Exploring "We" Space: A Report on the 2012 Integral Community Seminar

I think I may step in it again...I sometimes seem to have a habit of doing that. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I also seem to have a habit of writing about the stuff I'm stepping in without thinking---caring---about the consequences. I'm trying to avoid that with this blog.

But...I call stuff out. As I told Terry Patten last week, I'm a shit-stirrer because shit needs to be called out before it becomes shadow.

This seems to have begun in 2006 and when I chose to speak out about what I thought was a huge mistake by Ken Wilber around what became known as the "Wyatt Earpy Incident." According to an article by Frank Visser on integralworld.net, it was an "attack on reason and free inquiry, basically, which was applauded by the closest of his followers," which promped me in my response to those un-critical thinkers/supporters and coin the term "integral fundamentalism."

Ken's seemingly shadowy "suck my ****" response to his critics (who's pointing at whom?) in the Wyatt Earpy Incident tore some rifts in the Integral community that still seem unhealed today. I believe my own separation with Ken began here, and that I'm still working on getting back in his good graces...but not at the expense of my values. Still, there is certainly the awareness that I owe him so much, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

Today I'm calling some stuff out again. This will no doubt further elevate my status with what I am now beginning to call the "conservative wing of the integral movement" (for years I've railed against a friend of mine calling himself an integral conservative because there was no such thing...perhaps that time has arrived, but not in the way he meant it). I think this may have affected the exposure of my book on "integral" websites---and I was aware of that possibility from the beginning, so I set out to write a book that could not be ignored by the mainstream integral community. However, not one official "integral" site has publicly explored or even mentioned the book, although I do believe I'm making some progress.

What I'm calling out is something that happened at the Integral Community Seminar. I'm not calling out anyone specific (publicly, that is, because I have no desire to embarrass anyone---besides, who is not important: the action is). The people, attendees, staff, presenters (wow!),facilitators, and venue were all amazing and some really deep connections were made. I literally fell in love with everyone. And sometimes I disagree with even the people I love the most, and I certainly don't love them any less because I disagree with them.

It was Friday, the fourth full day of the seminar, and the entire group was in morning circle trying to step deeper into a shared "we" space, a Unity Consciousness, an almost morphogenic field where we really wanted to tune in with each other in a collective consciousness....and we weren't quite getting there. Apparently others felt that way, too, as suddenly, what and how we were doing, what we were trying to do, wasn't good enough so that whatever wanted to emerge, couldn't. And all at once everything shifted; Not to the desired place but backwards. We had largely lost it.

Since the early days of SeattleIntegral---the salon I moderated for five years---we always took the approach of setting up the container, the context, to allow conscious to arise. This allowing is far different than trying to make something happen by forcing it by ignoring the multiple shadow aspects of what might also be arising in a larger group. 

Exploring and evolving "we" space is critical stage-building. But for me the conference was about sharing the state experience of We consciousness, not about what felt to me as trying to force the state into a stage. We are evolving the "we," and the more we do the work at the states level, the closer we get to turning that state (a temporary experience) into a stage, a permanent structure. I have no doubt there were people at the seminar who are capable of being at a stage structure of the We space, but as a group, we're still evolving. We just have to be patient with each other, allow that to happen, keep practicing, and know that we are blessed that there are people with whom we can practice.

My wife Anyaa, who cut her teeth as a psychotherapist in 2nd-stage feminism along with metaphysics (strange bedfellows but she managed to integrate some things in the late 70's that did not want to integrate), says this about the seminar: "I loved the presentations which ranged from opening with a Kosmic view of the Universe and beyond, to the mechanics of cultivating the I, the I-Thou and then allowing the We to emerge. I loved the practices, the facilitation and the setting. What I felt was lacking was a recognition that there are groups and circles and communities of different world-views and orientations that are cultivating this We space and have been for quite some time. Perhaps Integral folks would call these groups Green or New Age, but Green and New Age do a really good job of recognizing group consciousness, from which the We arises. It's also called Unity Consciousness, 5th Dimensional Awareness, Ascension, as well as a Enlightenment and Source Consciousness.We are all in this together, and those of us who have not labeled ourselves Integral deserve credit as well for creating the states that will eventually stabilize us in a solid We Consciousness. It seems to me that if we really want to live Integrally, we must recognize the gifts of the earlier stages."

Guest Blog: What in the World are They Spraying?

Water, Fire, Earth…now Air: What in the World are They Spraying?

This blog was written by my wife, Anyaa. The facts presented here are true and can be fact checked. The question is why? And will we wake up and put a stop to this before it's too late? This must be passed on. - G.
Posted by Anyaa on Tuesday 14 February 2012 at www.goddessontheloose.com

by Anyaa McAndrew: I received a link to a long documentary today, one that my sister~friend sent to me a few days ago, and asked me to watch it and get back to her about what I thought. Her tone in the email caught my attention, as she was evidently upset about the content.  I emailed her back and told her I did not have time to watch it and asked her what it was about. Then on a hunch, I suggested to Gary that we watch it this evening. I was ready for one more documentary on what we are doing to the planet, more info on Chem Trails, something I know very little about. I expected to be better informed and enjoy some popcorn!

Then, as we got deeper into the subject, my mind was blown once again, a regular occurrence in these times! I realized that again, our sacred elements, our elementals, are being hijacked from where they belong, and in this case, sprayed from the air in the form of toxic aluminum, barium and strontium, called GeoEngineering. We have mounds of evidence now that we are being poisoned with these substances in alarming amounts, and it does not matter how clean our diets or environments or habits…it is everywhere in our soil, our food, our water and is coming from our air.

One of the most interesting yet believable phenomena regarding Chem Trails is that everyone sees them but no one really knows what they are or what they do or who sprays the stuff, including our representatives in Washington DC who are oblivious.  Most elected officials seriously had no idea about what the filmmakers were even talking about. Yet the levels of toxic aluminum in our environment and the associated diseases are on a very dramatic rise.

Several folks interviewed pointed out the crazy cloud formations that have never been seen before, the crisscrossed web of  trails in the sky that we all barely notice. What are we doing to ourselves? The official answers are that we are protecting ourselves from global warming, reflecting aluminum into the skies to deflect heat. Wonder how that interacts with the sunspot activity and solar storms that are coming at us from the sun? Some say it is weather manipulation, others say it is population control, making us sterile and sick.  Then there are the Monsanto crops that are genetically engineered to be aluminum-resistant.  All say that you simply have to follow the money to find out where it all starts. And, you guessed it, it all traces back to big money because it is apparently very profitable to spray us.

I personally love the 2nd dimension, the beings, bacteria, minerals, rocks, crystals, microbes, and the roots of all things that lie beneath the surface of the earth. I love the 3D plants, the trees, insects, and animals that interact with the earth and what is beneath it. In the last few years we have seen the horrendous assault on Mother Ocean in the form of the Gulf Oil disaster, which is said to be much bigger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill a few years before that, then the Fukashima nuclear meltdown that is still happening, which some say may also have been the HARP work of the Big Bullies that have been running our planet. These are two of the reported major assaults….most don’t hit the news corporation or the people. But there are many documentaries out there on every form of environmental abuse. All you have to do is Google.

I guess we really have been asleep, or maybe we are all just late teenagers finally hitting our first Saturn Return as a species, and some of us are finally realizing that we cannot ignore these bad-boy shenanigans anymore….we are going to have to get real, get angry and pick an issue! Any issue you like, but it’s time to get off our butts and get involved in some kind of Sacred Activism. Some are already on the streets for us, and some write books and articles, others talk about it and make films and teach and work in the trenches of activist groups like Occupy, and some hold space in meditation and prayer. Others rescue the innocent ones and prevent more needless deaths in the animal world, allowing the innocent ones to teach us about unconditional love. I am personally so proud of the young people, those who are not taking denial for an answer and are demanding to know the truth, to unveil every last stinking bit of it, so we can start to repair the earth and build the new world. What i know is that i have to do more, and more, with my heart and soul passionately involved in what has heart and meaning for me.

So, I plan to purchase this film, which is what the filmmakers suggest, copy it, as they suggest (no marketing, just consciousness-raising!), and distribute the link and the film widely. I also plan to get more intimately connected with my soil this year, my inner terrain too, and get to know more healthy minerals and microbes and 2D elementals that are here to assist us to get through this. I have been taking Diatomaceous Earth for awhile now and am looking into other minerals like Zeolite, as well as greens that attract and bind heavy metals. We must get proactive…think probiotics!

I encourage you to find ways to get more involved with your inner and outer planet….and please take an evening to watch this documentary….it is really important for us to know about this!

To find out more about aluminum poisoning from Chemtrails, click here

To view the documentary, click here

The Integral Warrior and Shamanic Astrology

In my book, Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior, I've included some new material I have not previously used in the process. As I consider the Integral Warrior Men's Process an evolutionary approach to men's "work," that goes to new places other men's work has not gone, it only makes sense that it evolves and goes deeper as I evolve my understanding around how all these processes and modalities fit together.

One of the new modalities I've added---to the book, first, and to the workshop, next---is Shamanic Astrology. One of the few shortcomings of Integral Theory is that some of its well-known proponents don't recognize the value of anything archetypal. However, I'm claiming that if I can put archetypes in a developmental context, the door opens to placing them in an integral context. That is not to say Shamanic Astrology is integral, but that it can placed inside a larger integral perspective and that it adds value to that larger perspective.

To give you a feel for Shamanic Astrology, I'm going to use my own chart as an example. I was stunned to see my chart and how it fits together with the work I'm doing around the masculine. It is literally a map that explains not only why I do what I do, but how.

"Well, of course that's why you're on the path you're on!" It's another tool for discovering our Sacred Purpose and its validation.

Shamanic Astrology uses a mythic and archetypal storyline that runs counter to "behaviorism," saying we don't come in to this life as a blank slate, but, rather, that we bring an "original essence" with us that is revealed by our birth time as it relates to the position of the moon. In my case, my moon was in Sagittarius at the time of my birth, which means I used to be a Sagittarius. It is my lineage. It is where I come from. My birth time also reveals that I have the Aries Job in the Sag Tribe. Sagittarius' main issue is the desire to find meaning and purpose. It is a Jungian approach centered around the quest for meaning. The spiritual higher octave of Sagittarius is the love of truth, not as a mental concept, but reality,  or what is true in the moment. Sagittarians have historically been explorers, adventurers and philosophers.  If a Sag were a mountain climber, he wouldn't climb it to get to the top, but to see what lies beyond.

When we add the Aries Job, it is the rugged individualist, or lone wolf of the Sagittarian tribe. It is also the warrior adventurer, but not in the sense of a soldier, but as a commitment to a noble cause or purpose. Again, this is all about what I came in with, and it's helpful to know this, both for the individual and with those who love them.

So, according to my chart, how does my lineage fit in with my current life intent? My chart has a lot on it that has more similarities to my lineage rather than something different, and there are some interesting additions. Less focus is placed on the sun sign than in other systems. I have Mars in Aries and my sun is in Gemini. Aries is the most masculine of the astrological archetypes as it is described in the culture as a mission and purpose oriented individual who has a 100% complete identification with a noble cause or purpose. This is exactly the man that David Deida writes books for. Mostly yang, the Aries man is classic, pure warrior male. With the lineage of the spiritual explorer warrior, this current life intent brings the warrior to being more in the world. My chart says I came into the world at this time in history to investigate an authentic expression of Aries, the masculine. Andrew Harvey is another example of the leading edge expression of how we're re-visioning the masculine archetype. What is the new archetype? Well, that's what my book is about! Shamanic Astrology tells us, "no surprise, there!"

Next, we look at current life purpose, which for me is the Rising Sun, or the Capricorn Mystery School. Here I have the Libra Job in service to Capricorn Rising, which means, instead of the lone wolf warrior of my lineage, I am now here---one of my purposes---to be in a non-hierarchical equal life partnership. It is about responsibility and getting results. The challenging part of this is that for thousands of years, the Capricorn Mystery school has been usurped by the extremely strange aberration known as  hierarchical patriarchy and monotheistic religion which resulted in that pathology instead of evolution of the masculine. But the essence of Capricorn is similar to the Native American view of making no decision without considering seven generations to follow. It is the proper custodianship of  resources that serve the planet and its people. It is the wise elder working with the circle of grandmothers. Mars in Aries/Capricorn Rising is a combination of the new evolving masculine, noble images of responsibility, and my chart says I can't do it alone. Conscious equal partnership is essential....and none of what I'm doing would have been possible without stepping into conscious equal partnership with my wife, Anyaa (who is also a Shamanic Astrologer) because she was the reason all this came up for me and why I found this path. It is this conscious collaboration that allows me to learn more about myself. It is this combination of conscious partnership and being able to demonstrate the capacity to embody the new masculine and the willingness to take on the responsibilities to become a teacher/elder.

But we're not done....My Venus archetype, the feminine, also in Aries, is the warrior amazon. The leading edge of the Aries archetype in the feminine is actually the very same quality that is generally projected on 80% of the yang masculine: the capacity to have this noble cause and purpose. It is also what I project upon my partner.

There's a lot more, of course. But everything in my Shamanic Astrology chart points me to being exactly who I'm being. It confirms everything in my life: my work with the masculine and how it leads to developing the leading edge of that masculine, my relationship as a leading edge of conscious relationship and partnership, and my book. I can look at this and say to myself---as Anyaa has said to herself and to me---"well, that explains a lot!" And then....did I choose what I'm doing around awakening the new masculine and the Integral Warrior, or did it choose me? What does it matter? It is who I am.

While I use the reading to validate what I'm doing, most men I work with will use the Shamanic Astrology reading we'll do in the Integral Warrior Men's Process to get them thinking in a deeper way about finding their purpose and their mission. Also, for most men, this will be the first time they have ever looked deeper at, or even considered, their feminine.

From Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior:

One of the best ways to work on the masculine and feminine energies within is through  Shamanic Astrology, which gives us a very helpful map for moving through the cultural and societal changes we have entered. In addition to the larger perspective needed for the immensity of the acceleration and intensity of our interior realm, and the cultural, societal, and survival tools that Shamanic Astrology provides, it’s also a way to use and bring forth the archetypal qualities of the masculine and the feminine. These archetypes are called the mediating energies between heaven and earth—a metaphor for interiority and exteriority, the top two quadrants and the bottom two quadrants of the AQAL model. To do this with women, we’d look at their Mars so they can get in touch with their masculine side, and with men we look at their Venus so they can get more in touch with their feminine.

According to Daniel Giamario, the creator of Shamanic Astrology (and the person who did my reading), the readings “provide clues within an archetypal and mythical framework creating greater awareness for conscious participation with life purpose and the great mystery.” In addition to the prerational— magic and myth, the framework and foundation of all astrology—is added what [Ken]Wilber refers to as the “as if” framework of the rational level of consciousness and the very high metaphoric or “interpretive” framework of the transrational to events and how they shape and inform our lives.

With Shamanic Astrology, we explore the archetypes of each man’s lineage, refining and integrating the dance of his inner feminine and masculine and his best enlightenment and relationship paths. Each man also creates an experiential medicine wheel to acknowledge all of his personal archetypes, deepening his understanding of who he is. Last, each man co-creates a Sacred Marriage ceremony. This is not about telling the future; this is about gaining a deeper understanding of who we are.

To find out more about Shamanic Astrology visit:  http://shamanicastrology.com/
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This is The Tipping Point: Giving Death

by Anyaa McAndrew and Gary Stamper

A couple of years ago we lost Anyaa's fifteen year-old Westie companion, Miss Lily, a shamanic healing dog if there ever was one. Miss Lily had already been through a couple of "shamanic deaths" where we almost lost her, but this time there was no saving her. Anyaa felt strongly that Miss lily was ready, and she made the heart-breaking decision to gift Miss Lily, and our community, with consciously "giving death' to her. In a beautiful ceremony at one of Miss Lily's favorite places, we gathered community, many of Anyaa's Priestesses, the circle of men that were at the Cove, and with the help of our vet, Tami Shearer, we all said our goodbyes as we ushered in the conscious passing of this beloved friend, as the painless process took place. There was not a dry eye to be seen.

It seemed as if Miss Lily understood the process and surrendered to it, as we all did. Her passing was her last living gift to us, although her gifts continue to this day for all who hold her memory.

We all now face similar challenges, only on a global scale never before seen.

Classic Shamanism, as opposed to Core Shamanism, is generally entirely involuntary. The individual is chosen by the spirits, often with no warning, and is not allowed to refuse the "gift", or they will suffer illness, and/or insanity, and/or death. Classic Shamanism is nearly always accompanied by a traumatic death-and-rebirth experience, after which the personality is radically changed.

Core Shamanism, on the other hand, is generally entirely voluntary. The individual chooses the path, rather than being chosen for it by the spirits. Although the seeker may feel "drawn" to shamanic practices, they are not in danger of illness, insanity or death for refusing to follow a particular path. They may choose their own human teachers, and they may stop at any time; although their lives may be poorer for it, they will not usually be penalized by the spirits unless they have made specific bargains.

Our "Collapse" will be approached through both paths. We must choose to change or the change can choose us. One is consciously "giving death," and the other is entirely out of our control.

Anyaa and I have chosen the marriage of the two paths to help birth in a new world using a process we're calling "Integral Shamanism." From the Integral path, it requires the widest perspectives possible, which means that we absolutely must step out of denial about what's happening today: the collapse of the industrial age and the battle for control of the planet. From the Shamanic path, it means we must welcome and mid-wife in the death of the old so the new can emerge.

There's a strong tendency around denial to think that if we just envision the future we want to live in, that we can make it happen, and to a degree, that's true. We need a vision of where we want to go, but it cannot happen through reform or incremental change. Because our culture is so death phobic, and because we don’t really relish losing our lifestyles, we don’t want to focus on the death of the old. It's important to understand that we must also die in the process, and that this deathing process is good and right. It frees us from the tyranny of a debt-based, consumerism at the expense of the rest of the world lifestyle that keeps us stuck and far from free. Once we can really get that, we can cheer on the coming demise of the old way, we can re-learn from the shamanic traditions that death has a season and a cycle and is our ally. We can learn from death, and grieve, and then begin to move on into regeneration and rebirth with the new energy that we have gathered in the process.

The time is now and the cycle is complete. We need to "give death" to the old power structure that has controlled the planet, and we cannot give up or stop standing for what we believe. This is where the Integral Warrior lives. The reason we now have the ability to do this is because those power structures are crumbling through their greed and their actions are becoming more and more transparent by the minute: FEMA camps, GMO foods, vaccinations, surveillance, giving up our rights for safety, the outright theft of trillions of dollars going to the elites as they attempt to push the rest of world deeper into global totalitarianism. We recommend the recently released film "Thrive" to see the whole picture from a compassionate and well-informed perspective, although we think the ending and its suggestions are partial, and not from the highest perspective. Those who have bought and sold our country have been openly talking about "The New World Order" for quite some time. Even with all this information that is available to us, because of our denial, we still cannot stop thinking about these things in terms of conspiracy theories. We don’t want to seem ‘crazy’ or like some kind of extremist, and we don’t want to think that the power elite could really be that malevolent, so we put our suspicions away and go back into a semi-sleep. That's their plan: to keep us asleep long enough to implement their plans.

Our job now, men and women, as Integral Warriors, is to fight them with everything we have. We cannot stop with only a vision of the future, we must gift the planet with the death of patriarchy and the power elite. We must be actively giving death to an already dying, but not dead, empire. By consciously entering into our planet’s Dark night of the Soul, we engage the SacredActivist as championed by Andrew Harvey as expressed in his recent book, “TheHope".

The spark was ignited in December of 2010, following Mohamed Bouazizi'sself-immolation in protest of police corruption and ill treatment. A series of protests and demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa has become known as the "Arab Spring" even though not all participants in protests identify as Arab. To date, three governments have been overthrown as a result of the Arab Spring. It's not hard to include the current OWS movement, first in the US, and now spreading across 80+ counties, as part of a greater whole, the hundredth monkey, the tipping point so desperately needed to shift us into the creative power of the next structure of consciousness that wants to emerge on the planet. As the Nation magazine points out, "After decades of exploitation, murder, and fraud, the corporate state is facing a genuine uprising of the people." It's about time.

Now, not all of these movements want the same thing. In the Arab Spring, most people want more freedom, better wages, and a chance at a middle class lifestyle. It doesn't take a genius to understand that 7 billion people are not going to enjoy the same version of the middle class that we in the U.S. are in the process of losing.  In 2004, the United States accounted for 4.6 percent of the world's population and 33 percent of global consumption--more than $9 trillion U.S. dollars.

Our role, as integral thinkers at the Strategic level of consciousness, or higher, is to first mid-wife in the death of the elite power structures, to hold the vision of those corrupt systems crumbling, and do whatever is needed to help them along as quickly as possible. Don't be an observer in this drama. Don’t go back to thinking that we just need some good reforms, some band-aid fixes to help us hobble through to the next crisis. We have gone far beyond that, folks. Instead, if you are not informed, if you are avoiding reality, commit yourself to seeing the biggest possible picture of what is really happening on the planet. The number of information resources out there is staggering. Jump on board this very fast-moving train of consciousness, and don’t get lost in utopian visions of the future just yet. The time is NOW to help the shamanic deathing process. We must engage, because it's only through sheer numbers of consciousness that we can break through to the other side where we have a chance to do everything differently.

We are winning, as is evidenced by the fact that the power elite can no longer hide anything from us, but we have to open our eyes and be willing to look at it. The outcome is not settled, and we can't give up, and we can't yet focus on the rebirth. We must focus first on Giving Death to the old ways. If we act quickly, we may be able to mitigate some of the pain of powering down as opposed to collapsing.

In the meantime, we must remember that we can only help others if we first take care of ourselves. We are reminded of this every time we fly when we get our emergency flight instructions before taking off: "Put your drop-down oxygen mask on first." In other words, give others the gift of your presence and wisdom in the new frontier....whatever that may look like.

Graham Nash and David Crosby of Crosby, Stills, and Nash,  like Roger Waters from Pink Floyd,  are part of the celebrity voices that are starting to speak out. Listen to what they have to say about the #Occupy Movement.

Gary and Anyaa live and work in the Great Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina. Gary's Book, "Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior," is scheduled for release in January 2012.

Five Shadows Slowing Down the Great Shift

Anyaa and I just spent an amazing two days with mystic and spiritual teacher Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope, one of my favorite books this year. 

Andrew is one of those teachers who is not all light and love. Don't get me wrong, he is light and love, but he's also a no-bullshit kind of teacher who understands, like Ken Wilber, that true transformation doesn't happen through new age platitudes like The Secret, avoiding negative thoughts, and not facing one's fears. Andrew takes people apart so they can be put back together again with new perspectives and awareness by being "in your face, disturbing you, terrifying you, until you radically awaken to who and what you really are." David Deida is also one of those teachers. Andrew is simply one of the most authentic teachers around.

Wait for the video to load or visit  http://youtu.be/SgK_pywP-84

Andrew believes, and Anyaa and I agree with him, that everything is collapsing; That we have passed the point where what passes for civilization can be "fixed." It's too far gone. He also believes that the whole concept of collapse is a necessary event for the new human to be born, for humanity to move to the next level, a more evolved human. I've shared this belief for a long time, and history shows us how major shifts in consciousness take place, and it ain't by wishful thinking. It happens by getting down in the muck and doing the work, and we're about to see a lot of muck, in ways that we can't even begin to imagine.

Harvey talks about the Five Shadows of Collapse, shadows we need to face and come to terms with, or we're just spiritually masturbating to make ourselves feel good and dull us out through light polarization and Spiritual Puffery.

The first Shadow is disbelief of the immensity of what is happening on the planet and how bad it will be, perhaps even beyond our comprehension to understand. All true change comes from standing in the fire, not from feel-good pats on the back or the saccharin "sweet path of stress reduction and egoic comfort."

The second shadow is Denial: The more ugly things get, the more I deny what I see and feel can be real. My denial allows me to detach from the suffering of others because it's not touching me....yet.

That leads us the the third Shadow: Dread. Immense dread. You cannot believe in "the oneness of all" and ignore what is already happening to millions of others. Collapse isn't a future event for 4 billion people on the planet. it's already happening, and it reveals the true nature of humans: all of us. We've ignored the warnings of 50 years and we've chosen  to ignore them. It's all of our responsibility, and we've done it because of the dread we feel about losing our comfortable lifestyles.

The fourth shadow then becomes Radical Disillusion with human nature: The systemic explosion of horror on every level. We are profoundly paralyzed by our own lack of substance. We've almost run out of fantasy and our schizophrenia has turned into psychosis. A mysticism that doesn't embrace the darkside of God is not real, and it's not sustainable.

The fifth shadow is the Death Wish - collectively and individually. The desire not to be here at all. I've heard over and over from people that id things get as bad as I think they'll get, that they don't want to be here at all. They'll just kill themselves. Collectively, we're already committing suicide, and individually we've each contributed - by our lifestyles, our belief in infinite growth on a finite planet, and our total consumptive mindsets. We have to own that we are doing this.We don't realize how our inner suicide claims our lives, and that we need to befriend that inner suicide.

Once we face and own our shadows around collapse, there are five things we must do to navigate these times so that the new human can be birthed :

1) Get real. Get out of denial and do what you must to transform; 

2) Develop practices and shadow work to help you cope; 

3) Be of service to ALL sentient beings; 

4) Think Globally, act local; 

5) make your vote, your expenditures, and energy congruent with the new birth.

Don't wait. Start now, There's not a lot of time. 

Thank you, Andrew, for your powerful teachings.

See the rest of Andrew's videos in this series at http://www.andrewharvey.net/sa_videos3.php

Another Approach to Shadow

Besides being a transpersonal Psychotherapist, My partner Anyaa is also one of the better-known Shamanic Astrologers in the US, having studied with Daniel Giamario, the acknowledged creator of Shamanic Astrology.

She's written a powerful blog about how Shamanic Astrology knowledge tells us about what going on in our divine connection to ourselves and the awareness around the practice that connects us with that Divine, and she's been inundated with responses from others who say they've been feeling the same thing in their lives.

Read it here.

Day 6: The Sedona Daka/Dakini Conference

I'm finding myself somewhat amazed that the majority of teachings here at the conference are so basic and elementary. So much so, that I'm left with the conclusion that the majority of these attendees, sex workers, tantra teachers, healers, etc., simply have not done their own work.

As Anyaa, my Beloved, so eloquently pointed out in her talk, Healing the Wounded Feminine, and referring to Wilber's state/stages model, people can get a taste of higher stages of consciousness through ecstatic, or altered, state experiences, and "spiritually bypass" (as she calls it) their present stage. They think they've moved to a higher level of consciousness, when all they are really doing is interpreting that glimpse of the next stage from their own level of consciousness.

What's worse is, if they haven't completed the personal work that needs to be done translatively, that is, horizontal development, the widest and healthiest perspective possible at a particular stage, they tend to disassociate from what they haven't completed, leaving unhealthy aspects of that stage in their psyches that will come back and kick their ass later. It's unavoidable. It becomes shadow.

It's not until one attains the widest and healthiest perspective at their present stage (translation), that they're ready to move into the next stage. This is transformation, or vertical development, where one transcends and includes the previous stage, being able to call on that stage's particular qualities as they are needed. If those qualities aren't healthy, pathologies will develop and a healer can wind up doing more harm than good.

Beside....it can make for really boring presentations.

Although Anyaa's presentation was about Healing the Wounded Feminine, both men and women have been coming up to her, some crying, some ecstatically happy to have these realizations pointed out to them. Many of them have said that they recognized themselves in her presentation and have committed to seeking out the personal work they need, many of the women with her. Some have called her presentation profound and deep. I agree.

I am so honored to love and to be loved by this woman.

For more on transformation and translation go here: The Nature of Translation: Stop and LiveIt's the third video down.

More on Intimate Relationship as Transformation

Where Andrew Cohen seems take the position that Romantic Relationship is an illusory path toward enlightenment, Robert Augustus Masters takes an entirely different approach.

Masters' new book, Transformation Through Intimacy, seems to be coming from an entirely different perspective.

In the introduction, Masters writes about the Evolution of Intimate Relationship, and in chapter after chapter, unfolds a radical path to intimacy touching on Immature & Mature Monogamy, States and Stages in the Evolution of Relationship, reactivity, shadow, conflict, emotional illiteracy, working with jealousy, power struggles, delusions, shame, guilt, anger, sexuality - and then, bringing it all together, he then addresses commitment. the need for safety, trust, love and a deeper love, attracting our beloved, and finally, in the conclusion, Mature Monogamy.

His latest newsletter features a chapter called The Art of Listening. To quote:

Listening is all about being wholly attentive to our partner, and not just to what is being said! As we hear what isn’t being said, and respond to that without speaking, we deepen our resonance with our partner, becoming an open space for the fullest possible expression of what he or she is attempting to convey to us.

As we listen so fully and with such authentic interest that our own thoughts all but disappear, we can hear our intuition’s messages loud and clear, without any dilution of the attention which we are giving to our partner. The deeper that we take this — or the deeper that we allow it to take us — the richer and more obviously multidimensional the intersubjective (or “we”) space between us and our partner.

Masters, like me, believes that Intimacy as a Path, is possible and desirable, not an illusion. Of course, it is an illusion if you believe it's an illusion, because here, as in so many other places, what we think creates our reality. If you're a teacher, and your partner is your student, can you meet each other as equals? Masters goes on to say:

When we are really listening, we are not only receiving our partner’s words, pauses, somatic messages, emotional state, and corresponding energies, but are also providing them with a conducive space in which to express themselves, level upon level.

We then learn to listen not only to their interiority (their perceptions, feelings, thoughts, and so on) and to their exteriority (their body language, behavior, and so on), but also to the qualities of the intersubjective space between them and us — as well as to the familial, cultural, and planetary forces which may be influencing them. The point is not to split these up into neat categories — for they all coexist simultaneously and share considerable overlap — but to make sure that we are covering all the bases as best we can as we listen, ever letting our listening deepen.

and finally,

Listen. What do you hear? Now listen even more closely. Listen to the silence letting yourself feel its presence, both all around and inside you.

Listen. Silence just said something. Don’t lose it in the translation. Silence does speak.

Listen. Listening is undividedly attentive, dynamic receptivity, as respectful as it is empathetic.

Listen until there is no self-contained listener, no self-conscious center of hearing, but only listening. And don’t forget to listen while you are speaking; listening to our listener only deepens our connection. Listen. There’s so much being said to you, through you, by you, for you, as you, at this very moment...

Powerful transformational work through relationship! In my 6-part workshop series. "Big Love Integral: An Exploration into Conscious Romantic relationship in an Integral Context," I show people how to use relationship as a vehicle for transformation and later stage consciousness. And if they're not in relationship with a Beloved, I give them ways to call that kind of a relationship into their lives. They see it because I model it for them, and Anyaa does the same thing in her workshops.

I'd almost think that perhaps someone actually has to experience that kind of relationship to see how a Beloved can inspire later stage consciousness, except I see people in my workshops who get it clear enough to want to call it into their lives. I still stand by my belief that, sadly, around this issue, Andrew Cohen doesn't get it. Andrew: Get to a David Deida workshop.

Enightenment Ain't Cheap: How Do We Support Our Partners' Transformation?

A little over a year ago, the most amazing woman I'd ever met came into my life. I'd always liked strong women, but she was clearly the strongest woman I'd ever seen: powerful, capable, courageous, loving, and with fully embodied feminine and masculine aspects. Today she is my Beloved, and we're on the way to building our life and future together.

I believe that the reason this woman came into my life and that I was able to step up to her and her power, is because a few years ago I decided I had to be the kind of man that a woman like this would be attracted to. I had to fully step into my own power, and that meant doing my own work, not just sitting by and letting life take me, but by me taking charge of my life and my own embodied masculine. When both of us do our own work, it helps us support each other in the directions that most serve our growth in love, relationship and happiness.

Your woman is going through some inevitable changes in her life. She chose you and she wants you to join her in this growth and she wants your support and your strength. It's the greatest gift you can give her.

I wrote this a few days ago at Anyaa's request. She's writing an article on how the masculine can support their partners as they go through the Shamanic Priestess Process she facilitates for women all over the world. She's asked men who have successfully supported their women through this transformative process to support other men who are now going through what they went through with a couple of written paragraphs she can share.

I have a T-Shirt on the i-Boutique that says "Enlightenment ain't cheap." It's a dual meaning: Yes, we pay a lot of money to attend workshops, etc., but we also pay with our relationships, our jobs, and our blood, sweat, and tears. Many men are frightened that their relationship with their woman is going to change as a result of this process, and it is, but I refer you back to my quote at the top.

One of the responses she got was from a man who objects to the duality of masculine and feminine approaches to conscious evolution, and I understand that once one has attained the ability to rest in the non-dual, that the masculine and feminine dissolve away into one-ness. People can even attain the non-dual in altered states (temporary) before they reach the stage (access at will).

But until we get past the states and into the stage structures, there is a natural hierarchy that must be met (don't confuse natural hierarchies with dominator hierarchies), and one of those is going through and healing our masculine and feminine selves. Women have had thousands of years of domination by the masculine that they generally have to work through before they're able to begin to step into their true power, and this work, at this level, cannot be taught by men, any more than a men's group can be led by a woman.

So to get to the later state-stage structures, especially the non-dual, it's critical that the masculine and feminine work be completed, or we bring the ego and shadow aspects of those qualities with us, to trick us, harass us, and fool us into thinking we've made it when we really haven't.

So for the men who fear the work their woman is doing, do your own work and step up to who she's becoming, or at least support her....because she's becoming....with or without you.

And for those who think we can get to enlightenment in a single, sudden gift of a leap without doing the work (and it does happen but rarely), for most of us, there are many. many paths to the non-dual, and denial of those different paths is just "enlightened" fundamentalism.

Reflection on (my) Conscious Relationship

Anyaa left again late last night, on a red-eye home. After spending almost 10 days (and nights) together in Seattle this month, she arrived in North Carolina this morning and was picked up at the Asheville airport by a friend and Anyaa's amazing Shamanic Girl Dog, Miss Lily, a Westie Terrier.

We'll have 23 days apart this time, when she comes back out to work for three days just before Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day, I fly to Asheville to spend five days with her at Isis Cove, a conscious community where Anyaa lives and works when she's not travelling.

This Thursday will mark our one year anniversary of meeting in person in this incredible and impossible long-distance relationship, which would not have been possible without her profession as a transpersonal~shamanic psychotherapist and her international work empowering women that takes her away from home, and to me at least once a month.

That we've found our soulmates and each other's Beloved is not in question.

I took this photograph of this amazing tree that lives just a few blocks from my house. Anyaa and I pass it on our walks on our way to a park bench that overlooks Puget Sound here in Seattle where we sit and discuss our dreams, our desires, our hopes, and our sacred offerings with the Universe. That Spirit responds is also not in question.

Back to the tree. The tree has one base. Both of the trees grow out of the same roots, one, and then individuate into what appears to be two trees, standing beside one another, differentiated but not separate. Much like Anyaa and I. We are one, even though we live our own individuated lives, we are not separate. As with all of us, we are all connected, made from the same stardust, part of a greater whole. This realization, this awareness, is one of the paths of sacred relationship, and one of the ways that relationship can serve a higher consciousness.

I pray you've found, or will find, your beloved.

Sacred Sexuality

I haven't written about relationship, or my relationship, in a while, but I assure you, it is as blessed as it has ever been, with a continuing deepening, a relaxing, and a continued and reinforced knowing for each of us that this is my Beloved. In honor of that, I wrote a ceremonial piece for my beloved as I give her the gift of receiving and relaxing into her most sacred feminine self. This is her time and it is my honor to provide.

We are here tonight
To honor the Goddess
Particularly this Goddess,
Anyaa,
Who honors so many other Goddesses.

We create this Sacred Space
For Anyaa,
Who holds so much Sacred Space
for so many others
on their way to becoming Goddesses.

I call on all Gods
And Goddesses
To sanctify and hold sacred
This time and this moment.

I call on the four directions,
and the earth and sky,
and inhale the fragrance
of this beautiful, sacred woman.

In sacred love, I invite
Anyaa to relax
into her most feminine place
trusting and allowing
this man who loves her
to give her this gift,
in love,
with no expectation,
but simply as a way
to honor her
for the gifts she brings
in service to all.

This is the gift
Of the consort
To the Goddess.

A "What is Enlightenment" Catastrophe

In the latest issue of "What is Enlightenment," Andrew Cohen and Ken talk about enlightenment for women and how they have to get past and give up their sexual (feminine) power in order to become enlightened.

Andrew's approach is a total disaster, replete with an unbelievable reductionist view and total confusion and lack of understanding in the difference between "woman" and "the Feminine," and disappointingly, Ken does not correct him, but merely places what Andrew is saying into an integral context (to his credit, he does this very well).

Andrew totally fails to recognize any understanding that there might be different approaches to enlightenment. Before you protest, he's basically saying that the only approach is the masculine, that a feminine approach doesn't work, and that women have to drop the feminine in order to become enlightened. He does not ask that men drop the masculine to do the same.

He also claims to have been working on breaking through with this approach for 12 years and that he has finally cracked the code. Could that have anything to do with the fact that he's a man? Perhaps not in every case, but in this one, my answer is a definite "yes."

Women have been successfully doing this work for over thirty years. Too bad Andrew's ego wouldn't allow him to work with some of them as a student, instead of doing a spiritual bypasss himself, having his women students do the same, not by integrating the feminine, but by transcending and excluding it. This is like "enlightened" fundamantalism.

I'm talking to a lot of conscious women who are outraged by Andrew's audacity and I share that outrage. What a shame!

See my partner Anyaa McAndrew's blog on the same subject.

A Developmental Relationship Model Around Core Wounds

A Developmental Relationship Model by Anyaa T. McAndrew and Gary Stamper

(Some of the following text was Adapted from John Welwood's Journey of the Heart. The model was developed by Anyaa and Gary in conversation around Big Love Integral, the workshop on Conscious Relationship in an Integral Context.)

People often choose a partner with a script that is the mirror reversal of their own. Thus a person with a fear of engulfment will pair up with someone who has a fear of abandonment. Whenever her fear comes up, she creates distance. This in turn brings up his fear, which makes him grab at her, further activating her fear of engulfment. "Pressing each other's buttons" in this way, they become polarized in mutually antagonistic positions that threaten to drive them apart. As they say, "It was a match made in heaven," but quite opposite to what the phrase intended. Karma throws us together to work through the challenges of this relationship dynamic.

His father had been emotionally distant, and this had made him distrustful that a woman could ever be there for him. Thus he regards her need for solitude and "her own space" as a constant threat. He is always wary that she might be on the verge of leaving him, and repeatedly seeks proof that she really loves him. She, on the other hand, becomes suspicious whenever men express their affection too ardently or demand hers in return. Her father had turned to his daughter to fill his emotional needs. Feeling overwhelmed by her father's needs, and lacking protection from her father, she had learned to protect herself by keeping a safe distance from him.

So when he approaches her out of his abandonment panic, she becomes claustrophobic and goes into an engulfment panic. She cannot understand his urgency unless he was, like her father, out to eat her alive. And he cannot understand why she is so unwilling to give him what he needs unless she was, like his father, distant, punishing, and cold. Their fights, underneath all their convoluted tangles, has a single theme: "You're abandoning me." . . . "No, you're engulfing me." . . .This dynamic repeats with millions of couples.

In her conflict with him, she is in pain about feeling engulfed by his need for loving contact. When she opens to this pain, it connects her with a deep wound from her past: her conflicted feelings about needing to be an individual in her own right. Although she will blame him for not letting her have her own space, the truth is that she does not really feel entitled to it. This is because of her guilt about having to push away her father in order to be herself. . . .

In a similar way, by exploring the pain he feels in chasing after her, he contacts his old wound - his conflicted feelings about needing love. Because he had felt so unfulfilled as a child, part of him had come to believe that he is unworthy of love. Before he can make friends with his need for loving contact, he too has to become aware of his critic, who says, "You're so needy - what's wrong with you?" . . .These insights require a penetrating look at the shadow from which the behavior comes.

This is Stage One of the Model we've developed around Core Wounds: The Distancer and the Pursuer. The Pursuer is the one who chases the other, generally to "capture" or own them, for it is only through completely owning the other that the Pursuer feels safe. The Distancer, on the other hand, is the one who runs, who needs to avoid capture to maintain the freedom they didn't get as a result of their core wounds. All of this is done completely unconsciously at this stage.

These core wounds aren't necessarily childhood events, but , rather, can occur at any time in one's life.

Stage Two of the Core Wounds Model is all about Merge and Separation. These aren't so much identities for one another as they are a description as to what happens in the relationship. At this stage, when the couple comes together, they tend to lose their individual selves (hence, the merge) in each other. They want to be close, but the core wounds that still exist and which haven't been addressed, pull them apart, and they engage in conflict to unconsciously create distance and space. There's much more to this, but it is also where make-up sex occurs. It's an unconscious dance.

As they make friends with their needs, they no longer feel compelled to project their fears. No longer seeing each as oppressors, they can begin to communicate what they are actually experiencing in their conflicts. When he simply says "I'm feeling abandoned and scared right now," she becomes less defensive. And when she says, "I'm feeling overwhelmed and put on the spot," this disarms him. . . .

The final healing of the rift between he and she happens as they come to recognize, through working on themselves, that both these needs - to be strong individuals and to be close to each other - belong equally to each of them. As he comes to accept his need for love, he can discover why it has always been so hard to feel: It brings up his terror of being left alone. He had hated his aloneness as a child because it was associated with deprivation, which had felt like a threat to his survival. By relating to his inner child in a caring way and educating him to the present situation - that being alone is no longer a threat to his survival - he loosens the hold that his old abandonment stories have on him. .

Through their struggles he and she have learned a powerful, essential lesson: that relationship, rather than being just a form of togetherness, is a ceaseless flowing back and forth between joining and separating, Stage Three of the Core Wounds model, or Integration and Differentiation. Just as the moon begins to wane at the peak of its fullness and the tide ebbs at the height of its flux, so after moments of intense connecting two partners naturally begin to fall back into their aloneness. And in moments when they feel most separate, a desire is born to come together again. The health of a relationship depends on both partners being able to move freely back and forth between these two poles.

This is a key discovery for every relationship. We often imagine that having our own space in a relationship is the opposite of being intimate. Yet actually the reverse is true, and this is the key point: Space is what allows intimacy to happen. It enables two people to meet and touch freshly, to "see each other whole and against a wide sky," as Rilke put it. Rilke's lover concurred when she wrote, "Two are one only when they remain two." The electricity in a couple's erotic connection flows most freely when they are not entangled, but rather feel themselves as two distinct, separate poles, man and woman.

However, more than just polarity, in this space and in the differentiation, each partner is able to gather new experiences and learnings to bring back to the relationship to keep it, and them, interesting, vital, and ever growing and changing through integration back into the one, a more indivisible whole.

Graphic and chart copyright 2007 Gary Stamper. Click on image for a larger version. This chart and model may only be used with credit and a link back to the Big Love website.

Heart breaking Wide Open

I'm altered as I'm writing this. I've been in this strange altered state since last night....maybe even since I returned from my 8-day Shamanic Breathwork Intensive. Or maybe it's because of the amazing conversations I had with Anyaa last night and this morning....maybe both.

It feels like I'm about to burst open, and that my heart is going to explode. It feels like something has grabbed me and is shaking more and more stuff out of me. Part of this is around abandonment issues that have surfaced recently...some due to the breathwork, some due to relationship.

Most couples seem to have abandonment/engulfment issues: One person's issues are around being abandoned, and they reach out harder to the other. The problem is that the other person's issues can be around engulfment, or smothering, and they'll tend to pull away, creating a vortex of push and pull that most couples aren't conscious enough to work through.

My own issues of abandonment come from the death of my college sweetheart, two weeks before graduation, in a boating accident. She was ripped from me, and I didn't get to say goodbye, and consequently, I'm always afraid the other is going to leave.

Recognizing what was going on, I've been telling myself, "Gary....stop it." Wrong.....Repression. Anyaa helped me see that I need to embrace that young man, let myself feel his, and my, pain and tell him it's okay...and just hold him. What an amazing woman she is, how incredible that we both bring a new way of being and living into each others' lives, and that we get to step more fully, more consciously into our life together. I had asked for a relationship that would break me open, challenge me, and I got exactly what I asked for.

So I've been telling my younger self that it's okay, all night and day, and I feel like I'm just bursting open. So I'm letting go and letting come, making room for something, some shift, some new awareness, as it creeps into my life and being.

And once again, I feel myself growing bigger.

image by Walter Bruneel

Shamanic Breathwork and Open Heart

Hoo boy! Anyaa McAndrew's coming to Seattle next week and I get to do another session of Shamanic Breathwork! Like Big Mind (see the article below), Shamanic Breathwork can lay your heart wide open.

SeattleIntegral will be sponsoring a SBW weekend in June. Watch for more information.

Anyaa is a Shamanic/Transpersonal Psychotherapist, Ordained Priestess, Pastoral Counselor, Shamanic Astrologer, Shamanic Breathwork™ Facilitator, Imago Couples Counselor and Tantra teacher. She has a private practice and offers a variety of services. She teaches Tantra in the context of her couples counseling work and work with women.

Anyaa also teaches the Shamanic Priestess Process, intended for women only and women who are interested in expanding their spiritual life and also stepping more into their own personal and spiritual authority and “individuating from patriarchy,” all about women coming into their full, rich, beautiful and divine power.