Don't Just Sit There....Do Something! (Part 3)

Everyone I know whom I would classify as 2nd tier is doing something. That's not to say everyone who is doing something is 2nd tier, but once you make that "monumental shift," from my perspective, you have no choice, any more than a caterpillar has a choice as whether to become a butterfly or not. Once you understand what's at stake, once you see from a 2nd tier perspective, you have to do something, be involved, make a difference. To do nothing would be to turn your back on your very being.

I know of people who operate from 2nd tier but who have never heard of Ken Wilber or integral. Knowing about the integral approach is not a prerequisite to 2nd tier, but it sure is a great map!

One of the things that happened to me, before I knew about Wilber or the integral approach, was that I started developing practices without even knowing what I was doing. Let me reframe that...I knew what I was doing, but couldn't name it. I recognized there was immense value in leading a balanced life, and began doing something about it. Doing something. I was swimming competitively, working out 4-5 days a week, lifting weights, watching my diet, reading books that I thought would develop my mind and awareness, and meditating. It wasn't long until I began developing a sense of Spirit that had been long missing from my life, and began looking at things around me in a different way. I'm convinced today that my intuitive development of "an integral life practice" prepared me to more fully comprehend the integral approach when it was finally presented to me.

So, let's say someone who is still first tier, who gets this stuff cognitively, but doesn't yet embody it, wants to push their consciousness to greater span and depth.....what can they do? Start by developing an Integral Life Practice. By consciously immersing ourselves in 2nd tier practices, we "fake it until we make it." Remember the old Henny Youngman joke where someone asked the comedian how to get to Carnegy Hall? Youngman replied. "practice, practice, practice." By practicing, we rest in the subtle and causal states of those practices, until they become second nature to us. They might not feel natural, at first, but one of the tenets of making changes in your life, is to do what it is you want to change, or adopt, for 30 days until it becomes a habit. Once it becomes a habit, you own it, you embody it.

What is Integral Life Practice? "Developed at Ken Wilber's Integral Institute, it is a highly flexible system for working on your physical health, spiritual awareness, emotional balance, mental clarity, relational joy, and energy level, within a framework where everything fits together—where you finally make sense, because no important part of you is left out. Practicing this elegant, flexible system even for just 10 minutes a day will enhance literally everything—it will make your life more joyful, loving, healthy, whole, intelligent, fun, and compassionate."

It is through these balanced practices that someone can "hurry" this development.

But you have to want it....and you have to do something.

Don't Just Sit There....Do Something! (part 2)

In my last post on this subject, a couple of days ago, I promised to delve deeper into why I think people don't get more involved. More to the point, why people join a group and then seem not to participate in an activity that I am so incredibly passionate about. In this case, it is specifically around SeattleIntegral, the second-largest integral salon in the world, and arguably, the salon with the most impact on other salons, the norming, storming, and forming intersubjective local spaces and communities that are trying to create new paradigms and practices from emerging levels of consciousness.

It is because of my admitted lack of understanding that I am trying to flesh out the reasons for this lack of participation, or as it's known in online group circles, "lurking." There's even a larger picture, here, that I think is related: Why are people so apathetic in general? While I'm not going to try to answer that in the context of this post, I will try to answer the smaller question around salons, particularly SeattleIntegral, because that's the one I know.

An online group is a system (it's the online part that makes it a system), a lower right quadrant social holon, and its exchanged artifacts, through the the participation of individual holons (people) in that lower right quadrant. But can people who just sign up for the list and then don't participate in the list be called part of the social holon known as SeattleIntegral?

It depends on what your definition of "sex" is......er, participation. If they are reading, then, yes...I think they are participating (small p) to some degree. But why don't they Participate (big P)?In my last post on this subject, I pointed out that there could be several reasons why people don't respond or post, and promised to expand on it in this post.

I believe the very simple answer lies in the AQAL model and its five aspects, but particularly with levels and lines. Seattle is perhaps one of the greenest communities in the United States. Maybe not as green as Portland, but we have a much larger population, and before I go any further, I want to point out that I mostly love green. It is a very high level of development, and deserves an incredible amount of credit for the many things it has accomplished in the last 30-40 years.

However, as Ken Points out, no level can see beyond their own development. While a new structure or stage might be emerging, unless someone has moved into that new stage, they really can't see the level above them. It's the reason that, while I cognitively "get" Indigo, I can't really understand it until I can live and embody it.

Salons have a unique role in the emerging integral consciousness. We naturally have a lot of orange and green, especially in communities like Portland and Seattle, and where there is a lot of orange and green, there's going to be some curiosity about what appears to be emerging, or 2nd tier capacities. My sense, from three years of experience, is that a lot of the lurkers in our groups are basically orange and green, and as such, while they are interested, mostly don't really know how to participate in some of these conversations.

In addition, large orange/green communities are going to have a relatively (no pun intended) large amount of 1st tier emergent to 2nd tier people. One of the roles of salons, I'm convinced, is to provide a nurturing ground for all of these individuals to expand and develop, both horizontally and vertically: Horizontally by providing opportunities to develop more span and skills, and vertically by providing opportunities for peak state experiences. This is why practices are so very critical

Ultimately, I think without embodying an integral approach, we simply can't be that passionate about it. No passion largely means no Participation.

Next: How does one go about getting Integral, and can you make it happen?

The Elimination of a Shadow

This is not her fault, it is mine. This is not her story, it is mine. She was everything I ever wanted in a woman....beautiful (to me), intelligent, awake....and she boldly professed her love for me as I was cautiously and carefully holding back, not wanting to loosen my heartstrings too quickly, or to frighten her off. After her proclamation, I immediately opened my heart and allowed her full access to it based on her words and my belief in them.

Not too much later (the whole thing only lasted three months) she began pulling away. I won't go in to the reasons why, except to say part of it (I believed) was that she had deep unresolved pain from an earlier event that I can't begin to imagine from my masculine perspective. I readily admit I didn't handle her pain well. Instead of just being there for her, I thought I might be able to fix things for her. I was terribly wrong, and in that sense, I didn't deserve her in my pre-David Deida masculine/feminine world.

We thought we could be friends (I thought if I could be around her long enough she'd eventually come around). Again, I was wrong. I remember the blood draining from my face and my world crashing around me as she told me of her desire to be with another man as we had finished dinner one night in a restaurant. During a walk around Greenlake together later that evening, I was able to pull it together, but it was clearly over. I despised her for her cruelty, and loved her still. We tried to be friends (she continued pulling away, I continued hoping she'd change her mind) but we were fooling ourselves.We stopped seeing each other.

Several months later, she contacted me and apologized for the way she had acted. We agreed to try to be friends, and wound up on another walk around Greenlake, and when it was over, we agreed to a movie or dinner soon, and she invited me to call her. After three calls, and three "I can't's," I stopped calling. I don't remember how I found out (a forwarded email?), but it wasn't long after that she moved, changed her email, and her phone number without leaving any forwarding info. End of story. That was three years ago. All this time, I've been putting her out of my mind, rather unsuccessfully.

Forward to last week. I'm on Match.com, looking for a conscious relationship, and I get an email from her (she's on Match, too), suggesting we might talk and get together for a walk. I'm still wrapped up, even three years later, with the memory of that relationship, but wiser and not willing to step into anything without care. After a couple of emails, I tell her I'd like to see her, but I'm not going to pursue it, and she will have to do the reaching out, if we're to meet.

Meanwhile, I begin the 3-2-1 Shadow process, from the Shadow Module of the Integral Life Practice on the whole thing, and I have this shadow conversation with her, wherein I am able to let the whole thing go and come to complete acceptance with the realization that I am not in love with this person, but, rather, in love with who I thought she was, and the ideal I was projecting on her. Totally unfair to her, and to me. But mostly, there's the realization that the person I was in love with may not even exist, except in my own shadow projection.

And with that, I free myself from my projection, and from the hold I allowed her to have on me, and accept that it doesn't matter if I hear from her, because I don't know who she is....I only know who I thought she was, and who I wanted her to be. With that, I'm one step closer to knowing who I am. I can stop consoling and deluding myself around this one choice. More importantly, I can, in my own mind, free her of any responsibility for my feelings.

By the way...she hasn't contacted me as of this writing, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

Don't Just Sit There...Do Something! (Part 1)

There are people in the Seattle Integral Salon, SeattleIntegral, that I've never met. Sure, some are from London, Germany, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and even Phoenix and DC. But there are of lot of local members on our discussion list, who live in, or around, Seattle, that have never come to an event, written or answered a post on that list, or done anything integral at all that I'm aware of. Of course, just because I'm not aware of it doesn't make it so.

Maybe some of these people (Lurkers, as they are known in group world) are doing amazing things that would blow us all away. If they are, I would hope they would be inspiring the rest of us to greater horizontal and vertical awareness by modeling the possibilities for the rest of us.......but most lurkers just lurk.

This isn't my first list. I belong to Don Beck's Spiral Dynamics Integral list, and I was a member of the Ken Wilber Yahoo list for a couple of years, until it started getting nasty, and I decided to opt out. I also belong, and have belonged, to several other lists, local and internationally. I created the SeattleIntegral list and have moderated it for these last three years, through good, and some difficult, times. On these various lists, we've had lots of discussions about lurkers, and when those have happened, sometimes a lurker will speak up. According to the few who do speak up, sometimes they're just too busy (but not too busy to read?), some don't feel they have enough knowledge to contribute (but knowledgeable enough not to ask questions?), and some are just shy.

Then there are those with agendas.

The agenda joiners don't want you to know who they are, and won't introduce themselves to the group. Geoffrey Falk, self-proclaimed Wilber critic and cult writer, quietly joined our list and proceeded to write a scathing analysis of a social event (a social event??? That's what you got?) we sponsored without ever asking one of us what our intentions were. Even today, a year later, I can't take Falk seriously because of his rash assumptions and because his shadow mercilessly appears in his criticisms. According to Wikipedia, Falk apparently had an abusive experience with a community. I feel compassion for him, but I'm not going to let him beat up on me or SI.

I've also recognized people from other lists, who have tried to join the SI list, who were extremely disruptive when allowed to participate. I've told more than one, upon joining the group, that I would not tolerate the behavior they exhibited on other sites, and that if they started, I would remove them immediately. They were also told that if they wanted to conduct respectful exchanges with others, they would be welcome. They didn't stay.

But, I'm not really talking about the agenda joiners. The ones I've been thinking about do nothing.....and I think I know why a lot of them do nothing, and I'll address it in another posting, soon.

Bumper sticker image from the iBoutique

A Shameless Personal Plug

Those of you who know me, know and understand that I'm seeking ways to turn my integral passion into an integral living, without becoming a "consultant." This posting is a brief rundown on how I'm going about making that happen.

First, I'd like you to visit a new website/artifact I've created, the i-Boutique, with the help of Cafe Press. Here, I'm using my design abilities, along with my razor-sharp wit (UL), to create integral apparel (UR) with an attitude (UL again). The current designs are integrally-themed and also include some apparel designs for SeattleIntegral. To avoid any conflict of interest, as one of the leaders of SeattleIntegral, all the profits from the sale of SeattleIntegral related items go to support the Seattle salon (LL). Please buy a lot.

Second, I'd like you to visit my regular website, www.garystamper.com. I'm an internationally known designer, having won several intenational design awards, and an accomplished illustrator. One of my most recent projects was the design of the book cover for Don Beck's newest book, a re-release of The Crucible: Forging South Africa's Future in Search of a Template for the World.

Another path is a startup company called Integral Marketing Associates. This will probably eventually shift to my main site, as one of my goals is to provide design, illustration, marketing, web design, and presentation materials to the integral community. IMA is the company you won't have to explain the integral concepts to......I already get you and your audience. The motto of this startup is "Marketing From All Four Quadrants."


I'm continuing to look for ways to support myself through my passions: Art and Integral. Another way I'm trying to do that is through this blog. Some of you may have noticed I've begun posting some advertising links on this blog. No one has complained, and I hope that's not because no one's reading! I found out about how to do this through Steve Pavlina's blog, "Personal Development For Smart People." That's me....and you, or you wouldn't be reading me! I invite you to go to the top of the page, see the links, and click through on some of them if they interest you. When you do, I get paid, and you don't even have to buy anything!

And last, there's Seattle Body Paint....I have no idea how this fits in with Integral....It's just a hell of a lot of fun for all the obvious reasons!

Groups and Dominate Modes of Discourse

Recently, integral salon leaders from around the world, friends all, even though I haven't met them all....yet...were hit with a request from one of us to help with the energy of the salon they lead. Another salon leader followed that up with their own questions about dominant voices taking over meeting with uninformed knee-jerk reactions, leaving the leaders of the group struggling with how to handle those situations. I'll eventually post the entire conversation (as soon as we've agreed how), but wanted to share some insights on group process that we've learned frome at SeattleIntegral. Lord knows, we've had our share of disastrous meetings! I remember one Meetup in particular, that had fallen apart with those knee-jerk reactions, where my wise-beyond-her-years friend Kari and I sat across from each other smiling and laughing inside, and wondering, what the F*** just happened? Here's an excerpt I posted from the email exchange.

Judging from the experiences we've had at SeattleIntegral, this is a common problem with groups. What we've learned is that the conversation will be dominated by whatever holonic level the majority of attendees intersect at. In other words, wherever your "dominant mode of discourse" (Integral Spirituality, Chapt. 7, page 149) is located, that's the level where the conversation takes place....and if the Dominate Monad of the majority of attendees is at first tier, you're going to have a first tier conversation (I just went nuts when I read this...it was exactly what we had been dealing with! Ken did it again!)

Now, there are some things you can do about that: be aware of the dominant monads of the individuals attending your meeting, if possible (you'll learn who is what very quickly in these situations, but it may take several meetings), and set up your meeting accordingly. Second tier, or teal/turquoise can skillfully guide the conversation by setting the tone of the meeting response before that participation begins.

For example, if your dominate mode of discourse is amber (mythic-membership), set up rules ahead of time.....If it's orange (achiever), set up rewards or a goal to be accomplished....if it's green (individualist), well, good luck, and goodbye! No, seriously, set up the abilty for everyone to have a voice, but limit the time for each (because you only have so much time, right?).

Another thing you do is set a "safety system" with other second tier group members, who understand that when things start to go toward a first tier dominate mode of discourse, you gently guide the conversation back (understanding each others roles in this situation and what to look out for ahead of time is critical).

We've learned these things from having meetings go right out the window because we lost control. Our leadership group, the Core Group, has mostly second tier people trying to learn how to operate as a second tier leadership group, but, in any group, if you have a couple of people at first tier consciousness, and we all have elements of other levels and stages that sometimes show up in our shadows, therein lies the challenge.

The final point I'll make is that our salons (yours? Ours? Anybody?) seem to be made up of mostly of orange and green-emergent-to-whatever folks, (with a little blue now and then) and our job as second tier salon leaders is to be able to provide the context and a space where consciousness can grow and people can be helped in whatever ways possible to see both horizontal and vertical perspectives.

We are not trying to run a second tier salon. We're trying to develop a second tier leadership group, a very different thing. This Core Group is trying to develop what the next evolutionary phase of an Integral Salon might look like. We don't tell our "sub-groups" what to do, how to think, what to program, anything.....We're "only" trying to provide a larger context for more complexity.

We're actively pursuing Holacracy/Sociocracy as a governance system (like I-I), in the hope that the other sub-groups might join in that circle to create a larger organization. We've just approved our first set of by-laws (again, that govern the Core Group, not the sub-groups), and a lot of other things.

So, back to what we don't do: All of the Core group members are also members of various sub-groups, so we have a very good idea what the ITP/ILP, IOS, Integral Spirituality, Meetup groups are doing (these Core Group members are, in most cases, guiding those groups to a certain extent, if only by example).

As long as we have first tier folks who cognitively get this stuff but can't embody it, we have to take it to them...we have to have these conversations in their language, with just enough taste to allow them to question, to create the disorienting dilemmas, and also allow them to move at their own speed.

The reason the remainder of the group is functioning so well, is because we're all on the same page. Some of us have gone through the "Generating Transformative Change in Human Systems" program from Pacific Integral (google them), and we've had a great deal of experience with Integral Leadership, shared altered states of consciousness and their various energy fields, and have a dominant mode of discourse. Some previous members were asked to leave....second tier cannot fear hierarchies, and if someone isn't fitting in, or is getting in the way of the group progress, they have to go: The compassion of the blade.

How we "regulate" that is that no longer can anyone just "Join" the Core Group. You would need to be invited to join, or you could petition the group. Most of us are certified through the GTC program to Integral Assessments on groups and people, and most have done the Cook-Grueter Leader Development Profile (LDP), so we know what our individual action-logic is, and to be in the Core group, you'd need to be at the Strategist level (second tier), or pretty damn close.

Now, as for the groups where the discussions start getting out of hand, we generally have a minimum of 2-3 Core Group members at most meetings and when the discussion starts going south, we're not afraid to pull it back, and to tell people why. This is a conscious response from the Core group members because we have talked about how to respond in certain situations. That does not mean that we don't allow Amber, Orange, or Green to share what they're thinking, but it does mean sometimes pointing out the ways that thinking is amber, Orange, or Green, and why.

One of our favorite sayings is, "well, that's a perspective".....and then moving on....

So how do we open a meeting where we know there will a combination of several memes? An opening statement might be something like "we're going to follow these rules (amber/mythic), so we can accomplish (Orange/achiever) such-and-such, and everyone will have a chance to be heard (Green/egalitarian)...and since we only have this much time......." Remind Amber that rules need to be followed, Orange that we have goals, and Green that others need to be heard.

Original Image by Gary Stamper at the iBoutique

Consciousness Shifts and the Middle Class

Historically, there have been three types of government rule: Warlords, Theocracy, and Aristocracy. Although there have been occasional pockets of democracy throughout history, it has not, by any means, been the norm. During the 18th, 19th, 20th centuries, and early into the 21st, we have been engaged in a rather spectacular experiment never seen before on this scale.

We all know what warlords look like: they are the Genghis Khans and the Sadaam Husseins. They may take on the look of a somewhat modern society, and use the tools of modern society, but make no mistake: They are warlords pure and simple, and operate from an egocentric, or a pre-operational consciousness level.

A theocracy, on the other hand, is the church-state of Catholicism, some Islamic-Muslim states, and the Church of England (and the US if we're not careful), just to name a few, and operate from absolutist, conformist (conform or else), mythic, authoritarian, and ethnocentric consciousness.

Aristocracies, such as Kings, corporate states, and ruling classes, operate primarily from strive drive, rational, or concrete operational consciousness, most of the time ruling by controlling who has the money. Egocentric and ethnocentric Wealth rules.

But every so often in history, there arises the phenomenon of democracy....and by democracy, I'm not talking about lassiez-faire capitalism, but the rise of a middle class, and the power that comes with it.

There many things that democracies have in common, but there are a couple you might not have thought about. For instance, do you know what the Renaissance, The Enlightement, and the Age of Aquarius of the 21st century all had in common?

For one thing, they were all preceeded by societies that had developed a strong middle class. Let me explain how.

The Renaissance was preceeded by the Bubonic Plague, the "Black Death," that took one-third of Europe's population. Afterwards, there was an extreme shortage of labor, and to get things done, wages increased dramatically, creating a middle class that had leisure time: Time to think, do art, create...and ask serious questions.

The Enlightenment was preceeded by Spain's forays into the New World, where they brought gold back in droves, creating untold wealth and also creating a middle class across Europe ...again....time to think, time to do, as opposed to having to pay attention to just surviving.

The Age of Aquarius, those quaint 60's some of us older folks had the pleasure of living through, were actually started by the founding fathers of this country, almost 200 years before. The American Revolution wasn't a wealthy class creating an elitist country. For the most part, America was created by middle class people who were throwing off the chains of an oppressive aristocratic form of government. Yes, there were some who wanted to keep a new aristocracy in place, like John Adams, but the middle class won out. A Worldcentric consciousness bloomed.

Now move that some 150 years forward with Roosevelt correcting the faults of a corporate aristcracy that drove America into the Great Depression, coining the term "a living wage", the strenghtening of unions, and the creation of the greatest middle class ever seen, culminating at it's peak in the 1970's. Pow! The Age of Aquarius.... In fact, it was so powerful, that other countries are actually doing it better than we are today, since Reagan began systematically dismantling the middle class in the 1980's.

Today, we're seeing the emergence of another level consciousness: the Integral Movement. The middle class has not yet completely gone away, despite conservative efforts to return us to a ruling aristocracy, and soon we may see the emergence of an integral population large enough to significantly impact the world we live in...it is well on it's way.

Democracy....a middle class....evolving consciousness....Kosmoscentric conciousness...perhaps enough to make a permanent difference in how we all live on this tiny planet.

Coming soon: a plan to have the integral movement and salons move into politics and begin making a difference in local elections.

An in-depth review of Ken Wilber's new book, Integral Spirituality

We are now past the fourth meeting of our SeattleIntegral "sub-group," The Integral Spirituality Group, dedicated to the study of Ken Wilber's newest book, Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World.

SeattleIntegral's Integral Spirituality Group is the first formal IS Group on the West Coast and is a combination of experience and study centered around Ken's new book. Integral Spirtuality attempts to include the profound insights of the great spiritual traditions - respecting their essential identities - while exploring new forms of practice and realization, seeking a trans-path to the future of religion....no small task!

Our meetings have provided many insights into Wilber's new perspectives (known as Wilber 5), including insights to our own perspectives. Crucial to these insights is the expansion of the AQAL model (a combination of interior/exterior/individual/collective, or the four quadrants), into eight perspectives, or zones, pointing out that every quadrant has an interior and exterior (1st person, 2nd person perspective) element that must now be considered.

In other words, meditation is an Upper Left experience of the AQAL model. But if I'm talking about my meditation, that's a first-person experience of the UL quadrant. If I'm talking about your meditation, that's a second-person perspective of a first-person experience. Simple, huh?

As an artist, I intuitively and immediately understood the importance of perspectives. What I see depends entirely upon where I stand. At one meeting, I drew out a landscape looking at a mountain range across the plains, with telephone poles and road diminishing in the distance toward the mountains. I then proposed, what if I were standing over here, instead of where I was standing in my original drawing? Would not my perspective be different?

What we see, our perspective, largely depends on the culture in which we were brought up. In Integral Spirituality, Ken brings new understanding and tolerance for the perspectives of others....among many other wonders.

Wilber's new book "is a mighty challenge to religious leaders and sincere religionists everywhere, one that teems with original insights that could (or at least should) define the future of world religion." For an in-depth review, go here, and scroll down about a third of the way on the right hand side.

How To Start An Integral Salon, Part 2

Tomorrow night, Wednesday, October 4th, is our monthly SeattleIntegral/Ken Wilber Meetup. It will be the 44th official Seattle Ken Wilber Meetup, a group that officially formed on February 20, 2003. There's a lot of history, there, and a lot of experience, some difficult, mostly very, very good.

The first step in building a new integral salon, or in finding one, is knowing where to look for others who are thinking as you do. I suggest starting with Ken Wilber Meetups. Go to the "Find Ken Wilber Fans" page to find out if there's already a group in your area, and if there is one, join it and start growing it. If you don't already have a Meetup in your city, start one. This is where most of our members came from, and where they continue to come from.

I remember well the nights when only Jake Werre (we met through the Meetup network), one of the other SI co-founders, and I would show up in the basement coffee shop at the Elliott Bay Bookstore in Pioneer Square. I also remember committing to be there at every meeting, no matter how few people showed up. I knew this was important, because people had to know that someone would be there, and no one should show up for a Ken Wilber Meetup and find no one had shown up.

In December of 2003, Jake was out of town, or something, and I was the only one who showed up. As I sat there, wondering where the others were who where surely interested in Ken Wilber, I knew we'd have to start doing something different if we were going to attract other fans of Wilber (I'll address that "something different" in Part Three).

This was purely selfish on my part. Oh, I knew if we could get something going, it could benefit a lot of people, but what I was looking for wasn't out of altruism........I just wanted others to talk to about this stuff that was changing the way I looked at the world: People I could learn from, hear different takes, get different perspectives, understand more.

The lesson from Part Two is to commit to showing up: Whether you're the one who shows up or if you're one of many, your commitment can make all the difference in the world.

All the while I was searching for others on the internet, and there weren't that many places to look. I'm grateful to Leonard and Murphy's Integral Transformative Practice website where I found Larry Jacobson, Blaine Snow, and Tom Mull. The ITP site has a page on forming an ITP group, and from there, you can go to a forum where you can connect with other ITP practitioners, most of whom have an interest in Wilber. Find the people in your city and invite them to meet with you.

I'm also grateful to Frank Vissar's Integral World website. Although it hasn't been updated in a while, there's also a list of Meetup cities.

Of course, if you aren't looking on the Integral Institute site, you're not really looking. Go to the Regional Community Spaces pages and look for your region, groups, and people. Find a group. Start one.

Last, look at iSalons.net, a loose federation of integral salons from all over the world that is a bottom-up effort at organizing salons, and, in some ways, is way ahead (for now) of Integral Institutes' Integral Matrix, probably because it is a bottom-up effort, and not top-down. Most of these folks know what they are doing, because they've done it (tell them how much you like their logo!...heh, heh....)

Most of all, have fun, and know that you're not alone. You just gotta set your intention and attraction forces and find the others. Before you know it, you'll be looking directly back into your own face.

Next: When Meetup no longer has the tools to grow a group.

iSalons.net logo by Gary Stamper