Integration
I organized a workshop with Michael Dowd last night, and it was excellent and we had a good size group attending as well. Hopefully, we'll get an ongoing process out of it as well, maybe with several parallel tracks such as experiential and social activities, studies and outreach.
It is such a relief seeing someone integrating so many areas I have worked on integrating in my own life, and doing it in such an elegant, dynamic and engaging way. I see - again - that my role is not to be the brilliant popularizer or speaker (which I know is not my strength) but to be more the behind the scenes person, setting up situations for people to get together around issues of importance to them.
It is so easy to think that I "have to" get out there and write, speak etc. about all these important issues, and coming up against the limitations of this human self in terms of personality, skills and talents (or rather lack of them!). And as I am shown over and over, I don't have to. There are so many others out there doing it brilliantly, and the role I can fill quite well, and find deep satisfaction and joy in, is of the one creating connections and setting up situations so these can shine and inspire others.
Some of the frameworks, approaches and topics he integrates brilliantly...
Integral framework (Ken Wilber's AQAL model), Universe Story (Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme), Deep Ecology (Joanna Macy, John Seed, Arne Næss), ecospirituality, relationship of spirituality/religion and science, approaches to deep culture change, permaculture, peak oil, and much more.
Much of this already includes a shift in perception from a dualistic to a more transdual/inclusive view, and the only approach dear to me not (yet) included is the Big Mind process.
It would fit in with everything else quite elegantly and provide yet another gateway into a more transdual view. It gives people a practical tool to make the shift into the view of the largest whole (God, Buddha Mind, Existence, Big Mind), and a way to seamlessly shift back into it in daily life.