Integrally Gay

The men's Integral Life Practice (ILP) group that I organized moves into its third meeting on Monday, and we're holding our first open meeting to open the doors to new members. I've been speaking with several prospective new members about the sort of experience they would find, and learning about the gifts offered by ILP to men's work, and vice versa.

Nobody that I've talked to has been in an ILP group before, though they are all experienced in Integration Groups sponsored by The ManKind Project, a men's organization that conducts weekend experiential retreats called the New Warrior Training Adventure. MKP's I-Groups for men are not ILP groups, and all of us involved in this venture are sorting through the differences and common ground.

Men's groups today sponsored by organizations such as MKP are designed around the principles of the mythopoetic men's movement, and many of the protocols have been inspired by the poetry of Robert Bly, the mythic archetypal studies of Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, and the foundational handbook A Circle of Men by Bill Kauth, one of the founders of MKP. The groups have served men from all ages, races, and walks of life, but in practice have attracted mainly white middle-class men over 40, many of whom are motivated to become more in touch with feelings and control their anger.

Like some other groups arising from the human potential movement, they combine Jungian psychology, Gestalt therapy, Twelve Step principles, feminist consciousness raising circles, and rituals adapted from Native American sources. They offer powerful gifts to men, benefits that I have received time and again for many years; yet they are not containers designed for truly Integral work.

Men's work focuses almost entirely on the ethos of "eating the shadow" (to use Bly's memorable phrase). The basic idea is that men's unconscious impulses imperil emotionally mature behavior and sabatoge good intentions, and that men can grow by receiving non-shaming but strong feedback from other men show help him to spot his shadow. They create a safe emotional space for men to become vulnerable and intimate with each other, practice emotionally balanced and healthy communications, and support each other in living accountably in the world. As containers for shadow work, they very often succeed. But the focus on the dark side--unearthing buried wounds and healing/reframing the traumas from childhood and early adolescence in a new light--is a limited methodology.

That's where ILP offers a rejuvenating and liberating perspective for a men's group. Our group will begin every meeting with about 10 minutes of exercises to energize the causal, subtle, and gross bodies and dedicate our work to the service of all sentient beings. We will continue to build intimacy and trust by allowing space and time for communicating feelings, highlighting the issues that arise for men in our daily lives, and processing disputes and emotionally charged reactions some men have with other men. From there, we will devote part of the evening to applying the AQAL Framework to our daily life: exploring how it illuminates the "spiritual cross-training" that forms the core of our Practice. Next, we will devote part of the meeting to shadow work, marrying traditional men's work methodologies with supplemental technologies formulated by Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute. Finally, we will close each meeting by reengaging our causal bodies through group meditation.

Just as ILP makes men's work better by making it a more comprehensive vehicle for personal and spiritual development, men's work strengthens the ILP. Our group will utilize some of the mythic archetypes (Warrior, King, Magician, Lover) that men have come to embrace and find useful. Also we will benefit from the men's movement emphasis on mission, integrity, service, and accountability. Too often integrally informed groups come up short in recognizing the important place for making promises to one's self and others and living truly to them. In these ways and others, men's work and ILP can create a powerful vehicle for development.

I have written an article for my blog at Integal Life that has been reposted on Ken Wilber's blog on areas that Wikipedia could benefit from improvement, and put out a call for volunteers to spend time contributing to the project.

A Look at the State of Integral on Wikipedia

Recently I took a look at the state of articles on Wikipedia with an eye towards determining how volunteer editors with knowledge of Integral Theory can chip in to make a difference. For an integral philosophy enthusiast who is willing to take the time to learn a bit about and strictly work within Wikipedia's culture and adhere to its requirements (neutral POV, verifiable sources, decisions by consensus, etc.), there's plenty of opportunity to help ensure the dissemination of accurate and unbiased information about integral philosophy through wikis.

Why is it important what Wikipedia says about Integral?

Consider just two reasons. First: Because Wikipedia pages are very trusted by Google and other search engines, the resulting page is usually right at the top of a search. The wiki's impact is magnified many times because the content is open source and reproduced on hundreds of other websites all over the world. It has been widely observed that large numbers of Internet users seeking information about an individual or organization will go directly to the wiki entry rather than the official website because they believe the information is more likely to be unbiased. It is well known that journalists and bloggers use wiki when researching their articles and posts.

Second: Research that shows that students (from high school to college and even graduate school) often turn to this resource as a first step in research on virtually any topic, even if they know that it cannot usually be cited as a credible source in their papers, because it can point them to credible sources that they can cite for their research. In terms of I-I's current goal of establishing integral studies as more widely accepted in academia, it's hard to think of a better investment of time and energy at this juncture.

Read the whole thing...

It's always a bit of a thrill to have something I've written selected by Ken as a guest post on his blog, and I hope that some good things come of the call for volunteers.

All my available time for Internet work apart from my other business has been taken this week by my focus on improving the sorry state of Wikipedia articles on the field of Integral Studies, so my blogging has been light. Folks with an interest in Integral might want to check out the debate on the Wikipedia talk pages (here and here).

Here is an excerpt from my discussion post today, which gives some background on how the Integral Studies field has emerged:

Spiritual thinkers and some philosophers wrote for decades before Wilber on similar themes, and a few even used the word "intgeral". Wilber defined a new variation with his books in Wilber IV in the mid-1990s that he called Integral Theory with capital letters, and he calls his theory Integral with a capital I. In the past 14 years, there have been many developments. The one that I am most concerned with is the emergence in 2008 -- 13 years after Wilber started promoting Integral Theory -- of an scholarly field of study which is called Integral Studies which includes Integral Theory as one of its methodologies. I

Integral Theory itself is now no longer associated strictly with Wilber himself, but is an evolving discipline with many contributors. (It is certainly scholarly, and it includes a roster of dozens of academics engaged in interdisciplinary (they call it "trans-disciplinary") research, however it is not widespread (which is NOT to say that it is "unaccepted" only that it is not *practiced* and largely ignored by academia, a different situation altogether from the most common definition of "fringe" which would be a movement like Creationism), a fact that needs to be noted prominently. Note that the keynote address at next year's Integral Theory conference is Robert Kegan, the tenured and highly esteemed developmental psychologist at Harvard School of Education.

Integral Theory (even Alan Kazlev has made this point, and he is no Wilberian) is NOT all of the integral movement, which includes strands such as the Aurobindian that preceded Wilber by decades and have continued to evolve separately in dialogue with his contributions. Not all of those integral movement factions, however, are part of the Integral Studies programs in universities, and the latter is my focus. To illustrate the point another way: the last book published by Integral Books featured Ken as one of four co-authors, and it includes refinements by quite a number of theorists writing in three different peer-reviewed academic journals and can hardly be described as simply "Wilber's book". By what principle are the other authors of the book (Terry Patten, Adam Leonard, and Marco Morelli) who have contributed to a methodology called ILP denied an examination of their work except under Wilber's article? I'm happy to provide references for any part of it to those with less familiarity with this specialty, as I think it's a factual account. Is any of it disputed?

Given this, it seems that Goethean is primarily concerned with treating Wilber parallel to philosophers such as Neitzsche. But I would argue that Nietzsche doesn't have a body of living, breathing academics and scholars publishing amendments, revisions, and developments in his philosophy and calling it Nietzschean Theory or what have you. (Actually, arguably this is the case, given the influence of postmodernism in academia, but let's leave that tangent aside.) So in order to include the material about the Integral Theory body of work at the outskirts of academia, it is important that it be treated separately from Wilber. That doesn't mean that it couldn't ALSO be examined at the Ken Wilber article, so long as the Wilber article only discussed HIS particular ideas and not any future developments in Integral Theory apart from his contributions. Would it alleviate your concerns, Goethan, if the basic material remained at the Ken Wilber article but it was largely duplicated in a separate Integral Theory article that also included non-Wilber developments? I would have proposed that idea myself, except for my concern with redundancy. Also, I know from the Integral movement talk page that at least a few years ago some editors expressed concern that the information about this range of topics was already disproportionately expansive. While I don't agree with that, I don't see much of a need to expand on what is already contained on Wikipedia on Wilber's theory itself and would be open to duplicating a discussion of the same themes at an Integral Theory article.

Snowded, while I agree with your points, I'm not sure that I understand your rationale completely, and don't know what your conclusion is (if you have one at this time). It's absolutely true that Integral doesn't refer just to Wilber, but there is a define body of work called Integral Theory which is both (a) a development of his work and those of others in his think tank, and includes contributions both critical and appreciative, by many others outside of his think tank, and (b) separate from the integral spiritual/"philosophical" movement at large, if there is such a thing as Alan Kazlev has rightly questioned, because there are folks calling themselves "integral" including adherents such as the Aurobindians who still call themselves integral based on a usage of the term that far precedes Wilber, and others influenced more by Gebser or Claire Graves or other strands that have little to do with Wilber. So to be clear, my proposal is to create a new page for Integral Theory (with the capitalization just like that, as is done in the field), apart from an integral portal page of whatever name that would treat primarily developments in the Wilber side of the integral thing.

Finally, let me say that I am friendly to the idea of creating other pages for the integral field of study as well, simply because the entire field of integral studies (distinct from the nebulous "integral" usage) is treated by Wikipedia at this time in a very confusing and inaccurate fashion. I am currently working on a specific proposal and hope to have something developed to the point of an actual proposal within a week or two. This discussion at "Ken Wilber" I started specifically because I do not want to unnecessarily duplicate Wikipedia's discussion of Integral Theory if it can be avoided. I know this is a lot to read. Thanks to everyone for following along & contributing.

The Integral Research Center (integralresearchcenter.org) provides support, including student grants, in the field of Integral Research (IR). The methodologies supported use the post-metaphysical position of Integral Theory and its practice to explore many phenomena in multiple disciplines. Among their grants is the Indigo Award for students who successfully apply Integral principles.

The group's senior researcher is Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Integral Studies Department and Program Director of two Master of Arts degrees at John F. Kennedy University.

Note: This is the first in a series of profiles of resources of general interest in the realm of integral philosophy and spirituality.

ARINA, Inc. (www.global-arina.org) is a nonprofit organization devoted to charitable, educational, and social scientific research purposes. Their journal, Integral Review, is an online, peer-reviewed scholarly publication published twice a year. According to the organization's Web site, their work is based on transdisciplinary process thought emphasizing the organic and developmental nature of reality.

An area of focus is a methodology called Integral Process For Working On Complex Issues (TIP), which is described as a mature, research-based process for organizational change. The group is also developing a project called Integral Evaluation Process, related to the perspectives and intentions underlying perceptions and action.

ARINA is Ohio-based and led by Sara Ross, Ph.D., the group's president.

Monday night's men group, the first official meeting, was amazing. I can't imagine a better way to bring men in my life for authentic communication, presencing, and supporting each other in transformative practices.

A new group men came together in North Seattle on a rainy night, ranging in age from 20something to 60something. The group could have benefited from being a bit more ethnically or sociologically diverse in many ways (so far as I know I was one of two openly gay/bi men there in a sea of white faces).

This followed two organizational meetings in November and December where some of us discussed rules, did some men's work, processed the role of men's work and integral practice in our lives. Some men came who decided it wasn't for them.

Nine of us remain, a few of whom I met for the first time last night or saw for the first time in several years. All but one of us have been initiated in the New Warrior Training Adventure (NWTA) of the ManKind Project, and the group is listed on the MKPNW list of I-Groups. (MKP only promotes the group to its community; we are completely responsible for what happens, and we have made several innovations.)

Unlike conventional MKP I-Groups, the integral Men's group is organized so that each evening includes at least one round of the circle for each major model of Integral Life Practice: Body Module, Mind Module, Shadow Module, and Spirit Module. Most of MKP I-Group protocols don't go any further than shadow work, so we will include those processes in that part of our meeting.

Our goal is to support each other in getting our ILPs rocking, stay on track with our goals, keep accountable to our visions and missions in life. The process of the group could help us in forming a container safe and intimate enough to go deep into the garbage bag of the psyche as we need to go. But they are only tools.

Ultimately, the success of failure of the group will much depend on the energy and commitment of every participant in bringing himself fully and authentically into a space where transformation can happen. On Monday night, the focus was the Mind Module. We each completed our ILP Worksheet which described the specific items in our integral development at this time in every area, how often we would do them, and what the next things were on which we would work.

The vision I held for my 2010 is one of accepting and bringing forth my full humanity and full divinity. My most important and time-consuming practice is in the Mind Module/Spirit Module: writing my Kronology project, an endeavor that frequently requires me to access my higher mind and enter into contemplative states of mind. Along the way, I also want to get in shape, spend more time cooking, maintain a money-consciousness practice, and continue several other practices that I have been doing and are working.

My own group came together with a bunch of e-mails and phone calls to men I know, and men that they know, and launched in less than two months. If you don't have a group like the ILP group in your life, what's stopping you?

ChristopherPenczak.com provides articles and resources by the author of several books on witchcraft and paganism. Christopher Penczak's site includes information on his classes on topics such as witchcraft, reiki, shaball reiki, and mystic merkaba, and services such as astrology readings. Among his books is Gay Witchcraft, a "genuine Book of Shadows for the GLBT Crowd". Articles included topics on queer spirituality, shamanism and systems of magic, tarot, the wheel of the year, and Wicca.

John J. McNeill's Web site (johnjmcneill.com) offers a detailed biographical profile for John J. McNeil, descriptions of his five major books, and related information. John is probably best known for his books The Church and the Homosexual and Taking a Chance On God, which helped to establish a gay liberation theology. His books and ministry also set him at odds with the Vatican, a conflict which eventually cost him his membership in the Jesuits. John's message is one emphasizing the themes of self-acceptance, social justice, and spiritual maturity.

"Why would you be Christian when you can be Christ?" -- Joe Perez via Twitter on 1/2/10 (after similar by Lama Surya Das)

Many Buddhists know there is not one Buddha, but one Buddha nature, that state of liberation from suffering not only taught by one man, not only achieved (if it is an achievement), but realized. Fewer Christians understand that there is not one Christ, but one Christ nature (one bread, one body, one God), that state of consciousness of one body, heart, mind, soul, and spirit of Christ. It is that perfection of the luminous acceptance of all that is, that total abandonment to homophilia, God's Agape.

With 80 warm up posts under my belt in the past several weeks, now it's time to take this blog, Integrally Gay, out of the pen and onto the field. As I do, a short note to my readers to give you an idea of what to expect, and what not to expect.

This blog is NOT...

This blog is NOT about all my interests, personal or professional. It is a focused collection of writing on homophilia in self and society, culture and nature, and how an integral spirituality reveals the deeper meaning of homophilia.

This blog is NOT a running commentary on current world events and the latest distractions on the blogosphere. Rather, it expresses an ongoing practice to stay engaged with the world at large.

This blog is NOT about getting traffic, winning blog awards, collecting followers, and filling comment boxes. Too often the blogosphere rewards the worst, most reactive and spiritually immature commentary. I hope not to fall too much into that trap. My posts here assist my effort to build my network of connections among LGBT/homophile thought leaders and the reading public, building bridges of connection and mutual empowerment.

This blog is...

Homophilia in action, every time I reach within myself to manifest and express the liberating teaching that contemplation brings an understanding of the right relations of all things, and of homophilia as the hidden connecting principle in a heterophilic world too often full of hostility and lack of comprehension.

Heterophilia in action, every time I express in words that are translated into bits and bytes and translated again into the bitstream that finds its way to another soul, curious about the meaning of gayness or of integral spirituality and how these may be connected, and that other is invited to change, to evolve, to question what they think they know.

My intention is to write at least a few hundred words every day, five days a week, even if it is only to take a brief look at the surfaces of things, BOLD: AS OF 1/27/10, I'VE OPTED TO FOCUS ON ONE OR TWO LONGER POSTS PER WEEK, PLUS SHORT POSTS AS TIME ALLOWS or to begin tracing a map that can help others to heal, love, and embrace all of who they are and to be liberated into their own True Self.

This blog is NOT... spellchecked. Damn it. The blogger WYSIWYG interface forces me to choose between making it easy to colorize posts or spell check them, and I've chosen the rainbow. I hope not to make too many annoying spelling mistakes.

Thank you for reading along.