Gaia: Spiral Dynamics

Re: SEMINAR Integral Leadership for Sustainable Evolution, 4-9 Au

http://AnoukA.gaia.com — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:32:30 GMT

Thanks a lot, that is great!
Anouk

Sdi in London: From Rule Britannia to Cool Britannia to Integral

http://voyager.gaia.com — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:00:14 GMT

Sdi in London: From Rule Britannia to Cool Britannia to Integral Britannia

The June 2-day workshop is a significant build on the March workshop - more relevant, with more time for participation and interactions on the core themes.

Schedule

Day One: Large-Scale Psychology: The Design, Change and Transformation of Whole Societies

While the conceptual model and process are derived in large part from the most advanced version of Spiral Dynamics currently available, it will also include insights

from a number of different disciplines and experiences.

This includes a useful presentation by Don Beck on the nature of change, shifts, transitions and transformation. The dynamics of change FROM what and TO what

will be explored, and we will analyse the process and principles of how cultures adapt, change, conflict, and even collapse.

You will learn about:-

the massive South African transformation strategy out of Apartheid
the Dutch method of dealing with threats from radical fundamentalism
the current Iceland strategy to recover from financial disaster
innovative programs to defuse conflict in Israel-Palestine through a Hong Kong of the Middle East vision
new approaches to “Transpartisanship” through the use of innovative MeshWORKS technology
the design of a Vital Signs Monitor for Singapore (the Risk Analysis Horizontal Scanning project).

Closer to home, you will see how this process was used to deal with the regeneration issues in a Yorkshire former coal mining village and school - the HemsMESH project.

Don Beck was the first to bring the work of Clare W Graves to the UK in the late 1970s. He played a major role in the South African transformation, and was named

“philosopher-activist for the 21st Century” by EnlightenNext magazine. He currently leads transformational efforts in a number of countries and societies around the

world. (See also www.spiraldynamics.net)

Day Two: A Quest for the Unique Cultural ‘DNA’ of British Society: What should be Preserved for the 21st Century?

This will be a highly participatory day, led by UK citizens.

Lynne Sedgmore will give a “State of the Kingdom” address; Christopher ‘Cookie’ Cooke and others will take the lead in generating conversations on selective topics, ranging from education, to transition towns and sustainability, to youth behaviours, to organisational effectiveness, to cultural assimilation, to health care issues, to law

enforcement actions, and to threats from radical extremism. Jon Freeman, Rosemary Wilkie, Rachel Castagne, and myself, all certified in Spiral Dynamics, will assume active leadership roles.

This is not a one-off event but, we believe, will result in a series of summits around the country on critical issues of the day. The intent at the Regent’s Summit is to

identify the key issues and begin to develop resources.

Re: SEMINAR Integral Leadership for Sustainable Evolution, 4-9 Au

http://ADLIAC.gaia.com — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:05:39 GMT

Thanks for the info. I copied this to the Seattle (WA, USA) Integral online forum.

Blessings, OM Bastet

SEMINAR Integral Leadership for Sustainable Evolution, 4-9 Aug NL

http://AnoukA.gaia.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:16:26 GMT

Dear colleaues,
Please consider spreading the word about or attending this amazing seminar for emerging leaders and change makers. You're welcome!

Are you awake? 
Are you on a mission? 
Do you have a big ego and an even bigger heart?

This seminar serves the evolution of emerging leaders all over the globe. Everyone, entrepreneurs, artists, managers, teachers, trainers, technicians and consultants, are welcome to join us from August 4th to 9th, 2009 in the Netherlands!

Keywords: integral leadership, integral, Ken Wilber, sustainability, evolution, innovation, triple-p, cradle to cradle, C2C, green technology, integral theory, Ervin Laszlo, Herman Wijffels

Your trainers will be Clint Fuhs, Irini Rockwell, Barrett Brown, …

http://www.experienceintegral.org
http://events.linkedin.com/Integral-Leadership-Sustainable/pub/77440

Our PURPOSE for this event is to assist emerging leaders and change agents worldwide (consultants, politicians, artists, bankers, students, entrepreneurs, etc) with taking the next step in their contribution to a sustainable evolution on our planet.

We do this by:
- facilitating the emergence of personal purpose and reflection on talents,
- by offering the tools and the latest applications of theory in the fields of leadership and sustainability and
- by creating a welcoming space that invites you to to let go and grow together.

We are really excited about the seminar and how it is coming together. It is going to be an amazing experience for all of us.

Re: good spiral dynamics test?

http://wabisabi.gaia.com — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:53:02 GMT

Turil,

Your site is beautiful. lots of content and nice design and layout. Thanks!

Richard

Re: A Spiral/Integral Dating test for you all!

http://turil.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:55:12 GMT

So what would you suggest for making my test better, in your eyes?

My goal is mostly fun, but also to offer people an opportunity to think a bit more about who they are, and to introduce people to my own Spiral Growth Theory (whichis solidly based on Integral/Spiral Dynamics/Maslow's hierarchy and some others.

Peace, love, and bicycles,
Turil

Re: A Spiral/Integral Dating test for you all!

http://neri-bar-on.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:46:03 GMT

Hi turtle

I only recognized that it is not simple to have useful tests, the simpe 1 out of 4 questions make a lot of the practical wisdom of SDi not to be accessed.

for exposing our multi level cultural/world view "DNA" we can think of some simple tests.

Do you wish to educate about SDi or to help people find their match?

Re: A Spiral/Integral Dating test for you all!

http://turil.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:25:24 GMT

I'm a little confused, Neri. What are you suggesting? Is there something that you'd like to see different about the test?

I was hoping to offer three different stage results (one for the physical development line, one for emotional development, and one for intellectual development) but the quiz software didn't allow that, unfortunately, so I just stuck with the intellectual, with the other two lines being factored in a bit, for the final result. And. I wanted people to be able to select as many of the possible answers as they wanted, but that wasn't an option for this form of test. Which is why I gave the slightly unusual direction to pick the highest numbered answer that was appropriate. If I ever have more time to spend redesigning the test, I'd like to make it so that you can choose as many options as you want, since we've included the previous levels into our current one.

Of course, this test is no more accurate than any other self administered psychology test (including the one I took from SDI). :-)

This mostly just gives you something to think about and play with. Though I would like to make the wording as clear as possible, so that they questions really do represent the levels as well as our messy human language is capable of! :-)

So yeah, if you have specific suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Re: A Spiral/Integral Dating test for you all!

http://neri-bar-on.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:12:50 GMT

Dear wise Turtle

One of the issues of SDi is that the VMemes are not monolithic, and the questions has complexity, so people can be attracted to several messages (as I did when I looked in your questioneer).

The original tests I see developed by Dr. Beck and others use a "vector" of wheights to measure the different attractions we have to the different VMeme by this methode we get more accurare image of our inner structure.

As all this tests are dealing with subjective reference (the attraction judgment happens inside us) this tests always need some behaviour evaluation.

It is possible I think to have questneers to be more focus on specific "foot print" that will make the match, but you will need more information on the content of the VMeme and not just of the dominant Vmemes.

A Spiral/Integral Dating test for you all!

http://turil.gaia.com — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:26:20 GMT

I created a developmental theory test (based on Spiral Dynamics, AQAL, Maslow's Hierarchy of Need, and my own Spiral Growth Theory and stuck it on the smart people's dating/match-making website OKCupid. You don't have to be a member of OK Cupid to take the test though, so everyone can enjoy it.

Let me know what you think. It's my first attempt, and I need some feedback from folks who really understand the levels well.

I'd like to add some more advice to the results pages, but for now, I just wanted to get the basics in there.

Try it out!

The Spiraling Upwards Test

Peace, Love, and Bicycles,
-Turil

SDi in Politics & Corporate Fascism

http://profundity.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:57:52 GMT

Jesse wrote:

Integral Life has a forum discussing the very topic right now. Check it out. http://IntegralLife.com

Obama's integral message isn't quite hitting home with pre-orange and green altitudes, in my opinion. This is why the Republican ticket has any support in the first place. This leads me to believe that his center of developmental gravity is green. if he were to fully embrace lower developmental structures, and integral inclination, then his language would be more appealing to them.

We, as integral thinkers, need to do everything we can to get in touch with our own lower levels of development values and listen for what it is that we are needing to hear. Then we can more effectively meet the frustrations of those levels in our communications with them.

Most likely, we can do this through shadow work. What happens when we do shadow work with Republicanism. I did this, and came upon some astonishing insights. That got me thinking about all sorts of issues in less charged ways.

One thing I thought of that would be super cool would be if Obama invited McCain to serve on his cabinet during a debate. This would serve the purpose of helping Obama to understand the right wing better as he governs. He would be able to take that perspective into consideration much more accurately by having a right wing advisor close to him. Keep your enemies close as they say.

Basically, though, the biggest question I have in my mind is this: When we're in touch with the consciousness in our lower levels of development and we listen to Obama, what are we not hearing that leaves us frustrated? If we can answer this question, then we can help Obama and his campaign and our Dem ticket pushing communicate to the on-the-fense voters out there.

Hope this helps, and looking forward to fleshing out this idea with you all.

Jesse

Thank you to Jesse (from the Integral Obama mail-list) for the http://IntegralLife.com link, that was very helpful. However, a link to the specific part of the website that you were referring to in regard to an Integral Obama message would be greatly appreciated as all but one of the Google search results for Obama on IntegralLife.com were negatively-oriented (like, "Is Obama the Anti-Christ?"). If I missed any integral concepts or issues below please do not hesitate to point them out to me, either publicly or privately. I tend to take a more practical approach to my explanations of things but I try to use integral languaging where it seems most appropriate. I did find value in watching this video that attempts to begin to explain Integral Political Challenges.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQRUu_4W2j8

One of the main serious issues as I see it is the need to communicate exactly WHY a homogenized mostly non-essential-activity-based society is being FORCED upon the majority of people by the so-called globalists who sincerely want a one-world frame of perspective as a means of providing an overall peaceful environment. However, in this pursuit they seek to bring a lowest-common-denominator mentality to the masses which appears to be effectively neutering or otherwise rendering impotent people who are or may become potential enlightened individuals. Turquoise and above conscious awareness has no practical application of such awareness in a "dumbed-down" paradigm, i.e. no useful language to communicate such an awareness. Such an awareness exists in and of itself in each individual who happens to develop it, mostly by accident or at best by extremely rare syncronicity. Those such self-identified individuals of us need to figure out how to communicate integral concepts in non-integral languaging which kind of seems like a paradox to me.

I understand that in order to have peace that you need to speak in a style of language that the majority of people can understand. However, the very process of attempting to communicate in such a green language appears to be forcing people to be green people and hence adopt an actual green mentality or way of thinking. At that point such people are virtually lost until they somehow find a way to wake up again.

Obama tends to speak so intelligently that the Republicans/Neocons are able to make fun of him in the media and therefore lessen his inspirational messages.

How can "we" as integral communicators assist Obama in understanding this challenging dynamic and still have him help Americans do the right thing?

Clare Graves, Don Beck, and Ken Wilber did a great job of defining and effectively communicating the challenge in a useful manner/language/semantics however it is up to ALL of us to figure out the soulution.

Sometimes it is depressing knowing how things really work but being unable to communicate with people who really need to know how things really work (i.e. the truth about life/nature). Is it any wonder why some powerful (ADHD/Bi-Polar/Borderline?) people give up attempting to communicate and simply treat the green majority as sheeple? Psychological awareness began around 3,000 B.C. as philosophy however the so-called science of psychology only began about 200 years ago. What does that tell you about hidden psychology (esoteric wisdom) and how long certain groups of people who understood this wisdom have been actively shepherding virtually the whole of humanity by utilizing the principle of psychological leverage from the essential beginning of time? So, how do we as the new enlightenment deal with such a long-term force? The saying of, "May The Force Be With You" begins to take on a whole new meaning in regard to the hidden yet human forces for good.

We do it by having the Obama Campaign attempt to communicate with that ancient wisdom tradition/force by explaining our understanding of certain key principles openly in the media. This is quite literally a prayer to "G" (not necessarily THE God but a wide range of groups of people literally and effectively acting as gods on Earth or "The Force").

There is an aspect of socialism, or the needs and desires of the many, that can not be ignored as well as an aspect of corporate fascism, the needs and desires of the powerfully-intelligent few, that also can not be ignored (a case of rocks and hard places or unstoppable forces and immovable objects). This is why we have ONLY two major political parties in the United States. These two yin-yang / green-red elements are so immense that they have BOTH chosen to make a bargain, one very obvious demonstration of which was Democratic Majority Leader Pelosi agreeing NOT to impeach President Bush for OBVIOUS legal infractions (both the 9/11 events as well as the Iraq events and subverting both the people as well as the Constitution of the United States). EACH side needs to get some of its way from time to time in order for there to be a balance-of-power. Both are both so-called good and evil depending upon which side you choose to be on. This dynamic has also resulted in both the U.S. and Great Britain being friends with both Israel as well as Arabia, a partial history of which can be found here:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/hparabian.htm

So, there is an inherent inability for the Democratic (as well as Republican) Party to be as honest and upfront as they would like to be. Due to this balance-of-power Obama is literally prohibited from providing actual solutions that seem obvious for those of us who are paying close attention to what is actually going on. Money is NOT the issue because money can either be printed or debts otherwise forgiven to create it. Plus, with the advent of electronic currency and credit money does not even need to be printed anymore. Who to THEY think that THEY are fooling? Who do WE as integral-minded people actually communicate with to say, "HEY! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" (loud, NOT angry). There was enough money for an absurdly-expensive Iraq war but NOT enough money to deal with the environment that would cost a lot LESS money to deal with?!

Hopefully one of you reading this will forward this message to one of the secret few who will actually know who to advise about such issues and this prayer will ultimately reach one of the ancient wisdom gods here on Earth who has the power to actually do something that actually makes sense.

Thank you.

P.S. Here is a response from someone who read the above message outside of GAIA.com...

Forwarded message...

Purple People Power, I very much enjoyed your synopsis of the challenges of communicating an integral perspective in everyday language. We were inspired to follow an inspired vision and create an integral multimedia thoughtform combining positive music and Obama's powerful message of self responsibility "it's about you!" to promote the "YES WE CAN" movement. Please check it out and pass it on if you feel so moved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK1LZ_eILSA

What do you think?

Re: Spiral Dynamics and Personality-Soul Typologies

http://ADLIAC.gaia.com — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:16:04 GMT

I promise not to mention Marmy-poo on the GN Feature..... hahahahaha !!!!

Chance has brought me back to this thread, and I see you asked about the typology I have studied the most. Took some internet searching but here is the book I was referring to, I got the author's name wrong it's Humphry Osmond, with 2 co-authors John A. Osmundsen and Jerome Agel, and the title indeed is Understanding Understanding.

http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?title=Understanding+understanding&titlex=Understanding+Understanding&author=Osmond%2C+Humphry%2C+and+Osmundsen%2C+John+A.&authorx=Humphrey+Osmond

There are just four types: Sensation, Thinking, Feeling, Intuitive, with extravert and intravert for both. People are classified by their top and second, and I or E. I immersed myself in it, with several friends, and we lived and breathed it for several years, so it got deep into my psyche...

There are many more fundamental (and thus more powerful) typologies I have discovered since then -- the Enneagram, left-right brain, Cosmic Essences, and Spiral Dynamics -- but this was my first introduction to the concept of "experiential world" so it was foundational to my thinking ever since then, 1974-ish (I think we discovered it when it was quite new.)

I never bothered to learn the Jungian system this one is based on....

Thanks for all the many links. I look forward to when the Flow brings me to explore them !

Blessings, OM Bastet

Re: Spiral Dynamics and Personality-Soul Typologies

http://benjamindavidsteele.gaia.com — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 10:02:16 GMT

Marmylade? That's Marmy-poo to you!

Arrrgh! I just had one of those annoying experiences where a post disappears while typing it.

My knowledge of Jungian typology is extensive, but I don't think I've ever heard of Humphrey-Osgood or of the book Understanding Understanding. As you guessed, I'm using the MBTI system, but I'm familiar with some other ones. I find Socionics confusing and can't say I know it well.

I'd like to hear more about Humphrey-Osgood if you'd like to share. Also, I'm all ears about those other typologies you mentioned.

Here are some of the specific type forums that are all fairly active. Unfortunately, not all types equally enjoy being on forums. Its basically INPs and NTs that predominate on-line.

http://infp.globalchatter.com/

http://forums.intpcentral.com/

http://www.intjforum.com/

http://www.entp.org/discuss2/

Here is a more general forum, but it has a section for each of Kiersey's Temperaments. You can find many INFJs on this forum... and a small smattering of STs.

http://www.mbticentral.com/forums/

Also, I've seen threads with type polls on atheist forums. They tend to be mostly INTJs with INTPs as a close second, but also with a decent number of INFPs. Here is a thread I started about this at Open Source Integral.

http://opensourceintegral.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1615967%3ATopic%3A5581

And here are some other related discussion threads.

http://opensourceintegral.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1615967%3ATopic%3A9081

http://opensourceintegral.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1615967%3ATopic%3A8863

Re: Using SD to enhance communication of Vision

http://ADLIAC.gaia.com — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:36:53 GMT

The discussion of typologies is a bit off-topic re SD and communication, so I have started a new thread in reply to Marmalade's post just above, called SD and Personality-Soul Typologies. Bop on over there and check it out !!

Blessings, OM Bastet

Spiral Dynamics and Personality-Soul Typologies

http://ADLIAC.gaia.com — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:32:45 GMT

This is a diverging branch of the thread titled Using SD to enhance communication of Vision. We are now getting into the potentially vast subject of comparing, contrasting, and synergizing SD with other "typological" systems, in order to enhance not just communication but just about any purpose in life.

152 members in this Group, hope others will jump in. Are you all on Notifications of posts to this Discussion Group??? Hope so !!!!

The following is my response to Marmalade's post in that thread. Please read that.

Well, orange Marmylade (haha, that's extra funny here !!!!)

You and me is gonna get some action goin' in this joint !!!!!

You said
I've wondered for some time why personality theory doesn't get discussed much amongst integralists.

And I wonder the same thing. "Type" is more than gender !!!! (I forget some of the other types Wilber mentions.) OTOH there are lots of trivial typologies out there, superficial in the sense of not really good categorizing, challenging to use and not profound in implications.

You said
The knowledge is there and plays out mostly in a subconscious way.

That's the way it should be. When I learned NLP they taught us that unless you employ your knowledge automatically from your subconscious, you haven't really "learned" it. That does pose challenges if we are asked to explain why we do something, sometimes, though, I am sure you've noticed !!!

You said
I'm an INFP and INFPs particularly love meta-communication. When I visit an INTP board, its an entirely different world. Before visiting an INTP board, I didn't realize how significant personality could be.

I don't think I am such, but I adore meta-level ANYTHING.

Now, this idea of visiting different Boards to see how the different types sound in cyberspace, in print alone, that opens new vistas for me. Could you offer some links so I can pursue this?

You said
The majority of the arguments on the now closed Lightmind seemed to me to be nothing other than differences in personality styles.

This is a very profound point and highly related to Spiral Dynamics. When people argue and it's really just personality style differences, that is typical First Tier behavior. When people get present to/disidentified with their type, then and only then can they move to 2T. That is why studying these typologies seems SOOOO IMPORTANT, to me. You cannot transcend and include your personality type in any system (and thus build your own weaknesses, use your own strengths, and communicate effectively) unless you KNOW your type in various systems.

Other miscellaneous thoughts on the subject:

The Jungian typology system I know best is the Humphrey-Osgood one in Understanding Understanding, from the '60's. I am a fairly balanced Introvert-Extrovert, Sensation-Thinking type, but with strong Feeling, and nontrivial Intuitive. I never learned how to map that system onto the currently popular further-downstream Jungian-derived Meyers-Briggs, which I think is the system you were typing yourself in.

I regard the Enneagram system as probably one of the top 3 most fundamental, most profound, and thus, most useful, but only if one studies the spiritual bases, not just the personality books. There is only one good BOOK on that, called The Spiritual Dimension of the Ennegram, by Sandra Maitri. (Her second book isn't so great, IMHO.) She has a website, http://www.sandramaitri.com/ I believe, and teaches her stuff in workshops. But even she doesn't go all the way with explicating the spiritual bases of the Enneagram. (That info is directly from Almaas, who does have web presence, and I have not read his stuff. I got it from one of his students.)

Perhaps I will create a new thread here sometime to discuss the Enneagram. Maybe do a site search first to see what else has been said here in the Community.

Other than the SD sytem and the Enneagram, I like one that I learned from some (now unavailable) spiritual teachers long ago, and have further developed myself. It is called Cosmic Essence, and is based on the observation (not idea) that each of us contains all the qualities of consciousness, such as truth, joy, intelligence, wisdom, honor, compassion, etc., but specializes in one or two. (Vaguely like soul archetypes, which is also a useful typology, especially as developed by my friend Michael Lincoln.)

I have written a long paper on Cosmic Essences, as I am currently the only one doing "readings" of this for people, but I want to get it out there and teach more people, as it is profoundly useful and healing. Our Cosmic Essence is our gift to the world, just from who we are, before any effort or action, we just radiate it. And it channels and colors all our actions. I think it's more fundamental than any other type, including soul archetypes. .

Hey, thanks for the great exchange, Marmaladekitty.

Namaste, OM Bastet

Re: Using SD to enhance communication of Vision

http://benjamindavidsteele.gaia.com — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:46:30 GMT

Hey Om!

I saw this when you first posted it and I've been meaning to respond. I guess I was waiting to see what others might say, but no one else seems to be jumping aboard. Apparently, this pod isn't very active at the moment.

I tailor the way I communicate depending on who I am communicating with. I do consider such things as Spiral Dynamics and also typologies, but not in a direct way. The knowledge is there and plays out mostly in a subconscious way. I don't usually actively think about what type or meme someone is.

I haven't studied the Enneagram much, but I have studied Jungian typology very deeply moreso than I have with SD. Hanging out on various Jungian typology forums has taught me how to shift the way I'm communicating. A large percentage of discussions on Jungian typology forums are simply about how people discuss... meta-communication to an extreme level. I'm an INFP and INFPs particularly love meta-communication. When I visit an INTP board, its an entirely different world. Before visiting an INTP board, I didn't realize how significant personality could be.

I've been on some integral forums where I thought people could use some insight from personality theory. The majority of the arguments on the now closed Lightmind seemed to me to be nothing other than differences in personality styles. I've wondered for some time why personality theory doesn't get discussed much amongst integralists.

Using SD to enhance communication of Vision

http://ADLIAC.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:49:09 GMT

Hi folks, this is my first but far from last post here. Just joined. Intensive SD student and thinker.

Thought you might be interested in this mention of SD in response to this post in Vision Cafe Group.

Someone said

I think that the most challenging part of getting my vision out is getting others to understand my vision the way i do and to bend my vision in ways that everyone can understand what i want to do. the worst part about communication in the world is that no one can understand eachother. what happens when you dont understand something? well, its simple, you argue. people get scared when they have to listen to something that they dont understand or wont take the time to understand.

And I said

I so resonate with what you say. Communicating for understanding is such a challenge and so important to peace in the world. "Bending" one's vision to help people understand it, that is a great metaphor.

What I have found most useful is to study how people think and believe, and then pick my words, medium, and style of communication tailored to my listener(s) or audience. Talking to one or a few people is of course far easier than a big group, or posting to everyone.

There are many many many ways to study how people think and believe. Many of them are called "typologies" such as Jungian typology, which has many "children," one of the current ones being Meyers-Briggs Personality Theory/Test.

There is also the Enneagram, which in my opinion is just about the best system for understanding people and tailoring your communication to reach them or "land" in their understanding. There are dozens of good books about the Enneagram.

The very very best way of understanding (and communicating to) people I have found so far is called Spiral Dynamics. The best source is the book by that name, by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan. It's in Amazon and our book database here. A quick summary of the system is in Ken Wilber's A Brief History of Everything, also from amazon and in our database here. The Spiral Dynamics book is not cheap, even used on Amazon, but can change your whole life, your whole way of relating to people and understanding yourself as well. It is very powerful and could really help you spread your vision to others, I believe.

Spiral Dynamics explains why people argue and get scared when they have to listen to something they don't or won't understand, and explains ways around that problem.

There are many other approaches to handling your challenge, but you might want to explore these. I seek to be helpful to you, that's my only purpose in this post.

Here's to our Visions !!!!!

Aloha, Rev. O.M. Bastet

Re: Best Turquoise book I've read (so far!)

http://itlandm.gaia.com — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:35:01 GMT

This certainly look like a great book, but I am curious as to why you consider it Turquoise rather than Yellow. It certainly looks solidly Yellow from the reviews I have seen so far?

Best Turquoise book I've read (so far!)

http://workwell.gaia.com — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 09:33:43 GMT

I'm on holidays in Bali and my wife couldn't scrape me off the pool lounge yesterday as I read this book. It's a superb turquoise adventure. I'd value comments, especially from others who have read this book, or similar works. Cheers, Andrew Hollo Purple to Turquoise: A Review of “The View From the Centre of the Universe” (2006) by Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams. When I was in my early teens, I had sleepless nights because of a TV documentary about the millions of “invisible” organisms which live in our hair, on our skin, and within our bodies, quite unbeknown to us. I lay awake not because I was frightened, but excited. Magnified tremendously, this broadcast showed them crawling around like dinosaurs, complete with scaly flanks and barbed tentacles. Like most boys of my generation, I was fascinated by the prospect of discovering alien life, yet here was something equally intriguing - and it was real! And right under my nose. Well, under my fingernails when I scratched myself. What if those organisms, in turn, had similar parasites? And what if they, in turn, did? Scaled in the other direction, what if we humans were blind to the fact that we existed on some giant creature’s epidermis? Which, in turn . . . well, you get the picture. These ideas lurked and never really congealed into something solid until, yesterday, I read Primack and Abram’s masterful book. “The View from the Center of the Universe” attempts nothing less than a plain English explanation of our place in the cosmos, fusing Primack’s ‘hard science’ astronomy with Abram’s metaphorising to create a compelling Turquoise cosmology: something that builds upon purple’s creation myths, red’s desire for centrality, blue’s insistence on truth, orange’s quantification & testability and green’s yearning for wholeness. What impressed me most about this book were the way the authors addressed ‘simple’ questions like, “What is a human?” Their answer? “I can trace my lineage back 14 billion years through generations of stars. My atoms were created in stars, blown out in stellar winds or massive explosions, and soared for millions of years through space to become part of a newly forming solar system - my solar system. And back before those creator stars, there was a time when the particles that at this very moment make up my body and brain were mixing in an amorphous cloud of dark matter and quarks. Intimately woven into me are billions of bits of information that had to be encoded and tested and preserved to create me. Billions of years of cosmic evolution have produced me” (p. 281 italics in original) It’s hard to know to summarise a book I found unputdownable; almost every second page is dog-eared and underlined. Primack and Abrams speak through vivid images, stories and metaphors. Just one of these is the Cosmic Uborubos - picture a circular snake eating its own tail. From tail to fangs are the the 60 orders of magnitude between the smallest subatomic particles and the largest superclusters of galaxies. As humans, we are roughly halfway around and our sensory apparatus is tuned to pick up just a narrow sliver (from a millimetre or so, up to the size of large mountains). This range of 6 or so orders of magnitude are the realm which we consider ‘reality’, where ‘common sense’ works and physical intuition is reliable. The remaining 54 orders of magnitude are only available to us ‘with assistance’: the microscope, the telescope, or mathematics and physics. What’s any of this got to do with SD? Primack and Abrams offer a Second Tier cosmology which fuses well verified scientific theories like relativity and evolution with those less well tested yet accepted: particle physics (subatomic particles don’t exist per se, they have energy states which generate probability clouds); double dark theory (dark energy and cold dark matter fill 95% of the ‘space’ which most of us imagine is the universe - I always thought it was a vacuum, a nothing), cosmic inflation (an explanation of how we got from the Big Bang to the irregularities which created hundreds of billions of galaxies such as our Milky Way) and the fractal theory of biological scaling (which explains why we humans can’t possibly be a critter on the skin of a larger critter - they’d never be able to evolve a circulatory system large enough). So far, this sounds like a science book right? Wrong. This is where the partnership between the authors comes in. They’re a husband and wife team who teach a course at the University of California called ‘Cosmology and Culture’. What is a cosmology? It is “a social consensus on how to think about whatever is out there” (p. 19). A bit like memes. Especially v-memes. For example, a tremendously successful purple culture, which we call Ancient Egypt, developed a cosmology based upon multiple non-dogmatic myths, with no requirement for consistency. Monotheistic (blue) religions today continue to offer a view of the universe which many accept today: an omnipotent God, who inhabits some higher sphere, creates earth from the firmament and populates it. The inherent cosmology of most educated Westerners is the materialist (orange) Newtonian model: a sense of ‘cosmic homelessness’ based on a view that we live on a small rock circling an insignificant heap of gas within an immense vacuum punctuated by other similar gaseous clouds and balls of rock. Green cosmologies also exist: they posit a universal ‘energy’ or some intangible (and unprovable) universal harmonic or pulse which we can connect with should we choose to do so. This is where Primack and Abrams shine: their move to a Second Tier cosmology which binds the scientific with the mythic. The former recognises that we have the ability, increasingly, to quantify, to test and to reason. (Some of the developments in astronomy and physics since I saw that TV documentary as a teenager 30 years ago are almost beyond belief). The latter recognises that we must develop a shared set of stories and meanings which may, one day, enable us to harness our joint efforts in the interests of saving the only planet we know of which has evolved consciousness. In a nutshell, this book’s great contribution is its ability to help us integrate cosmic ideas into our lives. It’s the most readable turquoise book I’ve found yet.

Finding SD in the news media

http://jubu531.gaia.com — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 03:25:31 GMT

Hello all,

Do any of you read newpaper articles, magazine articles, listen to tv or radio news and think that SD explains or could make sense of what you read, heard or saw?

Do you also wonder why SD is not being discussed more in light of recent events?

Jubu