Should the Integral Community Support President Obama??

Enabling is Still Co-Dependent, Even At The Integral Stage

 Some of you may be aware that Terry Patten, an acknowledged leader of the rapidly changing Integral Movement, recently created a website called Integral Obama:Integral Evolutionaries for Obama 2012. If you haven't already visited that site and read Terry's impassioned plea to integralists to support President Obama, I invite you to do so now, so you can get a better idea about what I'm writing about.

The first paragraph of terry's argument begins, "The purpose of this website is to offer integral evolutionaries an opportunity to support the re-election of President Obama by speaking with a single voice. Why Obama, again? And why should we, as “integral evolutionaries,” pool our support?"

This seems like a good place to make a couple of points: Unlike some who have commented that integral shouldn't be taking sides in politics, like all good integralists, I'm coming from a place where I believe that, while everyone has a piece of the truth and no one has the whole truth, some truths are more true than others, and so I'm not opposed to Terry supporting Obama per say. At the same time, I also recognize that, as integralists, our obligation is to the health of the entire spiral, not just integral.

There are also some whom are so turned off by Terry's message that they say they are abandoning integral altogether. To those I say, you  never embodied integral in the first place.

Terry goes on to lay out his reasoning for his position, acknowledging Obama's good and only lightly acknowledging there are bad points, ultimately believing "that he is still the best hope we have for more integral policies and politics." If you've read his well-thought out argument, as I asked you to, there are many valid points to Terry's position. A couple of them are:

• I will be very concerned if we find ourselves with Republicans in control of the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court.
• I believe we are much more likely to get integral ideas included in a Democratic party platform than in a Republican platform, which has now been ideologically purged and purified.

These are great reasons to not vote for Romney, but are they valid reasons to vote for Obama, no matter how much we may like, or want to like, the man? The problem in taking this approach is the "Effective Evil" paradigm.

In a very recent and excellent piece on AlterNet ( Sept.10) titled "Effective Evil" or Progressives’ Best Hope? What to Make of Obama's Presidency, a conversation guided by Amy Goodman, Glen Ford of Black Agenda  Report and Michael Eric Dyson, professor at Georgetown University, spar over Obama's record. Dyson makes Terry's argument, that "Obama is as progressive a figure who has the chance of being elected in America," and that we need to be "in the game," while Ford postulates that Obama isn't the lesser-evil, but rather, the more effective evil, who has, in fact, moved the entire debate to the right. Ford goes on to say that Obama "is the more effective evil because he is able, being a Democrat, to accomplish more of that right-wing agenda than the Republicans ever could," and has. It didn't take long for Obama to take the single-payer option of healthcare off the table, or for Social Security and Medicare to be put on that same table, something Republicans have been trying to do for years.Our first obligation, Ford goes on, is to tell the truth, not just get in the game as the rules of the game have been laid down by either corporate or the political parties---or both. 

“I think it is dangerous to confuse the idea of democracy with elections. Just because you have elections doesn’t mean you’re a democratic country.” --Arundhati Roy

In Terry's initial plea to integralists to throw their support---and their money---to helping re-elect President Obama, Terry does not address the dark side of the Obama administration: appointing a questionable cabinet, some of whom are to blame for the 2007 economic meltdown, refusing to hold these architects---banks and Wall Street criminals---of the economic collapse, responsible for crushing dissent in Amerika, for reneging on closing Guantanamo and moving George W. Bush's policy of detention without trial to one of assassination without trial---including American citizens, secret kill lists, the NDAA, drone wars, amping up spying on U.S. citizens, making Bush junior seem like a...well...bush leaguer, and so much more.

In an article titled, "Another Guantánamo prisoner death highlights Democrats' hypocrisy," Glenn Greenwald states:

"In the hierarchy of evil, consigning someone who has been convicted of nothing to a cage year after year after year, until they die, is high up on the list. And in that regard, this latest episode demonstrates not only the ongoing travesty of the US's war on terror policies, but also the dishonesty of the attempt to exonerate Obama for those policies."

Former CIA Chief  Michael Hayden, Bush’s former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, says "President Barack Obama has closely followed the policy of his predecessor, President George W. Bush, when it comes to tactics used in the “war on terror” — from rendition, targeted killings, state secrets, Guantanamo Bay to domestic spying."  Hayden’s remarks give credence to what many who cared about the topic had already realized: Obama largely mirrors Bush when it comes to the war on terror. More detainees have died at the camp (nine) than have been convicted of wrongdoing by its military commissions (six). This is the fourth detainee who has died at the camp since Obama's inauguration. But, hey, he's a democrat and we like democrats who have balls, right?

"You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you're making progress." --Malcolm X

As if there are that many differences between Obama and Romney, here are 100 ways they are just alike...

Enter the Oligarchy

At this point, what will go down as Obama's biggest contribution to history is a merging of the banks and the state, with $16 trillion (to date) being infused into these banks, into Wall Street, under his watch, and the line between corporations and the federal government virtually disappearing.

 

And yet we say we must vote for Obama because he'll protect the rights of women, and we point out that he could very well appoint two or three Supreme Court Justices. Like occasionally and accidentally drone-killing women and children isn't a global assault on women, that undeclared wars with Congress' support---despite the rhetoric---are okay and they aren't really wars if no American soldiers die as in Libya. And we've all seen and continue to see how the courts are already stacked against the people, and if Obama's initial staff appointees don't thrill you, what makes you think his SCOTUS appointments will?

We've been asked, because we're integral, after all, to take the bigger picture a vote for Obama because we have an opportunity to be heard; to express the integral vision. 

What if there's a Still Bigger Picture than even that? 

We're worried we'll move backward, losing the ground we've broken, perhaps having to start over again, as we drop into chaos and maybe even regress into survival mode...well, welcome to history. Every major shift in consciousness on the planet has been preceeded by a dark night of the soul and/or the extreme pathologies of the previous level of consciousness. The enlightenment---the 5th level of consciousness---was ushered in by 400 years of the Dark Ages, and just recently, the 6th level of consciousness emerged in fullness after the great wars of the first half of the 20th century almost decimated the planet.  

We definitely have a choice, and I suppose one's approach to that choice is determined by what one thinks, or believes, is happening in the realms of energy, environment, and economics, perfect storms all coming down on us at once. Let me state right now that I still believe there is time to turn this perfect storm around before we collapse, but only if we address these problems immediately, and I don't see any indication of that happening. The highly dysfunctional U.S. political system, which is paralyzed and hostage to corporate power is unable to respond rationally to the crisis or solve “even the most trivial of problems,” much less the problems that threaten our very survival.

The Greatest Weapon of the Oppressor is the Mind of the Oppressed - Robert Cinque

We can't even face these problems, much less act on them. We're in a national state of denial, and a relatively small number of us have reached the next stage of anger, with even fewer stepping into acceptance. It's looking like the economic path of unlimited growth and credit on a finite planet is the one that will take us down, possibly within weeks or perhaps months. It would be nice to be able to "err on the side of a more constructive type of creativity," but it may already be too late for that. We can't "grow" our way out of this.

So maybe we're down to the proverbial frog in the pot: Do you want the water turned up slowly so you don't notice, or would you prefer to have it turned up quickly enough so that everyone can notice and can jump out of the pot? Imagine what might happen if all those fading middle and poverty class Romney voters realize they've been fucked over by their own party! We might find ourselves united very quickly. The only power the controllers have is the power we give them, and here it's like we are the enablers to our addicted-to-growth selves.

The Way Up is All The Way Down

Look, I'm not saying you shouldn't vote for Obama, or that the Integral Community---whatever that is---or integral individuals and organizations shouldn't work to make things better, try to inform, try to  change, or make things more sane than they are...What I am asking is that WE TELL THE TRUTH. I don't know if Obama is a bad man. I want to like him. He may be be powerless and under threat, but there's only one political party and their common ground is fascism - rule by corporations over the government. Obama and Bush both serve(d) the same money masters for the same goals. Obama and Romney are no different. We must stop glorifying our abusers and speak the truth.

I'd like to suggest that while we do the work of changing the world that we integralistas also move our efforts into getting smaller, not bigger: Creating local communities that become more self-sufficient, less dependent on government, and more dependent on each other; Models of what it means to live integrally, holistically, able to have peace and love but also able to say "no" and back it up when it's needed; communities who grow their own clean food, where integral folks get involved in local government, building the model from the bottom up instead of throwing money into what's looking more and more like a dead political system, investing that money in yourselves and your communities. Invite your families, your relatives, your friends, your integral homies...create a new world: one that doesn't depend on the dying infinite growth monetary paradigm of endless credit. Even if there is no single instant of collapse, the present system is already finished. We've come to an end of a paradigm, a brief moment in history enabled by cheap energy, full well knowing that what cannot be sustained, will not be sustained, that the whole thing is already collapsing. Will you collapse consciously, on purpose, or be dragged, kicking and screaming, helpless, like so many others who are afraid to tell the truth.

Welcome to true Integral Community.

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek" - Joseph Campbell

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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."

The Integral Men's Conference

A Proposal and a Vision

We---a small group of integral men from around the US and Canada---are proposing a first-year conference for men who are beginning to emerge—or already have emerged—from a postmodern consciousness and worldview. The target men for the conference are either in the process of shifting from a “green”—pluralistic relativism—first tier perspective to a more “integral” self-actualized worldview, or have already transitioned to a broader second tier worldview that encompasses the largest possible perspective for each man.

We are now in the pre-planning stage and are looking for approximately six powerful Integral Leaders---men or women---who would be willing to talk about committing to serving on the Planning Team that will create what we hope will be an annual conference largely based on Ken Wilber's Integral Model and the vision stated here. 

Vision: The Integral Men's Conference promotes the evolutionary birth of a fully integrated masculine, in service to ourselves, each other, the feminine, and the planet we live on.

Mission: The conference will offer powerful integral teachers and presenters focusing on “real world” issues around what it means to be a man living at later-stage consciousness, from an integral perspective, in all aspects of our lives: Relationship, spirituality, women, money, economics, energy, environment, work, shadow, life purpose, sexuality, Gender issues, parenting, sustainability, community, purpose and mission, and more.

What do these real world issues look like at later-stage consciousness, how do they differ from first stage being? What unique problems are these men exposed to, and how do they navigate these issues in the real world that isn’t yet capable of honoring them? In addition to powerful presenters and thought leaders, there will be time to explore these particular issues through Q&A's with the presenters and with each other in break-out sessions.

Last for now, this is not intended to be a conference about integral theory, although there may be some of that. This is a conference that would apply Integral Theory to real world concerns and issues around masculinity.

If you're an Integral Leader that feels called to the vision and the mission of what we're calling "The Integral Men's Conference," please contact me as soon as possible.

Gary

What's Gender Got To Do With It?

I wish I could see the political will and/or the capacity to have new systems emerge in the lower right quadrant of Ken Wilber's AQAL model without some sort of upheaval or collapse. Unfortunately, the capacities needed and the political will to have new systems emerge simply aren't there. All we see is polarity in every system: Government, politics, energy, environment, economics...you name the system, it's already in collapse mode, which is also another reason to do gender shadow work so we don't just emerge from it with the same problems we face today.

In addition, I knew that my audience for my book "Awakening the New Masculine," and the Integral Warrior Process that inspired it, was a pretty small part of the population. It now appears that the segment of Integral and emergent to Integral men that would be interested in healing gender work as a path to stepping further into later-stage consciousness was even smaller than I had thought.

Neither of these portend good for our being able to solve the problems that we face today.

We are so far away from doing the shadow work---particularly the masculine and feminine shadow---required for us to effect the changes we so desperately need on the planet today, that I literally don't see how we can avoid the continuing collapse of all of the systems we've depended on in modern times, and we are so ill-prepared. Carolyn Baker, author of Sacred Demise and Navigating the Coming Chaos, puts it like this in a new soon-to-be released book:

"Societies in collapse typically become more reactionary, rigid, and ideological as they haltingly attempt to ward off total unraveling. In the United States where the wheels are coming off more blatantly with every passing day, it is not surprising that politics are in gridlock at the same time that the ruling elite in Congress are moving dramatically to the right. Simultaneously, the current administration moves the nation toward a total surveillance state, surpassing the former administration in scrutinizing its citizenry."

What does this have to do gender work, particularly around our masculine and feminine shadows? Baker goes on to say:

"What fascinates me is not so much humanity’s engulfment in darkness, but what kind of culture we will construct from the rubble of this one. For me, one thing is certain: If the authentic principles of the feminine and masculine archetypes do not inform our relationships with each other and with the earth community in the development of the next culture, we will have succeeded only in creating Civilization 2.0.  I cannot and will not attempt to predict when humanity might reclaim its wholeness, fully confront its masculine and feminine shadow, and live consciously the more noble attributes of both archetypes, nor can I speculate how much suffering may be required for this to occur. I am certain, however, that the memory of gender equity from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and retroactively to ancient times will not be entirely expunged. Archetypes may be ignored, but they are innate and instinctual and therefore cannot be eradicated."

In other words, the time to do our gender work around justice and wholeness is now, not after everything has collapsed. We will likely be too busy being immersed in survival mode to pay attention to such frivolities as shadow. But our shadows will not rest and they will not be ignored. They will show up in everything we do and we'd better recognize them when they do, or everything will be just that much harder.

Every major shift in conscious that has taken place on this planet was preceded by some sort of "dark night of the soul." Would the enlightenment have happened if not for the dark ages? How about the 1960's as a reaction the wars of the first half of the 20th Century? What narcissism makes us think the next shift will be special?

In the meantime, you only have to look around to see that humanity is continuing the slide into darkness....unless some version of angels rescue us...and then what will we have learned?

Applying Integral Consciousness to Occupy

There seems to be increasing awareness around moving integral theory from the map into the territory. Not that it wasn't being done by some---see Terry Patten and Marco Morelli's excellent article "Occupy Integral" on the online magazine Beams and Struts---but when you log on to sites like Integral Life, there seems to be a huge disconnect between the reality of what's happening in the world and "feel good" articles that promote the meta-theories on integral. It's as if there's a sort of spiritual bypass that's going on in the mainstream integral community, or what Terry and Marco refer to as "integral inaction."

For me, Terry and Marco's article---they call it a "manifesto"---is a call to action for us to get up off and out of our arrogance and complacency and into the world. In other words, become the Sacred Activists that are called for at this point in mankind's evolution.

So what might that look like in the real world? Terry and Marco call for us all to "Occupy Integral," and I call for us to occupy Occupy.

Bringing the Map to Occupy

I'm an occupier. I work with the local OccupyWNC group where I live. I'm there because that's where the action is and if we're going to be able to successfully navigate (whatever that means) the coming chaos, then we must first get out of denial and into acceptance that it's happening. Denial could kill you. This requires that we pay attention to what is actually happening in all four quadrants, in the interior, exterior, individual, and collective quadrants. I speak to this in earlier blogs here and here.

But this article isn't about why we should get involved with the Occupy movement, it's an article about how we bring integral consciousness to an awakening phenomenon whose participants span the traditional, modern, postmodern, and post-post modern worldviews. And when you get all these people in the same room, trying to solve problems, there are bound to be conflicts.

First, I think it's important to note that I am not in a "big city" Occupy group. I'm in Western North Carolina, and for those of us living in the rural mountains, Asheville is a big city, never mind New York City or Washington, DC! The tactics of a small town Occupy group and how OccupyWNC interacts with our community is very different from how a big city occupy would interact. People with very different worldviews are our neighbors, not faceless masses.

One of the first things I did when I joined OccupyWNC was to propose a Visioning Work Group that would attempt to provide a small city vision of how we connect with our non-occupy neighbors. I framed the invitation in a way that spoke to post and post-postmodern consciousness so that the people who needed to be there would come. I also spoke of how, in a small town environment, we could build bridges across the local political spectrum rather than dividing the community, and told them I would be showing them a system that revealed how to reach across and communicate with people who had radically different worldviews.

About ten people showed up and I introduced them to Spiral Dynamics integral. Much to my pleasure, they all got it! For the next four hours we talked, discussed, and honed their understanding of how SDi could help them, not only in the community, but within the occupy group itself. I reminded them that these are not people within systems, but complex multifaceted systems within people, and then stressed the importance of not labeling people as one element of that system and showed them why. I've done this presentation many times through my men's groups, the Integral Warrior.

This has proved to be extremely useful in our meetings and our continuing Visioning Work Group, which will probably now morph into a Strategic Planning Group. The following part of this article will demonstrate how this has been valuable.

Competing Worldviews

In the last couple of weeks one of our members proposed that we begin each General Assembly (GA) meeting by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag to show our loyalty to our country. This suggestion triggered some of our members, and a passionate discussion ensued, after which a consensus was asked for to adopt the pledge resolution, which, in turn, was "blocked" by another member. In the consensus model of governance used by Occupy, everybody must agree or the resolution fails. Well, this, in turn, triggered the person who proposed it, and we ran out time to discuss it so it was tabled to the next GA meeting a week later.

The following week the discussion continued, with passion rising once more, even though a majority of the members were calling for compromise. With not much practice at using SDi in context, the group was, once again, at a bypass. At the end of the discussion, I had an opportunity to briefly speak to what a compromise would look like and why it was in the best interest of the entire group, and wrapped it up with a promise to write up a deeper exploration and suggestion on how to compromise so that everyone got what they wanted. Here is a partial transcript of my email:

The single most powerful thing we have is each other, this community. But there is no prototypical model of what the OccupyWNC member looks like. We are the 99%, and that encompasses a lot of different opinions, beliefs, and worldviews. It's not just the 1% who are different than you. It's all of us, and that is also our strength.


There are two primary opposing worldviews at play here (there four generally at play in the US).

Worldviews are composed of values and universal beliefs. Values are perceptual filters minds use to determine (“evaluate”) what is important in any given situation. Universal beliefs are broad-based beliefs about self, others, and system (how the world is perceived to work). I wish the two members who are carrying those opposing worldviews most profoundly would have been there last night, so I'm going to muddle on without the benefit of their comments.

Neither of  these two worldviews are wrong, and, in fact, they are both right...to an extent. The worldviews I'm talking about are traditional and postmodernism. The traditional worldview wants to honor the flag, while the postmodern view wants nothing to do with it. They are both right, for their own reasons.

So now I'm going to ask everyone, including anyone at odds with someone else around this issue, to pretend you have a jetpack strapped to your back (indulge me) and you are suddenly able to leave the horizontal viewpoint of standing where you are, and suddenly jet up to about 50,000 feet where you can get a glimpse of the larger picture, not just what's in front of you.

What we can now see is that the 99% includes those with traditional values (I love the flag and all that it stands for) and that if we don't include and honor (we don't have to agree) those values, we are not inclusive and can't claim that we are the 99% because we just excluded someone, and that's just not right!

Likewise, we can also see that the 99% includes those with postmodern values (I resent the flag and all that it stands for), and that if we don't include and honor them, again, we can't claim that we are the 99% because we also just excluded someone.

If we are to be successful with this movement, if we are to ever to build bridges between us and those with whom we have more in common with than differences, we must learn how to honor everyone's beliefs, no matter how wrong they may seem to us.

So how do we do that? How do we make room for different worldviews without compromising our own belief systems? How can we honor differing perspectives without dishonoring our own?

First and foremost, we must never force our worldviews on others. Everyone has the right to be who they are. I don't want to force my worldview around this upon you, but hope that you're open enough to hear what I'm saying and to find your piece of truth within my words.

So if we have someone who wants to stand up and say the pledge at the beginning of the meeting, even though we may not want to do that, let them do that. I suggest that we stand with them (that we stand together in the largest sense of the word), and honor their wish to do this, standing silent if we need to, not to honor what we may resent about how we are individually triggered by it, but to honor the person.

And if we have some among us who cannot say the words because of their worldview, that we honor them standing in silence, honoring whatever experiences they have had that brought them to where they are, and that we know they are honoring us by standing with us (again, in the largest sense of the word) and thereby we also stand with them.

It's about connecting across belief systems and differing worldviews, and it's great practice for building empathy and compassion for each other. And in a world of compassion and true empathy, there is no 99% and 1%.....there is only 100%.

If we are to succeed, we must do it together, 100%.

Invite them in, one and all.

Gary

The response has been extremely positive with the caveat that the two people who were triggered at opposite ends of the worldview spectrum have not yet responded. I assume there are wrestling with letting go of what needs to be let go of, and we shall see if they are able to do that.

Occupy Occupy.

Worldview graphic from http://integralthinkers.com/featured/new-and-improved-worldview-lenses/

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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The Integral Warrior Introductory Weekend

The Integral Warrior Men's Transformational Process is just that: A transformational process. The full process doesn't happen in a day, but rather over a lengthy period of time that includes an Introductory Weekend, and three 4-day segments that happen about two months apart. The process is full, holistic, and complex, and demands a lot from the men who choose to walk this path, including shifting perspectives. Not an easy thing to do. The two month period between the 4-day segments is intentional so that men who emerge themselves in the Integral Warrior have plenty of time to process and integrate each of the segments.

But what I'd like to address in this article is the Introductory Weekend, a 2-day workshop intended---as the name implies---to introduce the Integral Warrior Men's Process so men can experience and discover what it is about and to see if they resonate with it and my teaching. 

I'll be upfront with you: This is not for every man. It assumes that an emerging developmental perspective is present in the men who choose do the process. Unfortunately, this developmental perspective is only even beginning to emerge in about 20%, or less, of  men. The process also "self-selects" men who do the process because men who are not yet at or beyond a post-modernist viewpoint simply won't be interested in it. For those men, I point them toward other workshops which are closer to their particular needs. And all men need to do their work with other men, regardless of any perceived stage of development.

This will sound arrogant to some. That's okay. The Integral Warrior recognizes that there are natural developmental hierarchies at play in the world and does not strive to be "politically correct" (please don't confuse "natural" hierarchies with "dominator" hierarchies). The process moves men from power to empowerment.

That said, let's actually talk about the Introductory Weekend so you have a better understanding of what happens in it.

First, this is the only weekend that women will be allowed to attend. There are several factors at play, here, and I think it's important that you understand the reasons. First, both men and women carry masculine and feminine energies and I've described those in another article here. As I said in that article, masculine and feminine energies are not the same thing as gender, or sexual orientation. Everyone carries them both in different combinations. Consequently, there's a lot here for the feminine, and their masculine, as well, but that's not why I'm inviting them in. I invite women in to the Intro Weekend, because about half of the men who do the full process come at the urging of their women partners. I want women, who are emerging into later stage consciousness a little faster than men (sorry, guys, it's true, but that's another article), to see the value of this work so that they can urge their men to do this critical work. Many women understand that in order for the masculine and feminine to come together in Sacred Union, each must do their own work, but men have some catching up to do. I address many of the reasons why men are playing "catch-up" in the introduction of my book, Awakening the New Masculine.

Some women may bring a man who might not otherwise attend or have any desire to attend or to do this process, and that's okay, too. And last, women, it's good for women to have a better understanding of what your man might be going through should he choose to.

The weekend consists of music, movement, interpersonal group meditations to enhance communication and our listening and speaking skills, a fairly detailed overview of the four primary Jungian archetypes with special attention the shadow aspects of our King archetype so we begin to see and understand why we have blockages that slow down or prevent our further awakening and how they're related to our early childhood and family of origin. We also examine the continuing evolution of masculine archetypes. Over the weekend we also learn about the integral approach---and why it's so important to our maturation---and developmental systems theory about how and why we change, how the masculine grows and how it differs from the feminine. And, there's a whole lot more, which is why there's a couple of months in between segments: so there's time to process all of this.

The weekend also consists of a lot of experiential work, guided meditations, shamanic journeying, and exploring the interior world of the post-modern shaman. The balance of cognitive and experiential, missing in so many other approaches, actually anchor each other in our pysches, further enhancing our development.

The introductory weekend gives men---and women---a chance to experience the process, to find out more about how it can benefit them, and to decide if the men want to continue the complete process spread out over several months. Read what one man had to say about a recent introductory weekend in North Carolina: 

 "I have worked with archetypes before and done shadow work but never worked with the two together, releasing one while embracing the other. I feel this is very powerful work and just what I need at this point in my life. I feel that when we complete this series of workshops that I will finally become the man I was meant to be. Thanks again and I look forward to this journey with you and my new found male friends." - John

We are all intensely aware that we are in the midst of the global shift humankind has been waiting for. At the very time this huge Global Awakening is going on, we're also in the midst of our darker side trying to gain control. It's why everything is breaking down. It's the oldest battle on the planet, and why it's more important now than ever for men to step up and embody the new masculine---the Divine Masculine--- as Integral Warriors following the path of Sacred Activism.

Here are some links to what other men are saying about the process:

http://www.awakeningthenewmasculine.com/endorsements 
http://garystamper.blogspot.com/2010/09/another-review-for-integral-warrior-in.html 

and a review about the introductory weekend:
http://garystamper.blogspot.com/2010/06/review-for-integral-warrior-in.html 

I hope you'll join me at an Introductory Weekend coming to a city near you.


Gary

The Integral Warrior Book Talk to an MKP iGroup

Last night I did my first official "book talk" and my book hasn't even been released. Oh, we're not too far off from that happening, maybe 4 weeks from this writing, but I was invited and I went. I'm very glad I did.
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I first want to say thanks to this Mankind Project mens' group for allowing me to present my book, "Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior." I hope the 25 or so men who attended got as much out of the evening as I did. I learned quite a few things. Slow down, relax, and perhaps most important, framing the discussion of masculine and feminine outside of gender aspects and labeling.

One of the criticisms I got from a couple of the men about my presentation last night was that it lacked a multicultural viewpoint. They were right. It did. I flat forgot to set up the conversation with the caveat that---although I would frame the conversation within a gender context, because that's the perspective I come from---all references about masculine and feminine transcend gender and apply across the board, regardless of our sexual essence, but strongly informed by it. If you don't know, sexual essence is a complex subject all about how we each identify more with either masculine or feminine qualities, and more, and nothing to do with gender (this is a simplistic telling, as books have been written around this subject)

So all of us can carry a preponderance of masculine or feminine sexual essence, in spite of our physical gender. This is also known as the two fundamental energies of the Universe in Chinese Philosophy: Yin and Yang, with Yang being masculine, and Yin being feminine (again, somewhat simplistic). This is also where it gets interesting.

Each of us, men and women, can carry a combination of these energies. For instance, most men in our culture---but not all---carry Masculine, or Yang, as their primary archetypal energy, and most women---but not all---carry Yin as their primary energy. But there are also many of us who do not. Some men carry more Yin energy, and some women carry more Yang energy. It doesn't necessarily mean they are gay, but they may be. To further complicate this picture, there are also men who carry more Yang energy who are gay, and lesbian women who carry more Yin energy. 

So that creates four patterns and here's what that might look like:
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Men: Yang-Yin

Men: Yin-Yang

Women: Yin-Yang

Women: Yang-Yin
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Gay or straight, male or female, the majority of us are going to pick a partner who represents the polar opposite of who we are, because the polarization of the opposites is one of the qualities that create sexual tension between human beings.

My friend, Joe Perez, writes in his book "Soulfully Gay" (Shambhala 2007):

"If you're not used to seeing the world in terms of archetypal masculine and feminine energies, then you may have doubts that this way of thinking works for queers, You may wonder, does same-sex attraction somehow disprove 'yin and yang?' The answer is it gets a bit complicated. I largely agree with David Deida's perspective."

"Deida acknowledges universal sexual principles, but he also allows for complex permutations of gender and sexual preference. Deida believes there are universal sexual essences corresponding to yin and yang. A sexual essence is an inner psychological and spiritual drive and is not the same as our sex, gender identity, or sexual preference."

Joe then goes on to say that he believes this approach is generally correct, but that he would prefer a more nuanced typology than than Deida's, and points to that approach in another chapter. I have shown a short version of it above as the "four patterns."

For an even more nuanced approach to this subject, I highly recommend Joe's book.

I believe everyone pretty much got where I was coming from by the end of the discussion, although I could tell there were still some men who didn't yet trust me, but it was a valuable lesson for me, one I won't soon forget.

Again, this is part of why I'm doing this and why I wrote the book in the first place: To deepen my own understanding about these issues. And when we go to these places together in a "we" space instead of "me vs. you" duality, we all benefit. I couldn't ask for more.
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Thank you, men.

Read what one Cincinnati MKP man had to say about the workshop, The Integral Warrior

Awakening Thought of the Day

"With increasing awareness and understandable anger at centuries of patriarchal behavior, or false male power, we have come to believe that masculinity and patriarchy are the same thing. Consequently, we deny and repress the power and gifts of the Divine masculine."

We forget this at our own peril. It is not only women who have suffered at the hands of patriarchy. The vast majority of men who have lived on the planet are also victims of patriarchal consciousness, most often, as cannon fodder for ambition and power. The Integral Warrior no longer buys into it. The Integral Warrior questions authority in all its guises.

The Lifting of the Veil

I have to admit I'm not a "feel good" kind of integralist. If you come to my part of the conversation for soft consoling words of comfort or pats on the back, you might as well stop reading now. I'm the kind of integral thinker that asks you to step into the abyss. Shaking things up is clearly part of my masculine purpose and the heavy warrior archetypes I carry.

It's interesting that--- more often than not---whenever I talk about what seems to happening in the realm of collapse, the conversation inevitably turns to the apocalyptic. When I talk collapse, people seem to hear "the end of the world." Andrew Harvey says it's rooted to a deep shadow fear of death that comes up for people. However, collapse is not necessarily the end of the world, although depending on which of several possibilities in this perfect storm of economics, ecology, and energy, it is one possibility. But rather than talk about what we can do about it, the conversations seem to usually go to the "end of the world" scenario. It's much easier for people to deny it when they frame it in that context.

My background with the Apocalypse was Southern Baptist, so I'm no stranger to the co-opted term used by mythic Christianity to scare the bejesus into us and to control us. I say co-opted because the original meaning is from the Greek (ironic, ain't it? See the next paragraph) meaning "lifting of the veil" or "revelation:" a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and perception, i.e., the veil is to be be lifted. This term has come to mean, in common usage, the end of the world, but originally meant the end of an age. The lifting of the veil is happening all around us. As I said before, everything is transparent: The patriarchal powers that want to dominate us, the greed of Wall Street and consumerism, the politics of the right and the left who are becoming indistinguishable because we've opened our eyes, the idea that what's important can be measured by GNP instead of happiness ratios, the loss of our indigenous souls who once loved the planet....the veil is lifting.

I agree there's no way to tell if an impending collapse will happen suddenly or over a long period of time, and, whether it's slow or fast, it appears to largely depend on who you're talking to. Ask the people of Greece whether their "collapse" was sudden and unexpected or a slow decline that everyone could see coming. Another irony is that even the people who caused it and could see it coming were powerless to stop it in their greed and quest for power and control. Hence, we once again see the lifting of the veil. While everyone can see the problems that caused the economy to crash in late 2008, nothing has been changed except to further exacerbate the problem by not fixing the obvious problems, the continuing loss of jobs, record foreclosures, and the continuation of the greatest transfer of wealth ever to the very people who caused it, and who are now losing control. The veil is lifting. #Occupy Wall Street, and the satellite Occupy groups around the world--including the local Occupy group I work with--see this for what it is, and are calling it out. We threaten the infinite growth monetary paradigm money machine at all levels and are being pounded into evolving from occupying locations into occupying hearts and minds and into what looks like one of the leading edges of consciousness. But we're not just sitting around talking about it. We have far to many Caesars who are willing to fiddle while Rome burns.The thing about collapse is that it can no longer be talked about in future tense. It's happening all around us: government, politics, nations, economics, populations, climate change, weather, earthquakes, water shortages, peak everything, health care, employment....You name it...some statistics:

• There are more hungry people in the world than the combined populations of the US, Canada, and the European Union
• Hunger kills more people than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined
• 925 million people do not have enough to eat  and 98 percent of them live in developing countries. (Source: FAO news release, 14 September 2010)
• Women make up a little over half of the world's population, but they account for over 60 percent of the world’s hungry.
  (Source:  Strengthening efforts to eradicate hunger..., ECOSOC, 2007)
• 10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths;
  (Source: The State of the World's Children, UNICEF, 2007)
• 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease

I believe, based on several years of study and observation, that we are coming to the end of an age, and by definition, the beginning of a new one. So, the question begs to be asked: The veil is lifting, and what are each of us doing about it?

.... and if I hear "things are perfect just as they are" one more time, I'm going to lose my cookies! What a new age load of spiritual bypass that allows one to disconnect from the suffering in the world. If things were perfect, why would we want to change anything, why would we value cognitive dissonance, why would we pick up a child who wanders into the street? Zen quotes:

• Don't wish for perfect health. In perfect health, there is greed and wanting. So an ancient said, " Make good medicine from the suffering of sickness."
• Don't hope for life without problems. An easy life results in a judgmental and lazy ind. So an ancient once said, "Accept the anxieties and difficulties of this life".
• Don't expect your practice to be clear of obstacles. Without hindrances the mind that seeks enlightenment may be burnt out. So an ancient once said, "Attain deliverance in disturbances". Zen Master Kyong Ho [ 1849-1912], in Thousand Peaks.

It's amazing that some of us continue to confuse the celestial realm with the manifest realm. While it's true that things are perfect just as there in the celestial realm, the manifest realm needs a lot of work!

Sometimes we're just too intellectual for our own good. It's time for us to stop talking and theorizing about integral and to be integral. To take what we've learned from the map and put into practice so we can see the rocks and trees, actually jumping in and seeing what's happening in our own interior and the exterior world. That we pay attention to what's happening in the physical world in front of us, what's happening in the breakdown of all of the systems in the LR quadrant, and the inevitable collapse of the LL cultures that comes with it. I'm among those who think we've already passed the tipping point, that we are in collapse, so for me, the question is now "how do we prepare the new systems to fill the void caused by the failure of the old systems?" And they are failing. It's one more reason why it's important for the integral community to move beyond competency of yellow's intellectualism into turquoise community, building new systems that support new ways of living our lives. And the first thing we must absolutely do is to get out of denial about what's happening, whether it's slow or fast.

The lifting of the veil is our opportunity to end 5,000 years of patriarchal rule and to be more fully human. The veil is lifting. Don't turn away.Occupy your heart.

An Integral Approach to Consciously Collapsing

Something is glaringly absent in the Integral Community. As I point out in the introduction of my 2011 book, Awakening The New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior," here is the precipice humanity is teetering on:

 "Never before in human history has humankind been this close to a global psycho-social and spiritual awakening. At the same time, never have we been in such danger of being swept into a global totalitarianism, potentially more oppressive than any system known before. Technology, at the hands of little boys pretending to be men, has led us to this new geopolitical reality."

What's missing is paying attention to and addressing the biggest event that mankind has ever faced: Planetary Overshoot.  As a result of this obvious omission, couched in multiple perspectives of first-tier thinking and shadow, I find it difficult to to think of the Integral Community as...well...integral. Even what might be the first stage of second-tier thinking, Integral, or turquoise in Wilber's model of altitude, or yellow, in terms of Spiral Dynamics, with one of its primary focuses on competency,  lacks the compassion needed to empathize with the depth of pain that the coming changes are going to bring to the planet and the billions of people who will suffer through these times.

While the world, unions like the EU, nation states, and the people contained within these structures begin to feel the pain, and as things are speeding up, looking like a giant sink with the plug pulled with the accompanying whirlpool sucking everything down with it, the Integral Community seems to be mostly ignoring the bigger picture.

There are exceptions, but they are not really being paid attention to. As Andrew McDonald points out in a posting on Integral+Life, "......the integral world seems to be floating above this global problem emerging down there in the lower right quadrant. There are exceptions - Jim Garrison and Steve McIntosh for example and perhaps others - but there's an emphasis on theory out of step with the worry, concern, and genuine suffering in the economic downturn."

I agree completely with Andrew, but things don't just collapse in one quadrant. 

He also says, "Integral sometimes appears as if it's living on a plane that won't be directly affected personally by the implosion of the economy when and if that happens. Are most integralists wealthy or out of touch with where Main St. is. Or in denial of it?"

But collapse is not just financial, although that's where the focus seems to be. It's energy, environment, and economics, and they are all connected.

One of the responses to Andrew's thought-provoking questions was typical of the flawed new-age perspective of "The Secret" and the magical feel-good thinking that says we control our own reality that allows us to disassociate from the pain that's already going on in the world. This perspective is nothing more than an ego-centric worldview that says as long as I'm not suffering, the world is okay. I've said more about this in an earlier posting. What this response is actually saying is that it's someone else's problem (reality), not theirs, and is the kind of spiritual by-passing and up-and-out mentality that infects so many of us.

In stark contrast to what appears to be denial in the larger Integral Community (the denial is actually the fear of death), stands Spiral Dynamics integral, where discussion of what is happening in the world is not being ignored, but openly courted, and the prognosis is definitely leaning toward "some kind of collapse." It's clear that none of us have a crystal ball, but we can, and must, take a memetic approach and specifically tailor and apply our approach to collapse in all four quadrants.

At this time, green is seeing life conditions it cannot solve from it's level of consciousness (hence, the typical lack of a concise message from the Left). The new Republican Party, on the other hand, has a very absolutist approach to how they'd fix the problems we face. Both are reacting to problems they have helped to create. Given the ultra-polarized political environment in the U.S., it doesn't appear that collective second-tier solutions are going to happen.

With this in mind, how are we going to avoid an actual collapse as a result of planetary overshoot? Can we? How does a growing economic disaster impact climate change or energy needs? The news is not good, and it's out there for all to see if we're paying attention.

What second-tier should be doing

If we are going to be able to successfully navigate (whatever that means) the growing chaos, then we must first get out of denial and into acceptance that it's happening. Denial could kill you. This requires that we pay attention to what is actually happening in all four quadrants, in the interior, exterior, individual, and collective quadrants.

In the upper left quadrant - the quadrant of thoughts, emotions, state of mind, and human behavior - we must pay attention to our spiritual and emotional needs. We need to know how to step out of paralyzing fear. Using all four quadrants, determine what you think are the most likely scenarios, and then prepare for them the best you can, given your resources and abilities, and your awareness of what is arising in the other quadrants. This gives us the ability to step into calm acceptance, knowing that no matter how hard we may try, we can't possibly prepare for everything, and then let it go.

We do this in several ways. We find like-thinking others with whom we build community (lower left-quadrant), with shared values and meaning, who can support us as we support them. They don't need to be second-tier. We only need to have more that brings us together than separates us. In our newly forming community, "Conscious Transition WNC: A Network of Grace," we emphasize that we're not concerned about "why" collapse is happening - blame - but that it is happening, upon which we can all agree upon. In other words, we openly encourage - and insist - that everyone brings an openness that is accepting of all viewpoints. This allows multi-perspectivalism to develop, and this emerging process allows everyone to hear other viewpoints without having to defend their own. Community is an absolutely essential part of getting through whatever is coming. Otherwise, you're just a lone-wolf survivalist. Second-tier leadership provides the guidance and context that allows this to happen. Find and form your community.

We're also intensely aware of the geopolitics of collapse: what is happening, and how - the lower right and upper right quadrants, respectively. In the upper right, what is happening? The cold hard facts without interpretation. What can I see, touch, observe scientifically in time and space? What are the physical facts? We have to know because decisions need to be made based on those facts. For instance, watching what's going on in Europe at this time with banks and countries already collapsing gives us insight as to how it might unfold in the U.S. if the global financial markets are as connected as they appear to be. When should I think about withdrawing cash in case there are bank runs here as is already happening in Greece and Italy (and the U.S. as the wealthy flee with their money to what they think are safer havens)? 

In the lower right quadrant, how is it happening, what systems and networks are failing and in what time frame? How do they affect other systems? Technology? Government? Finance? Energy? The natural environment?

We simply must look at these issues through the 4-quadrant lens. As we've heard time and time again, anything less is partial, narrow, and fragmented....and there's already too much fragmentation in the world. That's what got us here. It won't get us out.

What then?

None of this guarantees that any of us will survive through what is coming. People don't want to hear that billions of people could die. Guess what? Millions are already dying and what do you need to see that will convince you that we don't have the capacity - energy and finances - or the political will to stop what is already happening? Collapse cannot be talked about in future tense, it's already happening.

What we can do is approach collapse in the most conscious manner possible. To be present to it as each moment arises, do what we can to improve how we come through this, however long it takes, and be more conscious individually and collectively than when we started. It's obvious that a lot of technology in the form of unbridled capitalism has not made our lives better. Maybe we'll be happier by getting smaller and living in the arms of gratitude. My sense is that it's by developing community, meaning, and sustainable systems that support all life on this planet. Maybe the way up is all the way down.

Where do the Integral leaders and community stand on collapse?