Is Your Ego Your Enemy or Your Friend?

The dialogue between Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen on Women's Enlightenment in the latest issue of What is Enlightenment, and my and Anyaa's take on it, has stirred a lot of conversation on the SeattleIntegral list. With about even support and disagreement on our postings, it's good that a discussion has ensued, for there have been a lot of really excellent points from both perspectives.

Anyaa and I are sticking to our perspectives, but opting out of the discussions for the most part, as we've said most of what we want to say on the subject....except to make one last point that goes beyond the WIE article and what I think is its masculine perspective at the exclusion of the Divine Feminine.

Isn't it interesting that people who would never think of killing anything else think that killing the ego is so important?

And why is it important to kill the ego? Isn't killing the ego an act of ego? There are many traditions that recommend killing the ego, but to me it sometimes looks as if those who are calling the loudest for the ego to die, have the biggest egos, suggesting it's your ego that needs to die, mine's just fine, thank you.

The laughable part of this is that you can't kill the ego. It's impossible.

My new friends and teachers, Diamond and River Jameson, from the Total Integration Institute, have a better idea: Make friends with your ego. It's a valuable tool that, when befriended, allows us to be more fully integrated in our felt sense body experiences during this existence, rather than living the masculine approach of Eros without the integrated being of the feminine Agape.

This is the really important stuff: Each of us, male or female, BGLT, whatever, can only live a fully integrated life if we learn to embody both the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine in our being. Enlightenment is not masculine. Nor is it feminine. It's not emptiness. It's not fullness.

It's all of the above, integrated into our human experience as fully and complete as humanly possible. It is "multi-dimensional whole being and Integration."

Image source Google, credit unknown

Who's Reading Me, Now?

I was commenting half jokingly tonight to Anyaa that it wasn't necessary that she send a letter to the Editor of What is Enlightenment magazine: Her blog (and mine) would be on their desks within a couple of days. I was wrong. Both were apparently reviewed heavily this afternoon by someone at WIE.

How do I know? Site meter told me.

Right after I posted this blog earlier today, someone from WIE spent about 35 minutes at my blog and viewed six pages, and then out-linked to Anyaa's blog, apparently to read what she had written.

No surprise. My hope is that this will spark a conversation that will ultimately lead to a deeper understanding of what is enlightenment.

On another note:

I'll be gone for a few days. Anyaa and I are headed for Zion, Utah to spend four days doing a Total Integration Institute seminar, with Diamond and River Jameson, on Whole Being Conscious Evolution, another approach to living an integral life (my words).

Is George Bush Crazy?

Bill at Integral Options Cafe offers a funny video suggesting just that!

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.

For Anyaa.....

There is only emptiness without you

you bring form to my world

you manifest your being

and therefore manifest mine

It's not that you complete me

You are me

and I am you

I breathe in the knowledge

that you have changed me

and my life....

Module 3, Big Love Integral

Greetings, fellow Conscious Lovers!

Did you know you don't have to be in a relationship to be a Conscious Lover? It's true! By opening your heart to the world and the universe, you invite in conscious love, and with intention, perhaps even a future beloved (I've done this!)

And in the third Big Love Integral workshop module coming up on Saturday, July 14th (click the attached image or go to www.bigloveintegral.com), we're going to explore several practices that can help you open your heart to the possibilities found in conscious relationship.

Whether you want to invite love into your life, improve an existing relationship, either with yourself or another, or just (just?) learn how to feel deeper compassion and empathy, you won't want to miss this module. We'll be diving deeply into states of non-ordinary consciousness through guided imagery, Tonglen, and other practices, including one I've developed around Big Love.

It's only $75 per person for the all day event (we're still at introductory prices), so invite a friend and plan on attending. Attendance at prior modules not required, but helpful, and as always, RSVPs are appreciated (prepay and get a 15% discount!)
You know you've been wanting to attend!

BIG LOVE INTEGRAL
Module Three:

OPEN HEART PRACTICES

Saturday, July 14th, 10am - 5pm

Nordby Conference Center, Fishermen's Terminal, Ballard

(at the south end of the Ballard Bridge, close to Chinooks)

Call Gary at 206.779.5870 for more info or to RSVP

(where comfortable casual clothing and bring a cushion or backjack for meditation.

See you there!

Gary

Oh, yeah.....please feel free to forward this to others you think might be interested or benefit!
Oh, and one more thing...I'm presenting Module TWO in Portland on Sunday, July 15th.

Extinction: Are we running out of time?

Call of Life: Facing the 6th Mass Extinction event.

Big Love Integral Relationship Models Compared

In the work I'm doing developing and presenting my new workshop, Big Love Integral, Conscious Romantic Relationship in an Integral Context, I've developed a chart to compare six different relationship models so we can see how they compare to each other.

Like most models of consciousness from developmental psychologists, this chart clearly shows that different people measure different things, yet all are important, and all have a piece of the puzzle. And, as Ken Wilber says, no one has the whole truth. This is consciousness wrapped up in relationship, and when it comes to exposing where we need work, either as individuals. couples, or societies, nothing kicks our ass like love and relationship.

Relationship exposes every childhood wound, every shadow, every shortcoming, every fear, every thing. And the more conscious we are, the more we can see it. Fortunately, the good news is, once we see it, we have an opportunity to make friends with what we see. It isn't easy, but seeing and getting these shadows, wounds, etc., in a cognitive manner -- Again, as Wilber says, the cognitive leads -- is the first step in turning the subjective into the objective, or lessening their hold on us and our relationship.

My own fears of abandonment from my core wounds are still there, but now I can see them for what they are when they come up for me. Instead of fearing my partner is pulling back, I can now see my own role, realizing it's my issue, not hers. In doing this, I also free her from her core wounds of engulfment, or feeling smothered.

All of the models shown on the chart, with the exception of Spiral Dynamics, are about individuals and couples in relationship. Spiral Dynamics, is about values in relationship, and the various stages that both people and societies move through. In the United States, where I live, our societal center of gravity centers around Blue and Orange, hence, our natural tendencies toward rule of law, divine authority, absolutism (blue), achievement, merit, and materialism (orange). Over the last 50 years, we've seen the effect of relativistic post-modernism (green) upon relationship. Most has been good (being equal is better than male domination or partners as status symbols), some bad (50% divorce rate). Not all would agree post-modernism has been good, and again, they would be partially right. But personally, I'd rather live in later stage consciousness even with it's problems.

Spiral Dynamics -- as a relationship model -- in Module 2 was the largest, and by far, most interesting of the models. Since only a small part of American culture has reached Green, it may still be too early to tell what effect this post-modernism may ultimately have on relationship.

One thing is clear, Integral relationship, or relationship at the integral stage of consciousness, is still only a blip on the horizon.

Graphic and Comparison Model copyright 2007 Gary Stamper and may only be used with credit and a link back to the Big Love Integral website

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.

An Individual Couple’s Journey Through Development via Spiral Dynamics

Yesterday I presented the second module of my Big Love Integral workshop. There are six modules to the workshop, as this is a very big subject: "Conscious Romantic Relationship in an Integral Context."

The second module is all about relationship as it fits into various developmental models with the biggest emphasis on Spiral Dynamics Integral. After we had finished going over the model and what relationship looked like in each of the seven vMemes (value memes, or levels of development based on values), I was asked to layout a specific relationship as it progressed through the spiral.

Because I'm certainly most familiar with my own relationship, it was an obvious choice (Anyaa and I have an agreement that we can use our relationship as teaching moments, and we pretty much let it all hang out....with much love and respect, of course!).

So here's how I see our relationship as it moved from the earliest survival moments into where I think it is today. As we progressed from a first email to today’s flex and flow of co-creation, our relationship has clearly gone through developmental stages, just as individuals and civilizations do.

Not all of the traits of each of these Value Memes (vMemes) show up, because we are, after all, happening in a modern context and from our own developmental perspectives. Still, aspects of these stages have definitely been present.

Beige, Basic Survival: We talked on the phone for two months, always deciding if we wanted to continue the long-distance conversation. Some close calls. Distance was, and still is, the hardest factor.

Purple, Tribal: Some feeling of magic around the relationship begins to develop. “The Universe brought us together.” Rituals begin forming. Recreational sex.

Red, Power, Ego: It didn’t take long for us to hit a power struggle in our relationship over keeping commitments. Because we brought later stage consciousness to it, we sailed through fairly easily.

Blue, Authoritarian, Rule of Law: We begin to set up how we do things. Who does what? What’s okay in the relationship, what’s not? Bring order and stability. A sense of responsibility toward each other.

Orange, Materialistic, Achiever: We want to have the best relationship possible. You are an amazing partner and you bring out the best in me (partner as status). The intersubjective “we” begins to develop internal values of its own.

Green, Egalitarianism, Equality: We are equals, 50/50 relationship (Deida’s Stage 2), we share some responsibilities, particularly around financial arrangements because of our long distance relationship status. Also a sense of “All We Need Is Love” tries to creep in.

Yellow, Existential, Systemic: Co-creation, we create and take responsibility for our own relationship and its evolution. We see the big picture of a shared higher purpose, and ease into chaos, change, flex and flow. Recreational sex still exists, but there's also a sense of co-creational sex (procreational sex was never really an option for us!).

I have absolutely no idea what relationship, looks like at Turquoise and beyond, but I very much hope to bring that perspective to you one day, as I think we've both got one foot in it!

Big Love Integral, Module 2

If you're in Seattle, or close by, and you don't already have plans, Saturday is Module 2 of my developing workshop, Big Love Integral, A Participatory Exploration of Conscious Romantic Relationship In An Integral Context.

In this module, we'll start out with a meditation designed to help you improve your relationship or to call one in, some practices designed to get out of our heads and to open our hearts to possibilities and the learning space, and developmental models such as David Deida, Lawrence Kohlberg, Harville Hendrix, Robert Kegan, and a very special tour of Spiral Dynamics and meme-equivalents in relationship. We'll spend some time on typologies, primarily the Enneagram and MBTI.

This is a great context in which to further your understanding of the broad integral approach!

I'll also unveil my own developmental model around our Core Wounds and how they affect our relationships, and we'll talk about relationship and love from an Integral Perspective through the work of Jean Gebser.

Plus, we'll have a great time! Hope to see you there!

For info on time and location, go here .

Big Love, all,

Gary

Not Too Much Flak...or notice....

One of my best friends, whom I love dearly, and I sometimes disagree around the political landscape. In an email to the SeattleIntegral list, where I also published my thoughts on the the Homeland Security Presidential Directive, he asked if I thought publishing a doctored photo of (then Governor) George Bush giving the finger on camera was a bit too much.

Actually, it's a real still frame taken from this video, and you can see for yourself who this sophomoric person really is, and in my opinion, remains. That's not to say he's stupid, or isn't a threat to our freedom and the constitution. In his defense, we've all done things in a joking manner that shouldn't haunt us all our lives.

I can certainly see that different people will look at the same information and come up with different interpretations. Plus, we're all going to fiercely attempt to hold on to our beliefs, no matter what...including me.

Cognitive Bias: 26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong

Still, I prefer to remain vigilant and be wrong, than to not be vigilant and be right. Especially with this administration' s record.

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! :)

Last, I believe the reason today's neo-cons are so bad at government is because they don't believe in government. Their goal is to dismantle every public program and turn it over to private enterprise. From Reagan, and continuing with Bush II, they have no awareness of what this country was built upon: the commons. Without the commons, we'll be a corporatacracy, and I believe that unfettered path is leading the human race down a path of global extinction.

What Does It Take For Us to Wake Up?

Back from vacation, I don't usually blog about politics, but sometimes things happen that are just too important to ignore.

You've probably never heard of the "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive" (NSPD 51), but it was quietly released by the White House on May 9th, and could very well be the death blow to the U.S. Constitution. Basically, it gives President Bush dictatorship (should we say "decidership?") powers that can be enacted in the event of a "catastrophic emergency" (no definition of what that might be or where it might happen).

In short, Bush may now declare himself absolute ruler at any moment and Congress can like it or lump it. Naturally, this act of betrayal is of so little importance and consequence, the corporate media believes you are better served knowing Justin Timberlake is in love.

As I was recounting the importance of this to my partner, surfing the web in a hotel lobby while on vacation, a teen aged girl asked, "what was that about Justin Timberlake?" We just looked at each other and laughed, commenting it would be a lot funnier if it weren't so tragic.

"This directive on its face is unconstitutional because each branch of government the executive, legislative and judicial are supposed to be equal in power," writes Lee Rogers for Global Research. "By putting the President in charge of coordinating such an effort to ensure constitutional government over all three branches is effectively making the President a dictator allowing him to tell all branches of government what to do."

Naturally, any talk of conspiracy to sell out the nation and dismantle the Constitution and the Bill of Rights relegates one to the tinfoil hat brigade, for if such things are not reported upon or discussed at Fox News, they naturally fall in the province of kooky conspiracy theories.

All the while, most elected democrats continue to prove that they are either asleep or complicit. What to do? Call you representatives and scream. What does this have to do with integral? Well, if you're concerned about the evolution of consciousness, this is a huge step backwards and threatens everything you stand for. This is not a time to sit back and say "I'm above this."

We get the kind of government we desrve.
Thanks to Bill Hajdu for the heads up on this.

Big Love Integral Research

Sorry for the lull in blogging these past few days. My beloved, Anyaa, and I, are vacationing on the beaches in Galveston, Texas, doing much needed research for my workshop, Big Love Integral.

I hope you have this much fun in your work! I'll be back in a few days.

Free Preview Night for SeattleIntegral's Shamanic Breathwork weekend in June...and Big Love

Tuesday, May 22nd, SeattleIntegral will be sponsoring a Free preview evening all about the upcoming Shamanic Breathwork(TM) Process weekend happening in June.

I've written a lot about the Shamanic Breathwork (TM) process, including the 8-day intensive I did in North Carolina in April, including my journal of this amazing process, but you can read the summary here.

The preview evening will be for people who are interested in Shamanic Breathwork (TM) and would like to find out more about what they might expect from this powerful healing process that inspires individuals to remember and reconnect with their own inner healer. As old wounds and dysfunctional patterns are released and transformed, individuals begin to regain lost soul parts and remember the magic of who they truly are. Empowerment brings wholeness and healing back into their own lives, to the lives of those they love, and to the world at large.

Attendees will learn about this highly experiential process of wisdom and healing that is aimed at awakening the the inner Shamanic Healer in persons undergoing the breathwork process and how support from facilitators and co-journeyers assist in providing a safe journey for the participant.

Each person's shamanic journey is a highly individualized process and no two are ever the same. Some of the states of consciousness reported range from divine, otherworldly bliss states to the struggle to be released from negative forces in the psyche. Rebirthing is a common occurrence, as is the life review where one relives or observes their lifetime experiences. Old patterns of dysfunction may be brought to the surface. Addictions are sometimes healed during this process, as feelings such as grief, fear, rage and anxiety are released.

The Shamanic Breathwork Facilitators have undergone this process many times in the course of their training and are loving guides for the participant's journey. The process may require the Shamanic Breathwork Facilitator's skills and attention; a variety of psycho-spiritual tools may be employed to assist the participant. Some of the most commonly used methods are bodywork, Reiki (energy work), Soul Return and extractions. The most powerful healing tool our facilitators bring to the person breathing is their open and loving hearts and minds, with a willingness to support and travel with the journeyer wherever they may need to go. This is the essence of what Shamanic Breathwork is all about. Describing the process really does not do it justice. One must experience this powerful shamanic journey and it's healing from the inside out.
Do yourself a favor: Even if you aren't planning on attending the workshop in June, you owe it to yourself to learn more about his process at the free preview evening.

When: Tuesday, May 22, 7-10pm
Where: The Integral Loft, 80 Yesler Way, Seattle (in Pioneer Square)

Oh, yeah....the Big Love Integral workshop! I had a small group, but it was the right group! I present Module 1 in Portland on Sunday.

Big Love Workshop Kicks Off

My new workshop, "Big Love Integral: A Participatory Exploration into Conscious Romantic Relationship in an Integral Context," kicks off Saturday in Seattle with the Introductory Module. Consisting of six modules held in consecutive months, there is an amazing amount of information and learning, by participants, and myself.

This has come about because I find myself in the first truly conscious relationship in my life of almost 62 years. It is the most challenging and wonderfully fulfilling, and easy, relationship I've ever had. I know... that's a paradox.

My partner is my mirror and is, therefore, a constant source of feedback, with both my positive and negative aspects shown to me in brilliant and inescapable light. It teaches me how to be in relationship with another, but also how to be in relationship with myself.

I believe the most important element in a conscious relationship is communication, and without it, relationship lapses into unconsciousness. Few of us were taught how to communicate well. We've has to learn by trial and error, often at great expense to our partners and to our selves. But you can be taught how to communicate.

Communication keeps us in sync with one another, and you practice and learn how to communicate, it forces you out of denial, facing myself so I can actually make choices about who I am and how I interact with my beloved.

Other aspects of conscious relationship are intimacy, compassion, forgiveness, patience, surrender, perseverance, and LOVE, the ability to fully open one's heart.

Conscious relationship is Soul-Centered, not ego-centered, and we'll be talking about all of that....and in an integral context.

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

Big Love Integral Website launched!

I've taken one more step in my quest to more fully live an integral life. Today I launched the BIG Love Integral website. This goes along with the first full-day presentation of the Seattle Big Love Integral workshop this coming Saturday, May 12th.

Consisting of six all day modules, the first module will be an introduction to the concept of Big love Integral, including a "Big Love" guided meditation I've developed, using relationship to describe the Integral framework, and then using the integral framework to define relationship: a nice twist, I think. In addition, we'll talk about what love is, and isn't, intimacy, deeper levels of intersubjectivty, radical intersubjectivity, and then define, very clearly, just what an integral relationship is.

There will be also be some experiential portions where the participants can take a deeper look at how they "do" relationship and intimacy, and suggestions on how to make their relationship better and more conscious.

So far, I'm having a great time putting this together, and I seem to be my own best student, as I continue to learn and grow from this process.

A Great SeattleIntegral/Ken Wilber Meetup

SeattleIntegral had its 52nd Ken Wilber Meetup tonight (one a month!). To everyone who was the meetup tonight, thank you for coming, It was a good one with a lot of participation and depth!

To Paul, and everyone, a question: What is it about the Lower Right Quadrant ("its" plural, social, systems, structure) that seems to prevent the Lower left Quadrant "We" space from arising at the same time? Why do we sometimes say "enough talk about structure," let's go to the heart?

Can we open, or keep open, our hearts while we have a systems and structure conversation? From some comments tonight, it would seem not, and that some might think they are mutually exclusive. Is it important to do so, or not? Why to both questions?

If we can't keep our hearts open while we talk about structure, why not? Don't all 4-quadrants arise (tetra-arise) at the same time?

I am seriously puzzled and troubled by this phenomena: that some people think that if you're having a discussion around the lower right quadrant, it excludes the possibility of anything taking place in the lower left quadrant. This seems to be a form of quadrant favoritism, or, in this case, a case of quadrant discrimination, and while we all have our favorite quadrants, to deny that they are already there doesn't quite seem integral.

As an aside, read Joe Perez' blog on the Meetup tonight, and an invitation to Spirit that should not be denied. I'm going to support the concept and suggest that Joe's idea might well be the project some of the group is seeking.

So Nice To be Ahead of the Curve.....

Less than two weeks after I posted this article on this blog about Shamanic Breathwork (TM) and my thoughts on why I think it's an integral practice, this appears on Integral Naked:

Is There Such Thing as Integral Shamanism?

Summary: Is there such thing as an integral approach to native and shamanic traditions? Ken responds, "Absolutely." In every spiritual traditionâ, "East, West, North, South,” there are teachers who recognize that in addition to honoring the gifts of their lineage, there are ways that they can make their tradition more comprehensive, complete, and integral. This kind of work progresses at the speed with which people step forward to take on this task, and due largely to the regressive and anti-integral flavor of native and shamanistic traditions as taught by American boomers over the past several decades, things have been unfortunately slow. However, as recognized by Integral Spiritual Center teacher Roger Walsh, these traditions have an enormous amount to offer, particularly regarding subtle states of consciousness.

The brave gentleman who initiated this conversation is working to bring an integral approach to a tradition that has been near to his heart for decades. If you also have some practice, tradition, or lineage that you want to make more integral, this conversation is a wonderful hit of inspiration.

Maybe Venus Rising and Integral Institute should talk. There could be many benefits to both, including service to the unfolding of Spirit. I'd love to facilitate that!