrong with giving it a try, as long as we still do the centering prayer. Group members can choose whether or not they want to participate in these giveaways. We might solicit donations from friends and congregants, and pass out goods every other month or so.

Dennis had a very simple plan. (It turned out that this was kind of his thing, giving odds and ends to homeless people. He often kept extra blankets in his car, and on a cold night, if he was driving around and happened to see a street person who looked like he needed a blanket, he'd offer it to him. “They also like bottled water and new white socks,” he told us.)

So we began gathering bottled water, crew socks, nutrition bars, and plastic grocery bags. On the day of the handout, we'd place two waters, two pairs of socks, and two food bars in each bag, pile them into the back of Dennis' van, and drive around to the variety of “street camps” nearby. (San Diego has a lot of them, comprised largely of the mentally ill, alcoholics and addicts - and the occasional family with children.)

As a group (generally it was just three of us who did the handouts), we would slowly approach people, and simply ask, “would you like some water and some new socks?”

Almost always, folks really, really wanted the water and the socks. (And only one time did a man did ask for more. Reeking of alcohol, he slurred, “baby, what I want iz a hug!” Dennis and I simply grinned, but