Integrally Gay

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.