Thank God for Michael Dowd: Evidentiary Mystic

Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd

Beyond the "save the planet" message of evolutionary evangelist Michael Dowd, it is his way of being that may role model our best hope for the future. I had the privilege of spending time with Dowd and his wife, science writer Connie Barlow, at an event yesterday. The were in the DC area finishing up a six-month, cross-country march for climate change. Dowd spoke at one of my spiritual communities, Celebration Center for Spiritual Living, Falls Church. on "Coming Home to Reality: The Future is Calling Us to Greatness."

Dowd and Barlow demonstrate a belief-busting bundle of contradictions.

Is Dowd a hyperactive nine-year-old or a highly disciplined samurai for goodness?

Is Barlow a bookish intellectual or a warm passionate activist?

Is their marriage a mission trip or a love match?

The answers are Yes! Yes! and Yes! Polarities reconciled. "Both-And" held in precise, dynamic flow.  Is this what second tier looks like?

In fact, it's polarities as far as the eye can see with these two. "Thank God for Evolution" is the title of Dowd's best-known book. He and Barlow travel the country in a van adorned with an image of the Jesus and Darwin fishes kissing. She is a self-described atheist in alignment with the Unitarian churches where they most often speak, yet she arrived early to our New Thought service expecting mystical music that feeds her, (she got it).

I  am eager for answers in the forthcoming "Evidentiary Mystic," the lead article Dowd has contributed to the latest issue of ONEing,  the journal of Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation.

Action and contemplation.

That's it. These two people integrate being and doing in a big bang's worth of passionate energy that fills the space around them with a background radiation of love, purpose, and integrity.

Integral Name Dropping
After the event, my Integral Emergence Meetup buddies hosted Dowd and Barlow for a meal at a Vietnamese Buddhist restaurant, aptly named Present. ("Be careful not to over-emphasize the present," Dowd had said. "If you are in love with time, you will equally honor the past and the future.")

Dowd spoke fluently of knowing every big name in the human potential and Integral communities.

He used to teach the Spiral Dynamics developmental model. Now he argues with his good friend Jeff Salzman that human progress is not inevitable.  He feels himself a soul brother with Terry Patten, who also questions the inevitability of progress but passionately advocates holding nature as sacred. He argues with Ken Wilber that a Buddhist metaphysics penetrates Wilber's supposedly metaphysics-free Integral Theory. There is no evidence that consciousness precedes existence, Dowd says.

And yet, this man who says he has "no belief in anything supernatural," radiates the sacred.

Practice as the secret?
How does he do it? I may have found the answer when I rushed home to read chapter 11 in Dowd's book on practices for building evolutionary integrity. Dowd lives by his practices. In the set-up before the main event and in the lunch afterwards, I saw him practice at least three of the "practices" recommended in his chapter. Whether ordering a meal, managing a conversation,  expressing gratitude to a host, or sharing stories about the management of sex and addictions, the man walks his talk. And that, more than anything he said in his eloquent and passionate presentation, is what sent me away feeling hopeful and inspired.

New Thought meets Integral in Leesburg, Virginia

The opening yesterday of a New Thought church by an integrally informed minister permitted me to finally cross a bridge between two of my beloved philosophies--as I've depicted here.

Rev. Sunday Coté opened Center for Spiritual Living in Leesburg, Virginia. She is a dear friend and was previously a minister of my Celebration Center congregation in Falls Church. This review and photos of her first service tell the story of her new integrally informed church.

Ken Wilber's beef with the New Age (into which he lumped New Thought) was that the call to "Change your thinking, change your life," was narcissistic when taken to extremes. His wife's cancer was not cured by her thinking healing thoughts. But when the phrase is taken to mean "Take a bigger perspective." it becomes quite congruent with Integral. As to the middle ground -- the definition and limits of the "causal" state of consciousness, I look forward to exploring that with my Integral New Thought buds.

Good luck Rev. Sunday!

Sacred Minimalist Music: Arvo Pärt vs. "Call the Midwives"

Knowing nothing about the Estonian minimalist composer Arvo Pärt, I was drawn to a recent concert of  his music by this paragraph in a Washington Post Review.

In most of his music, he uses a technique he calls tintinnabulation, which juxtaposes a melody, generally moving from one adjacent note to another without big interval leaps, and its associated triad, the three notes of a chord (do-mi-sol).

“One line is who we are,” the composer said in a 2010 interview with the New York Times, “and the other line is who is holding and takes care of us.”

There’s a trippy inexorability to this technique’s forward motion, which balances a sense of fragility against a sense of purpose, a focus on minutiae against an eye to the whole.

Wow. Not only did I want to experience that, I thought perhaps I already had. I was watching the BBC TV series "Call the Midwives."  In a 1950s London slum, secular nurses serve side-by-side with nuns, living in the nuns' convent.  Each day before the nurses go out to serve poor women in bad conditions, they pass the chapel where the nuns are singing their morning offices, usually just a plainsong version of a psalm. There's a haunting quality and an ambiguity in the nurses reactions: mildly jealous or glad they're spared the ritual?

But theses are no chirpy "Singing Nuns." Babies die, women are beaten, and the music reflects awareness of that suffering. In the stunning Christmas episode of the first season, we hear the plainsong out of the convent. A nun and a nurse are bathing a homeless woman who may not have bathed in years. We begin to hear a psalm, and up behind it comes a continuous tone.  Bubbling up from the continuous tone are three notes. The effect is  increasingly haunting, compelling. Definite "trippy inexorability." The scene becomes a sacrament.

Call the Midwives cast

I thought perhaps Arvo Pärt's music would be like that -- perhaps even that Pärt had written the piece in  "Midwives."  But no, nothing in the concert affected me like the TV scene had.

Taking Low to new Heights
Pärt's work does take the expression of mournful to new heights. Here's a Youtube comment on his requiem for composer Benjamin Britten.

when your heart is blind, deaf, silent, just cold..
because you've lost everything you love
when you think you're dying every second, again&again
but you're not capable of feeling anything at all
when the demons in your head wont stop haunting your dreams
Pärt's rippin' up all your scars, & all the pain you felt 
in your whole life breaks down on you again
every single tear you spilled in your whole life flows again
one last time
but you know 
it's the only cure, your only chance to heal your wounded mind
your only opportunity to find peace 

The totally ironic thing is, I did not realize it was a requiem while it was playing. What I heard in its mellifluous cacophony was the coming destruction of civilization made bearable by the increasingly insistent tolling bell of Grace.

Sister Bernadette played by
Shelagh Turner is lead singer
 in the crystalline chants
of "Midwives"

Pärt, who was once banned in Russia for being too spiritual, is the most performed contemporary composer in the world. Most of the 2,000 audience members at the Kennedy Center concert in DC gave roaring standing ovations. But some did not clap. And I wondered if like me, they had read the review and expected something different. More grace. More hope that acts of goodness can make a difference.

Binaural Beats and New Age Music
In both Pärt and Midwives, the sound made me think of binaural beats: a prominent feature in New Age or meditation music designed to carry us to a transcendent level. (Binaural  beats are apparent sounds generated in consciousness when two tones at slightly different frequencies are presented separately, one to each ear.)

If Pärt didn't write the Midwives music, who did?  Although I was able to buy the piece, Psalm 121, from the Midwives album at Itunes, no information was provided about the background music. I'd like to strip it out and use it in my daily meditation. What is it? Who wrote it? WHERE CAN I GET MORE LIKE IT?  If anyone knows, please contact me.

Notes:
Psalm 121 from the Midwives album can be purchased at iTunes or heard here.
Samples of Pärt's music with annotated comments can be heard at the Washington Post review.
While researching, I came across this morsel: muppets do plainchant psalms

DIVERGENT: Optimist "Hunger Games," Integralist Dream

"Only those who are divergent can save us"

Integral commentator Jeff Salzman has called for futurist fiction that paints a more constructive picture than your average post-apocalypse. "Divergent," first novel in a trilogy by Veronica Roth, sets the bar, and it does so with concepts that parallel Integral. Millions of young adults are rabid fans of the blockbuster which will be released as a movie in Spring 2014.

Divergent opens in a burned out Chicago where order has been restored by giving each of five factions responsibility for one aspect of the city. Each faction represents one virtue. At age 16, each person chooses whether to stay in the faction of their birth, or transfer to another faction for life.

The factions are remarkably similar to the value levels in Spiral Dynamics. The picture above is from a fan site. I've doctored the colors of each faction to highlight the SD parallels:

• Red for Dauntless/Warrior
• Blue for Selfless Abgenation/Mythic 
• Orange for Candor and Erudite, two factions matching the spiral's Efficient Rationalist level 
• Green for Amity/Pluralist 
• Yellow for Divergent/Integral (not shown above)

I've also reordered the factions from the original image. Divergent does not acknowledge any levels among the factions except for this stunner: Only those born in abgenation are likely to become divergent.

Zombie-free "young adult" fiction. But is it Second Tier?

I am only two-thirds through this deeply thoughtful "young adult" thriller. The absence of the purple/magic level so far is noteworthy in an era when so many books targeted to young adults feature sorcerers or zombies.  I'm guessing the book is appealing to a generation whose orange/green parents shielded them from red/blue experiences of power and selfless service to the group. And so it is to these two groups that swarms of fans are declaring allegiance at Divergent's fan site.

The feeling of the book is wholly first tier so far -- except for this: the way Divergent people can be identified by others is by their reaction to simulations of their greatest fears. Divergents hold simultaneous awareness of multiple realities, and thus are more quickly able to regain composure in a simulation.

No religion, but Christ Consciousness
Divergent does not discuss religion explicitly; God is mentioned only casually. But one Christian review of Divergent says this:

Abnegation seems to be the “Christian” group, or at least religious one.  The book notes that almost all the Divergent are raised in Abnegation.  As the story unfolds, the idea seems to be that all the other factions are nothing if they are not selfless; in fact, perhaps all the other factions at their core require the influence of Abnegation.  The Dauntless are supposed to be fearless – for the sake of others.  Amity brings peace –for the sake of others.  The Erudite must learn – for the sake of others.  Candor speaks truth – for the sake of others. As a Divergent, Beatrice has three of the factions “fully” in her; I wonder if at some point we will meet a Divergent with all five – a type of Christ if you will, the Incarnation, fully everything. That would be very cool.

The same reviewer also makes a comparison to Hunger Games:

Authority figures are treated with appropriate realism. Many are worthy of trust and respect; some are not.  They are all trapped in a system doomed for failure, and for that reason are forced to make hard decisions that at times appear to compromise their integrity.  This does not build cynicism in the characters (as it did in the Hunger Games) as much as build desire to see justice and truth prevail.

Empowered to Leap over Culverts
I am loving the book, and it has empowered me both morally and physically. First, the sentence, "Only the divergent can save us," energized me to speak more forthrightly when I am seeing a situation from multiple perspectives. And second, the heroine in Divergent bravely faces a brutal initiation into her new faction with the thought, "This is my reality now." Immediately afterward I was hiking a cornfield in Pennsylvania Dutch country and found myself leaping over culverts I normally would have detoured around.


Take the Divergent Test
Fans at the fan site are clamoring to take a test to identify their natural faction. I'm hoping some of my Integral friends involved with leadership assessment might have just the thing for them.

Integral Movie Review: Perspectives on Perspectives in "The Stories We Tell"

Canadian director Sarah Polley has a secret in "The Stories We Tell," but I don't think it's the one critics are raving about. Supposedly the movie is a structure-bending, acted documentary about the director's parents. Most critics see it as a rich exploration of memory and the way each of us constructs a different version of events from our perspective. As such, it aligns with Integral's call to take perspectives on perspectives (P on P) as the best way to grow. But I left the movie feeling hollow, confused, manipulated. A friend's comment that we got to know everyone but Sarah herself tipped me off as to why. I think possibly this movie is just a shadow of the real story the director is hiding. But--spoiler alert--I can't explain that without giving away the plot in the next paragraph.

Through interviews with each member of Sarah's family, we learn how the polarity mismatch between her vibrant mother Diane and cool father Michael--both actors--led Diane to an affair with a producer, opening the possibility that Michael is not Sarah's biological father. The uncovering of this secret impacts the family in ways that would, indeed, make  a great Lifetime made-for-TV movie. And techniques in how the story is told break new ground in that postmodern, twist-it way (leaving me personally feeling first charmed and then manipulated).

But the supposed layering of perspectives that critics are hailing to me amounted only to minor differences in detail--a who-knew-what-when. As such, the story surely provides moving grist for other families touched by affairs. But I see a much more unusual story hidden within. How does Sarah feel about her discovery and its impact on the beloved man who raised her? That is the one intimate detail we never learn, and within it is the key to the story beyond the story.

Sarah Polley goes on a quest to find her biological father. What she discovers will devastate Michael, the  man who raised her. And so, to soften the blow, she brilliantly decides to make a documentary, giving him the role of a lifetime as both writer and star. It is a ploy that succeeds magnificently.  Michael is able to turn the devastating revelation into an homage to his dead wife and a chance to publicly do the right thing in how he responds. Sarah is let off the hook for exposing Michael to pain and  wins Canada's best film of the year.

Now that's a story.

Rod Dreher's Not-so-Little Way

Most of Rod Dreher's new memoir about the death of his sister seems to be about the value of turning back from individualism in the world and returning to the "little way" of small-town family and community. But it is not. It's about something bigger.

This top conservative writer--whose work I admire for its balance--does indeed uproot his family to move home during his sister's terrible struggle with cancer. In "The Little Way of Ruthie Leming," Rod recounts his  awe at the simple acts of love and support that carry his family through. His sister, Ruthie Leming, was a vivacious and loving teacher with a simple faith in God. We see the lives she touched and how the network of community she helped create supports her family through her crisis.  When hearts are breaking over her loss, "the levee holds," he says.

Rod realizes that he has spent his life talking about community while his sister has been creating it. But things get more complicated when he moves his wife and children back to his native St. Francisville, Louisiana, from their cosmopolitan life in Philadelphia. This is actually the second time Rod has moved back home. And as then, he is soon confronted by all the petty, small-mindedness and suppressed feelings that made him bolt from that life as a teenager. Indeed, two terrible secrets are revealed at the book's end which shove his face up against the limitations of this "little way" he has so idealized.

Rod Dreher at Barnes and Nobel
Tysons Corner 

Rod and his wife decide to stay. So how does he integrate the terrible pull between the benefits of community and individuality? I think I sensed the answer when my DC Integral buddy Ron nudged me to attend Dreher's book signing at Tyson's Corner earlier this week.   In that talk, anyone who came for Rod's great theories and critical thinking may have been disappointed. Instead he spoke only of love; he demonstrated the forgiveness and authenticity that are so often missing in traditional community. I realized that this man of ideas has not only become more like his here-and-now sister, he has transcended her way of life. With the help of technology, he can not only share coffee with his parents every morning, but also share his ideas with the world. And more important, he can be a bodhisattva in his small town--showing by quiet example how humble service in community can co-exist with individual expression.

This is not a little way. This is a big way--a way that points toward how to manage so many of the polar values that tear us apart individually and as a society. And it is a way that perhaps is available only to those who choose to circle back in some form. Dreher writes

Because I went away all those years ago, I could come back not out of guilt, but out of love, of my own free choice.

Rod Dreher's story supports me in my own roller coaster ride to integrate the polarity of individuality and community.  Since my adventures recounted in The Bishop and the Seeker, I dance between the individual expression of my New Thought community and the humility and sacrifice honored at the Black church I was dropped into.

Of course, both those choices are about my needs for community and individuality. What about the needs of my family back in my small town in California? I'd like to think that when the time is right, love will point the way.  And then I'll appreciate the nudge from "The Little Way of Ruthie Leming."

Integral Life of Pi Movie Review

Because  reading "Life of Pi" affected me deeply when I was just getting to know Integral, I approached the movie with longing and dread -- both of which were fulfilled. Where many critics saw a sea adventure with a "tacked on introduction," I saw a magnificent example of integration in the life of a small boy in India -- with a tacked on sea adventure for an ending.

The movie does better justice than I might have expected to the boy's attraction to three religions. It even hints at the attractions of each: Hinduism for its lush sensuality of color, incense  and dance; Islam for the physicality of its prayer and daily practice, and Christianity for its love. But what most people see in these scenes is a bland commercial for interfaith tolerance. Whereas I see an integration of beauty, truth, and goodness. In the book, for me, Pi is not just absorbing every belief system he comes in contact with. Fueled by his mystical experiences (not in movie), he is instinctively integrating polarities by ignoring beliefs. Here he is, for example, being attracted to Christianity by the warmth of a missionary priest who takes time to sit with him each day.

The first thing that drew me in was disbelief. What? Humanity sins but it's God's Son who pays the price? ... What a downright weird story. What peculiar psychology. 

I asked for another story, one that I might find more satisfying. But Father Martin made me understand that the stories that came before it were simply prologue to the Christians... 

That a god should put up with adversity I could understand. The gods of Hinduism face their shares of bullies, kidnappers and usurpers. What is the Ramayana but the account of one long bad day for Rama. Adversity, yes. Treachery, yes. But humiliation? Death? Why would God wish that upon Himself? Why not leave death to the mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? 

Love. That was Father Martin's answer.

The boy's quest to integrate is immune from both his family's insistence that only science can save modern India, and from the objections of  the Hindu, Muslim, and Christian clerics who tell him he must choose among religions. Indeed, the movie drops what for me was the climactic scene of the clerics fighting for Pi's soul. Perhaps the director considered it too incendiary--especially post Benghazi.  But it was that scene in the book that fused itself with my personal experience like honey on a host  (early Catholic childhood analogy alert) such that I couldn't tell where Pi began and I left off.

I was reading  "Life of Pi"  in 2004 as I was having my own re-introduction to Christianity from a bishop who seemed to cross boundaries of love and firmness in ways that seemed impossible (as recounted in my book, The Bishop and the Seeker.) And just as I was introduced to Islam by an Imam who crusades for applying reason to the ancient stories of his faith (as this post).

As my husband read that scene of interfaith tug-of-war to me in my hospital room following a surgery, I laughed and cried--clutching a pillow to keep my stitches from popping--with that sense of SOMEBODY UNDERSTANDS WHAT I'M GOING THROUGH.

So I have always wanted to enact that scene, and now that the movie has expurgated it, I plan to produce it  at a gathering of friends. We'll discuss the movie Dec 8 at a swank club off Dupont Circle  which is co-owned by a friend of mine who teaches mythology at Georgetown University. Contact me if you'd like an invite or a re-enactment at your own gathering.

And please tell us below how Life of Pi affected you.

Integral Fashion Consulting

My niece Lynn, front, with her sister Peg,
several years before gastric bypass surgery

When my dear niece Lynn had lost over 150 pounds following gastric bypass, her sister Peg decided to do the surgery as well. Unfortunately, Peg died from complications the day after the surgery. So Lynn had more than the usual reasons to delay seeking a new look for her hard-won new physique.  I wanted to gift Lynn with the services of a style consultant, but who to choose?  When my friend James Jones--a senior Integral consultant and one of the wisest people I know--said that his daughter Zoe Jones is a consultant for Style for Hire, I knew she was the one. Not only was she trained by Stacy London (of TV's "What Not to Wear"), but she grew up with dinner table discussions of the broadest possible perspectives. "I knew Myers Briggs personality types by the time I was five," she told me. Mommy look, that man's a "J."

Initial Appointment
I called Zoe and set up a four-hour appointment at a rate of $50 an hour.  Zoe told me that normally, the most efficient process is to do a closet audit at the client's home, then let Zoe pre-shop, and then do a shopping trip with the client. But because Lynn lives almost two hours from Zoe's  territory in Baltimore, it would be more efficient to try to do it all in one appointment. Zoe warned me that might not be feasible.

In the initial interview the following week, Lynn told Zoe that her work environment as an administrator is very casual, but she is getting opportunities to meet with higher level people and could use a couple outfits appropriate to that.

Closet Audit
Raised as a military brat, Lynn had her clothes neatly arranged in two closets--one for tops and the other for her one skirt and several pairs of black pants. The tops were arranged by color, from warm to cool to black and white.  "You've done half my work for me, Zoe said, asking Lynn to start by trying on all the pants.

"Mom always said black is slimming," Lynn said.

"Yes," said Zoe, "but slimming is more about fit than color. You and I have similar build and coloring, and for us navy sometimes works better than black."  She approved the fit of several of the pants and recommended that Lynn "release" the rest.

"Yes, Maam" said Lynn. In fact, over the next hour, Lynn easily released everything Zoe recommended, even things she had recently bought. "You're the expert," she said, as I imagined myself hemming and hawing in the same situation.

What's in your closet?

Find that waist
As we moved to the tops, Lynn tried on several with her one skirt. Zoe recommended that she wear the skirt a bit higher, at her slimmest point, to emphasize her womanly shape.  This is a signal recommendation of the Style for Hire approach. And indeed, pulling up the bright, southwestern print skirt by an inch from where Lynn normally wore it caused me to say, "Wow, what a difference."

Zoe recommended Lynn release several tops that were too large but keep most of them, saying Lynn has a good eye for fit and color. "Actually, most of these were chosen for me by my 16-year old niece," Lynn said, referring to her sister Peg's "adopted" granddaughter Tia.

Gaps to Fill
At the end, Zoe pronounced that Lynn had a good solid basis to work from. She needed a business suit, a little jacket that could dress up her tops, a couple more skirts including possibly a pencil skirt, and accessories. Because of Lynn's organization and willingness, Zoe said we finished the closet audit in near record time, so we would have time to go shopping on this same appointment.

Shopping
Lynn lives in Woodbridge, Virginia, near the famous regional mall Potomac Mills. So we had lots of places to choose from. She normally shops at budget stores, but she told Zoe she was prepared to spend in the range of $500 for this upgrade. "We can do that easily," Zoe said. "Let's start at Kohls."

At the large, well-lit, and pleasantly arranged Kohls, we split up, meeting back at the dressing room for Lynn to try on items that both she and Zoe approved of.  A skirt I found was pronounced a keeper--a short, slim, light nylon with a print similar to the one Lynn already owned, but in muted camel tones and with a flounce at the bottom.

Finding the dress, finding Lynn
The high point of the day came next as Lynn tried on two dresses Zoe selected, both form-fitting, one teal and one wine colored. I don't think I'd have given the dresses a second look on the rack. But as Lynn saw herself in the wine one, tears came to her eyes. There she was. The high waist, low V neck, and gently drape fit her perfectly, and revealed the beautiful shape she had sacrificed so much to achieve. I blinked my eyes, feeling almost as if I were meeting a new person. Zoe led her off to find the perfect necklace.

Lynn in her new dress

We fanned out again at Nordstroms Rack, its tightly packed rows of overstock items much more challenging to navigate, but with hidden treasures awaiting. Zoe found a black suit with a short jacket Lynn could also wear with pants. She also found a jacket I actively disliked on the rack, a short denim blue with a bit of a boucle print and a little Channel-style fringe. But when Lynn put it on in the dressing room, wow. It was both professional and fun at the same time. A real statement. But it was too small. So Zoe sent me back out into the jungle as she and Lynn continued to try things. And Eureka, I found it--half way across the store from where Zoe had found the smaller size.

And a jacket to wear with everything

We put the Nordstrom's items on hold to make one last stop at Bannana Republic. Zoe said she would prefer a grey or neutral color suit for Lynn, and Banna Republic can be excellent for items that are professional but fashonable, she said. And indeed, she did find two grey suits that were almost right. But the darts didn't fall in the perfect spots, so back to Nordstroms we went to claim our booty.  Zoe added a green print scarf she said Lynn could wear with many of her looks.

Putting it all together
I couldn't believe we still had a half hour left of our scheduled four hours. We zipped back to the house where Zoe showed Lynn how to put together outfits using the few new items we'd bought. In just a few tries, Lynn could tie her scarf like a pro.  And if the Integral vision is about bringing together truth, beauty, and goodness, I felt like I'd just had an Integral day.

Zoe Jones teaches my niece Lynn to tie a scarf.

At work the next day in the skirt I suggeted

Roadtrip: Terry Patten's Encountering the Beloved

More daring than group sex, a chance to pray aloud was the highlight of a Terry Patten  workshop on "Encountering the Beloved" in NYC this past weekend. Patten is a hero of mine for pushing Integral theory into embrace of the three faces of God and for his emphasis on daily practice.

Terry Patten

 Attendees at this workshop were mostly experienced seekers for whom the first day's session was high quality versions of things we'd done before: authentic dialogue in small groups, voice dialogue, and even a chance to dance. What made these extraordinary was Terry's presence and his street-smart, siren call to  bring our connection with the Divine into our daily life. (The day also featured lovely listening and touch exercises by Terry's wife Deborah Boyer.)

Michael Pergola

The workshop was opened by Michael Pergola whose booming, eloquent, anthem to the evolutionary impulse called us to integrate masculine and feminine energies in this time of unprecedented crisis and opportunity. By contrast, Terry's opening sentences were a raw, immediate, plea to authentically acknowledge that most of us must do so while struggling with shadow baggage that leaves us like "bloated bags of protoplasm fiercely struggling to keep our noses above water" in a sea of change. And thus, "Our own 20 watts cannot solve the problems we face," he said. Even though we know there is no God out there in the metaphysical sense we used to believe, we still must find a way to pull down help from the unlimited Divine source.  The vulnerability in his tone landed for me like a shepherd's call. I heard his voice; and I was riveted for the remainder of the weekend.

Deborah Boyer left, as Terry and Malcolm encounter the Beloved.

The workshop was held at the lovely TAI Center near Madison Square Garden.

Post-Mythical Prayer
On the second day we did a glorious version of the three body workout which Terry is now calling the 3D workout: stretching our bodies, our sensing souls, and our spirits to the inner, intimate, and infinite faces of God. And then we prayed. Patten does a magnificent job of re-envisioning prayer in a way that opens the possibility of it again for those of us who have left behind the mythical God of our childhood. (The only other person I know with a comparably deft approach to "post-atheist prayer" is Brian McLaren, as I report at Does Mature Conscious Prayer Get Better Results?)

Lurching to Freedom
We broke into groups of three, and I was lucky to have as my partners two beautiful young men who had helped to organize the weekend: Michael Stern and Armando Davila. Going first, I decided NOT to use my comfortable and beloved format: affirmative prayer from New Thought. Instead I lurched and stumbled my way through two minutes of out-loud prayer, trying out several approaches. Next came Armando who said his communion with the Divine often takes him to ecstatic states. His prayer had a simple, direct, quiet, purposefulness. Then came Michael, who spends an hour a day in prayer and meditation. In deep and sonorous tones like the tolling of a cathedral's bell, he called forth the energy of God to share with the world.

Unlike earlier exercises, we didn't share much about ourselves, and yet I felt a strong connection and love among the three of us. And THAT confirmed something I'd been sensing. The quality of "we space" that develops in the two conditions--personal sharing and group prayer-- is completely different and not interchangeable. I need both! I want both! I intend to create both! (I also felt simultaneously grateful for the structure of affirmative prayer, and freed to experiment with other formats.)

My only regret is that I didn't get to hear from every person  their experience of that exercise. We did each  get a chance to say a final word at the end of the workshop. And in that round, I heard from those who were unmoved by the prayer exercise, as well as from those like my normally quiet homie Bennett Crawford--who radiated a starburst of joy as he told of feeling liberated to pray (see video clip below). Picking up that theme, the next fellow said, "My name is Dan, and I love God," getting a laugh.  DC's  newest member Jonathan Pratt said that if the world was like the workshop, we'd all live in heaven.

Bennett Crawford shares his experience at the end of the workshop

In Love with My Integral Possee
Taking the workshop with members of my practice group from DC doubled the richness of the adventure. I drove up with six fellow members of the DC Integral Emergence Meetup: Coordinators Malcolm Pettus and Anita Conner, Barbara Kinney, Bennett Crawford, and intrepid newbie Jonathan Pratt. We used the car ride up and back to get to know each other at deeper levels, developing a bond of love we didn't want to break at the end of the ride back home.

 DC Integral Emergence Coordinators Malcolm Pettus and Anita Conner
drive us to Terry Patten workshop in NYC. Take us out, Mr. Zulu.

DC crew at Tryp Hotel  from left: Teri Murphy, Anita Conner, Bennett Crawford,
Barbara Kinney, Jonathan Pratt, and Malcolm Pettus, with our new friend Nomi,
a Pakastani American interested in development within Islam and currently in
One Spirit's Integral Mentoring and Ministry program.

The DC crew at a great Thai restaurant around the corner from the Tryp on 9th Ave.

 More to Come
The workshop was the first in a series organized by volunteers from the new organizations Integral Alignment  and Universal Consciousness. We'll be back.

DC crew packs up for home.

UP Next: tomorrow on my other blog, I will report on my meeting later today with the head of the DC Meetup on Emerging Christianity. Crossover?

Integral Occupy Wall Street: Love and Shadow

Integral commentator Joe Perez notes that an Integral presence at Occupy Wall Street will not be based in resentment but in love and full acknowledgment of our own shadows.

Integral politics knows you can't just burn down the banks....Integral morality does not arise from resentment, feelings of jealousy, or animosity of any kind. It asks us to look at our individual shadows and acknowledge when our own antagonism towards the ultra-rich borders on its own sort of greed and will to power. Integral politics is based on love.

Beautiful Joe!

Because my Integral Life Practices Meetup group in DC was just working with the book's shadow module last week, I wondered how such a shadow-aware protest might look. Just for fun, I've revamped an old sign:

Integral & EnlightenNext: The Marriage of Map & Path?

A day of exploring "the Union of Theory and Practice" with leaders from Integral and EnlightenNext generated a surprising level of enthusiasm for cooperation between the two movements. This surprised me because I thought the day was to be about unifying theory and practice in our own lives. And thus, I expected a discussion of  transformational practice groups.  But the two levels of focus came together beautifully for me at the end when I was able to propose a practice group exchange as one of the ways the organizations could explore closer cooperation.


Second Generation Facilitators

Jeff Carreira left, Clint Fuhs, right

 

Our facilitators for the session July 15/16  were top students of the leaders of the two movements: Clint Fuhs from Ken Wilber's Integral and Jeff Carreira from Andrew Cohen's EnlightenNext (formerly What is Enlightenment). And thus, they referred to themselves--and us--as the "second generation" in these movements.  (They actually used the term "lineages" instead of movements, and I can say that with a straight face if it is understood as Integral being in the lineage of Neo-Platonism and EnlightenNext in the lineage of some aspects of Eastern philosophy--with, of course, Andrew Cohen's radical twist that evolution is unending, rather than cyclical as Wilber and many of the Eastern traditions maintain.)

Jeff is the Director of Education for EnlightenNext, and Clint is the Director of Core Integral which offers college level courses on Integral theory. Both men love ideas, and I could have sat all day for their rapid fire exchange. And yet, both men also exude that quality of presence that makes me feel they walk their talk.  Clint made us laugh playing gunslinger, whipping concepts out of both holsters. "Integral is not a path, it's a map," he said. I laughed especially loud when one fan of Rumi asked, "How do you relate to the heart?" and Clint said, "We map it."

Which Comes First?
Clint told us that practice precedes theory: while most people think Ken Wilber took up meditation, for example, because of his theory, it was actually his experiences of practice that led to Integral Theory, he said. My favorite point from Jeff may have expressed the opposite truth. He said he stopped being a seeker when he realized that enlightenment as a state experience might never happen to him; he couldn't wait for it. "Forget enlightenment. I want freedom now!" he had proclaimed.

The facilitators set us to work early. In small groups we completed the sentence stems:

• What I bring to this discussion is....
• The gifts of Integral/EnlightenNext are...
• The shadows of Integral/EnlightenNext are..
• How the two lineages could support each other is...

Authenticity: What's their Secret?
In my small group, I was impressed with the ease with which the ENext folks spoke from an authentic, intentional place, apparently setting ego aside. I have actually noticed this quality in many of the ENext people I have met, going back to the day I met Steve Haase when he and I were the only two to show up at the first meeting of the DC Wilber Meetup. How did these folks maintain that quality over time? What practices are they following? I determined to find out.

Gifts and Shadows
The results from our groups looked something like this--with my editorial additions and rearrangements:

This exercise covered a lot of ground quickly and diffused tensions in the room. A rich camaraderie began to develop between the two groups. Jeff pronounced that the results were "no surprise," and challenged us to consider, therefore, that the problems we listed were not really shadow because they were obvious to everyone. The shadow, he said, is the fear or grasping that prevents us from addressing the problems we all acknowledge. I was still pondering that when my Integral buddy Anita voiced my next thought, "This looks like a polarity map: not problems to be solved, but polarities to manage."   ENext folks started saying, "I'd like to learn more about Integral Theory--and lining up to buy Clint's course.

Followup 
Our final practice of the day was a circled up conversation of "Whatever wants to be spoken into the room," facilitated by Jeff.  Several of the ENext people expressed an intense desire for closer cooperation between the two groups. Clint warned that that kind of enthusiasm can be difficult to maintain; was anyone willing to make specific commitments for followup?

The idea for the day was birthed by local coordinators for the two groups: Malcolm Pettus from the DC Ken Wilber Meetup and Ryan Diener from the DC EnlightenNext.  Malcolm committed to make Ryan an assistant coordinator on the Meetup site, which would give Ryan direct access to posting events. Several of the ENext folks offered to establish joint mailing lists. Clint and Jeff said they would be open to returning in six months for a follow up session.

Practice Group Exchange

I offered to coordinate a practice exchange. I explained that members of the Wilber Meetup have been experimenting with various formats for practice groups; it could be useful and enlightening to learn what ENext does before we shape our next round. I am thinking something like a few of us visit one of their sessions and then invite them to attend one of ours--something like that.

Most folks went to dinner together afterwards, and the ENext folks invited us to a picnic the next day. All in all, a fine start to a courtship.

Event organizers: Malcom Pettus first row, second from left (between Clint and me) and Ryan Diener third row far right.
Chief chauffeur and love muffin Anita maintains her usual low profile third row far left.

Comments heartily encouraged.

Pantheism vs Panentheism as God's 3rd Face

I am God

You are God

It all is God

As I explore what it means to integrate all three faces of God, the distinction between pantheism and panentheism fit what I was experiencing. In pantheism, the material universe IS God. And hence I can worship nature or, in a more "sophisticated" version, tremble in awe at the laws of physics. And I have done both. They are both flavors of the third face of God as expressed by Ken Wilber and Terry Patten.

I had long since left behind the second face of God from my Catholic childhood; "You, a force outside me, are God."

Then in New Thought metaphysics I began to have experiences in which my intention appeared to shift the outcome of a situation. And hence I experienced a version of the first face of  God, "I am God," which evolved into, "I am a co-creator with God" or "I am God expressing."  

But as I continued inquiring into WHAT I was expressing or co-creating with, I cycled back around to the inescapable conclusion that it was indeed a force outside of me, and something more than the laws of physics. This is Panentheism. Material reality is IN God, but is not all of God. In my current understanding, Panentheism integrates all three faces of God. Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen, leading proponents of this integration, have declared themselves to be "Evolutionary Panentheists." A beautiful expression of panentheism is found in this song below, "God is More Than This," sung by the Agape choir in Los Angeles and interrupted by a brief sermonette by Rev. Michael Beckwith.

My understanding of this continues to evolve. But my experience of it deeply enriches my life.

Three Faces of God: Why Care

I am God

You are God

It all is God

There are many ways to understand what Ken Wilber calls "the Three Faces of God." Most of us learn them in the reverse of the order stated above:

• Third person:: It: rivers, moon, and sky are God
• Second person: You the Father from the stories of my ancestors are God 
• First Person: I in my oneness with all that is am God 

And as we grow we usually reject our earlier understandings. But is there room for all three? Does there need to be?

I was lucky to make the break to First Person easily in my thirties, twenty+ years ago, when I discovered New Thought panentheism. But the adventures recounted in my book drew me around to reconsider what I'd left behind, bringing my new consciousness of radical freedom and responsibility to the old stories. For me there are three reasons to do so:

• The sheer joy of a devotional relationship
• The improved relationships with my teammates that are possible when we put something sacred in the center of our circle
• An ability to embrace followers of traditional religion as brothers and sisters

In reintegrating this second face, you don't have to go as far as I have--twirling a white skirt to praise dance at a Black church. Simply chanting, or lighting a candle, or even writing a love poem to your hero may be enough for you to call forth the presence of beloved Other. Whatever it is, I recommend it. It can be a powerful source of meaning and joy.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra: How I lived out this Star Trek episode

Recently I saw again one of the most famous episodes of Star Trek Next Generation, "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra." I sat riveted, seeing with new eyes how this story reflects my adventure with Bishop Thomas and the biblical literalists at Highview.

In the show, Captain Picard confronts an alien race that communicates only via metaphor from its ancient myths--just as my new friends at Highview attempt to solve all problems with stories from the Bible. Struggling to communicate, the alien captain beams himself and Picard to a planet where a beast is loose, and he repeatedly says to Picard, "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!" Picard is confused and shivering in the cold until the alien captain offers him fire saying, "Temba, his arms wide!"

Suddenly Picard understands how metaphor is being used. "Temba, his arms wide" is a metaphor for giving and receiving. Then Picard recalls Gilgamesh, one of earth's most ancient legends, a story of how two enemies became friends through hardship. He realizes that "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" must be a similar story, and that the alien captain has risked his own life to open communication between
their peoples by fighting the beast together with Picard. Alas, the alien, Dathon, is mortally wounded by the beast. As Dathon dies, Picard shares with him the story of "Gilgamesh and Enkidu at Uruk." Dathon dies knowing he has succeeded in opening communication with Picard. Picard returns to his ship with enough knowledge to halt the war that is brewing with Dathon's people.

And that is the story in my book, "The Bishop and the Seeker: Wrestling for the Soul of the 21st Century." As a postmodern Integralist and follower of New Thought, I am beamed into the office of a fundamentalist bishop for a year of dialogue where we discover our common enemy: the excesses of postmodernism and alternative religion in which there is no right and wrong. We tell each other stories and learn each others' language. The bishop's equivalent of "Temba, his arms wide" is to offer me the openness to be genuinely interested in learning about my world. In fact, he risks his reputation among some of his own hardliners by telling me he believes I am saved, even though I do not call myself Christian.


I return to my ship to bring the message. We can work with these people, they can be friends. Instead of focusing on our differences, look at the good work we can do by focusing on our common aims to bring truth, beauty, and goodness to the world.

Bringing A Wilber Meetup Back from the Brink

Gail Taylor

How many Integral Coaches does it take to save a Meetup group about integrating all perspectives? Last night Integral Coach Gail Taylor facilitated a meeting I would have said had very little chance of success. Tensions had been mounting for years in the DC Ken Wilber Meetup, a group with a vision so broad that aspects of it are at odds with itself. In a group about "transcending and including" all values, a split had evolved roughly along lines of age, with the younger members more focused on transcending and the older on including. (This is an over simplification, because we're experiencing tension on the other AQAL poles of stability/change, interior/exterior, and autonomy/interdependence with everyone committed to all those values but showing preferences roughly matching age groups.) Most similar groups around the world have dissolved over the kind of tensions our group was suffering. Dissolution was imminent.

But within two hours, Gail's facilitation brought us back from the brink. Not to say our problems were solved, but I would say we established a minimum level of trust for moving forward for three more months at which time we'll reassess.

Holocracy to the Rescue

How did she do it? Much of her approach stemmed from her training in Brian Robertson's Holocracy.  She started by asking us what level of facilitation we wanted from her, and most of us said, "medium." She put on the wall a series of prepared "cheat sheets" for how we'd proceed, including speaking from our "core values" and taking a breath before responding to each other. As we surfaced our issues, she did two things extraordinarily well: she put on paper a one-sentence summary of  everyone's input on a given topic, and she acknowledged tensions as people spoke, coaching individuals to rephrase something as a request or to notice a contraction in what they'd requested. She did this with an open-hearted humility that felt contagious. I felt heard and looked out for--and this was particularly noteworthy because prior to the meeting Gail had been working with the "transcenders" and thus could have found it difficult to present herself as neutral.

How Many Integral Coaches?

Another factor in the evening's success was how well prepared we all seemed to be. Everyone worked hard to communicate constructively and be transparent. In the days preceding the meeting, several of us got coaching from some of the other top Integral and Holocracy coaches nationwide. In a flurry of two-hour phone calls, several of us spoke with each other interspersed with calls to Gail and Beena Sharma; Ron spoke briefly with Brian Robertson, and Ron invited us to track the process Deborah Boyar will be using in working with California's Bay Area Integral.

And the Result is..

Here is the initial vision statement Gail wove together for us in 14 minutes of our three hour meeting:

“We are a community of practice (and more) in service to the broader integral community, offering great events around Ken Wilber’s (and related) work. We value fostering learning, balance, and the integration of perspectives and visions (including allowing for different perspectives and visions).”

Integral Transformational Practice Groups: Support for Embodying Enlightenment

I'm excited about an integral, small group process developed by James Jones for embodying enlightenment or "Christ consciousness:" Transformational Practice Groups. These are similar to groups for Integral Life Practice, but organized around the six domains of spiritual practices identified by Roger Walsh in Essential Spirituality and sequenced in a way informed by Ken Wilber's Integral Theory.

I've been in a group for two cycles of six weeks and am fascinated by its potential. I'll write more about this later, but that's my group shown above. We are supporting each other in doing practices every day that remind us to embody all the lofty goals we talk about as the fruits of Enlightenment or Christ Consciousness.

Plato, Climate Change, and the Cathedral at Chartres

In a last minute stroke of genius, Ron persuaded Jim Turner of the Transpartisan Center to give opening remarks prior to last night's compelling manifesto on Plato, climate change, and the Cathedral at Chartres by Jim Garrison.
[note: this is my personal report of the March 1 meeting of the Ken Wilber Meetup of Washington DC.]

About 40 of us crowded congenially into the somewhat awkwardly long and narrow second floor of the old townhouse that is Bistro Tabac on U Street. (Those of us who stayed for dinner afterward ascended the castle stairs to gasp in delight at the romantic, glass-walled, rooftop with soft candlelight setting off a glittering view of the monuments.) Along with a dozen or more guests in town for Wisdom University (where meditation and art classes are required alongside academic analysis) we also had several newcomers to our Meetup who we are eager to see again.

Both speakers started by acknowledging their debts and close relationships with Ken Wilber: Jim T consulted with him recently and found him in good health; Jim G said history will compare him to Plato, after whom all philosophy since has been only footnotes.

Jim Turner's remarks practically had me leaping to my feet from my little red mushroom stool as he described politics as lurching from walking solely on one's left foot, becoming exhausted, and then walking solely on the right foot until exhausted again. He called for a recognition that each of us has politics as individual as our fingerprints, but under-girding our views are the same competing poles: particularly of freedom vs order. And we're not going to get anywhere until we can address the concerns of both poles in a way that frees them to recognize their own need for the opposite pole. This is very much a theme of my own work in dialoguing with fundamentalists and thus resonated strongly. Where do I sign up?!!

Jim Garrison, board member of Wisdom University and founder of the State of the World Forum, called us to wake up to the fact that 90% of humanity will be wiped out within 40 years if we don't act immediately to cut carbon emissions by 80%. When a questioner challenged the doability of that, Jim compared hesitation to hanging one's head in despair as a fire is breaking out in the kitchen. STOP EVERYTHING and fight it, he said. He also told us that corporations can reach the targets with cuts in their profits of only one third, and that he is finding foreign corporations more receptive than American, with Brazilian firms replanting the rain forest and Chinese firms leaping out front in developing green technology. He also did the anti-corporate greed thing, warning us that all information contrary to this dire view is paid for by corporate interests just as was the campaign that cigarette smoking is safe. He called for counterweighing the American tendency to colonial avarice with a re-integration of the divine feminine principles portrayed in the movie Avatar and in the "Taj Mahal of France," the Cathedral at Chartres with its origins in a vanished mystery school and its stained windows portraying the zodiac and universal oneness. (My family's native village of Belleme is an hour south of Chartres. Road trip anyone?)

At the end I felt an overwhelming desire to integrate the passions of our two speakers. As Ron asked at dinner afterward, how can Jim G's message be communicated with Jim T's insight about what is needed to reach people with a very different worldview? I was also confused by the followup remarks of Jim Garrison's colleague that sustainability will create prosperity. While that is clearly true in the long run, how does it square with Garrison's call for a one third cut in corporate profits? Doesn't that mean a one third cut in my retirement fund, setting my thermostat to 40 degrees, and walking the ten miles to work? I am willing to do that if that will save the earth. But I suspect (and here I am editorializing) that much of the resistance to believing in climate change is really fear that the cure is almost as bad as disease. How do we speak to that?

Big thanks to Ron for putting together this provocative and inspiring evening and to the Meetup core group whose teamwork made everything work smoothly.